The type and only species is Nanningosaurus dashiensis, named and described by Mo Jinyou, Zhao Zhongru, Wamg Wei and Xu Xing in 2007. The generic name refers to the city of Nanning, located close to the excavation site. The specific name is derived from the Pinyinda-shi, "great stone", the name of the village where the discovery was made.[1]
Nanningosaurus is based on holotypeNHMG8142, an incomplete skeleton including skull, arm, leg and pelvis remains found in 1991, together with the holotype of Qingxiusaurus. The discoveries were in 1998 reported in the scientific literature.[2] The paratype is NHJM8143, a right maxilla.[1]
In 2010, Gregory S. Paul estimated the body length of Nanningosaurus at 7.5 metres, its weight at 2.5 tonnes.[3] No autapomorphies were given but a unique combination of diagnostic characteristics includes a high and sharp ascending branch of the maxilla, a short rear branch of the maxilla, relatively few tooth positions (twenty-seven in the maxilla), a transversely wide lower quadrate with a weak paraquadratic notch, a gracile upper arm, and an ischium that at the lower end of its rear edge curves towards its expanded tip.[1]
Mo et al. (2007), who described the specimen, performed a phylogenetic analysis that suggests Nanningosaurus was a basallambeosaurine, although they stressed the support for this was tentative. This animal was the first hadrosaurid named from southern China.[1]
^Mo Jinyou, Wang Wei and Huang Yunzhong, 1998, "[Dinosaur fauna from the Nalong Basin, Guangxi and new comments on related stratigraphy]" Journal of Guilin Institute of Technology, 18 (Suppl.): 140-142
^Paul, G.S., 2010, The Princeton Field Guide to Dinosaurs, Princeton University Press p. 306
