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Description
122 million years ago during the early Cretaceous period of what is now the Yixian Formation of Liaoning Province, China, a 9-meter long tyrannosauroid dinosaur known as Yutyrannus huali arrives at a small pond in its forest home and starts to take a drink, but gets interrupted when something bites its lower lip while it was taking a sip. An adult male Liaoningosaurus paradoxus is not intimidated by the presence of this ecosystem's top predator and despite being much smaller it fiercely defends its home pond, where it has started a family. The female it has mated with swims off in the shallow water with their babies following behind or riding on her back, deciding to keep the young away from the predatory dinosaur.

Another drawing for Ankylosaur Week (youtu.be/vYGxpJ6svdI ), yes I know it's barely been a day since I posted the last one.

So anyways the drawing is partly inspired by that video of a turtle (an African helmeted turtle I think) chasing some lions away from the waterhole it lived in by biting their chins (youtu.be/_eWajKY_HMw ). Liaoningosaurus is a rather controversial genus of ankylosaur. Known exclusively from near-complete specimens of juveniles measuring around 34 centimeters long found in the Yixian and Jiufotang Formations of China, the adult size and appearance of this animal are not known and so we're gonna have to speculate, but I based the adults on some other ankylosaurs like Kunbarrasaurus and Gastonia, with adult size here being speculated at around 2 meters in length (it would have been very small for an ankylosaur). Much controversy has stemmed from this creature, with one of the juvenile specimens showing signs of a fish in its torso many came to believe that Liaoningosaurus was a specialized aquatic fish-hunter, which would be very notable as ankylosaurs were generally herbivores thought to live mainly on land. Some have even argued that the known specimens weren't even juveniles but fully-grown adults, making this the smallest tyreophoran dinosaur known. The creature has also been argued to show specific adaptations to an aquatic, piscivorous lifestyle such as sharp teeth and claws, and one fossil was said to show signs of a bony plate protecting the belly from attacks from below similar to a turtle's lower shell. However these features argued to be evidence of an aquatic life are now thought to be juvenile features, and all these are indeed young specimens. Also what seemed to be a belly plate turned out to be normal scales on normal skin. As for the fish in the torso, it may not even be stomach contents since the fish remains are kinda scattered around the dinosaur rather than confined to the gut area, and even if they were, one fish in one specimen doesn't necessarily mean it specialized in eating them. Most extant "herbivores" will occasionally supplement their diet with meat (videos of cows and deer eating birds exist) and that fish could be a one-off. Still, the idea that Liaoningosaurus could enter water to forage doesn't sound too far-fetched. Some larger ankylosaurs have been argued to be semiaquatic hippo-analogues and while not great at swimming they could've waded into shallower water or walked along the bottom. And honestly I just can't get the idea of Liaoningosaurus entering water to some degree out of my mind so maybe I'm a bit biased here but I think they could still look for pond weeds. Also I made it a little colorful with the patterns since I think it being small and armored could compensate for being less camouflaged and took inspiration from painted turtles and Chinese stripe-necked turtles.

The Yixian Formation is best known for having such extraordinary good fossil preservation that it has yielded many fossils that preserve direct evidence of feathers on many dinosaurs. The majority of these feathered dinosaur specimens are smaller species growing no more than 2 meters long, but the very largest was if a 9-meter long theropod named Yutyrannus in 2012. Likely the apex predator of Yixian, Yutyrannus is the largest known dinosaur whose fossils show direct evidence of feathers, and quickly proved the idea that only small dinosaurs were feathered was wrong. A member of the Tyrannosauroidea superfamily, it was a distant relative of true tyrannosaurs like Tyrannosaurus rex and its discovery also led to many wondering if T. rex itself was feathered (the current consensus is "no" but paleontology being paleontology, some paper will probably get published suggesting otherwise eventually). Its feathers may have served for insulation as while the earth was warmer in the Mesozoic, the Yixian probably had a temperate climate with an average annual temperature of 10°C, and possibly even snowed in winter.

