page_title: Yixianosaurus
section_title: Classification
hierarchical_section_title: Yixianosaurus / Classification
caption_attribution_description: English: A size comparison between a human male and a Yixianosaurus longimanus specimen (size estimates by Paul, G.S., 2010).
context_page_description: Yixianosaurus is a maniraptoran theropod dinosaur genus from the Early Cretaceous of China.
  The type species, Yixianosaurus longimanus, was formally named and described by Xu Xing and Wang Xiaolin in 2003. Its partial skeleton was discovered in 2001, in Liaoning at Wangjiagou in northeastern China. The generic name refers to the Yixian Formation. The specific name means "with a long hand" from Latin longus, "long", and manus, "hand".
context_section_description: The describers considered the exact placement of Yixianosaurus within Maniraptora to be uncertain, but because the hand length resembled that of another feathered dinosaur, Epidendrosaurus (now Scansoriopteryx), they suggested it was a close relative of the Scansoriopterygidae. Other researchers have suggested the specimen may have come from a dromaeosaurid. Subsequent analyses were divided on whether is it is more primitive and outside the clade Eumaniraptora – this would mean that advanced characteristics such as the long hands and short arms evolved independently in this species – or a basal member of the more advanced Paraves. In a 2017 re-evaluation of the Harlem Archaeopteryx specimen as an anchiornithid called Ostromia, Yixianosaurus is found to be the most basal paravian. However, two other studies published the same year argued that Yixianosaurus was most closely related to Xiaotingia, with both genera being either relatives of scansoriopterygids or anchiornithids.
caption: Size comparison between an adult Y. longimanus and the average human adult male
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