Description
122 million years ago during the early Cretaceous period of what is now the Yixian Formation of Liaoning Province, China, a 9-meter long tyrannosauroid dinosaur known as Yutyrannus huali arrives at a small pond in its forest home and starts to take a drink, but gets interrupted when something bites its lower lip while it was taking a sip. An adult male Liaoningosaurus paradoxus is not intimidated by the presence of this ecosystem's top predator and despite being much smaller it fiercely defends its home pond, where it has started a family. The female it has mated with swims off in the shallow water with their babies following behind or riding on her back, deciding to keep the young away from the predatory dinosaur.

Another drawing for Ankylosaur Week (youtu.be/vYGxpJ6svdI ), yes I know it's barely been a day since I posted the last one.

So anyways the drawing is partly inspired by that video of a turtle (an African helmeted turtle I think) chasing some lions away from the waterhole it lived in by biting their chins (youtu.be/_eWajKY_HMw ). Liaoningosaurus is a rather controversial genus of ankylosaur. Known exclusively from near-complete specimens of juveniles measuring around 34 centimeters long found in the Yixian and Jiufotang Formations of China, the adult size and appearance of this animal are not known and so we're gonna have to speculate, but I based the adults on some other ankylosaurs like Kunbarrasaurus and Gastonia, with adult size here being speculated at around 2 meters in length (it would have been very small for an ankylosaur). Much controversy has stemmed from this creature, with one of the juvenile specimens showing signs of a fish in its torso many came to believe that Liaoningosaurus was a specialized aquatic fish-hunter, which would be very notable as ankylosaurs were generally herbivores thought to live mainly on land. Some have even argued that the known specimens weren't even juveniles but fully-grown adults, making this the smallest tyreophoran dinosaur known. The creature has also been argued to show specific adaptations to an aquatic, piscivorous lifestyle such as sharp teeth and claws, and one fossil was said to show signs of a bony plate protecting the belly from attacks from below similar to a turtle's lower shell. However these features argued to be evidence of an aquatic life are now thought to be juvenile features, and all these are indeed young specimens. Also what seemed to be a belly plate turned out to be normal scales on normal skin. As for the fish in the torso, it may not even be stomach contents since the fish remains are kinda scattered around the dinosaur rather than confined to the gut area, and even if they were, one fish in one specimen doesn't necessarily mean it specialized in eating them. Most extant "herbivores" will occasionally supplement their diet with meat (videos of cows and deer eating birds exist) and that fish could be a one-off. Still, the idea that Liaoningosaurus could enter water to forage doesn't sound too far-fetched. Some larger ankylosaurs have been argued to be semiaquatic hippo-analogues and while not great at swimming they could've waded into shallower water or walked along the bottom. And honestly I just can't get the idea of Liaoningosaurus entering water to some degree out of my mind so maybe I'm a bit biased here but I think they could still look for pond weeds. Also I made it a little colorful with the patterns since I think it being small and armored could compensate for being less camouflaged and took inspiration from painted turtles and Chinese stripe-necked turtles.

The Yixian Formation is best known for having such extraordinary good fossil preservation that it has yielded many fossils that preserve direct evidence of feathers on many dinosaurs. The majority of these feathered dinosaur specimens are smaller species growing no more than 2 meters long, but the very largest was if a 9-meter long theropod named Yutyrannus in 2012. Likely the apex predator of Yixian, Yutyrannus is the largest known dinosaur whose fossils show direct evidence of feathers, and quickly proved the idea that only small dinosaurs were feathered was wrong. A member of the Tyrannosauroidea superfamily, it was a distant relative of true tyrannosaurs like Tyrannosaurus rex and its discovery also led to many wondering if T. rex itself was feathered (the current consensus is "no" but paleontology being paleontology, some paper will probably get published suggesting otherwise eventually). Its feathers may have served for insulation as while the earth was warmer in the Mesozoic, the Yixian probably had a temperate climate with an average annual temperature of 10°C, and possibly even snowed in winter.