Pekinosaurus is the name given to a genus

Genus

In biology, a genus is a low-level taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms, which is an example of definition by genus and differentia...

 of pseudosuchia

Pseudosuchia

Pseudosuchia is the name originally given to a group of prehistoric reptiles from the Triassic period. The name has been variously interpreted, and it is still sometimes, if infrequently, used in scientific literature today. A more commonly used name, Crurotarsi, is often substituted for...

n from the Late Triassic

Triassic

The Triassic is a geologic period and system that extends from about 250 to 200 Mya . As the first period of the Mesozoic Era, the Triassic follows the Permian and is followed by the Jurassic. Both the start and end of the Triassic are marked by major extinction events...

. This prehistoric reptile lived in what is now North Carolina

North Carolina

North Carolina is a state located in the southeastern United States. The state borders South Carolina and Georgia to the south, Tennessee to the west and Virginia to the north. North Carolina contains 100 counties. Its capital is Raleigh, and its largest city is Charlotte...

, in the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

. The type species, P. olseni, was described by Hunt and Lucas in 1994, based on fossils found in Pekin, North Carolina, whence the animal receives its name. At the time, it was thought to be a basal ornithischian dinosaur

Dinosaur

Dinosaurs are a diverse group of animals of the clade and superorder Dinosauria. They were the dominant terrestrial vertebrates for over 160 million years, from the late Triassic period until the end of the Cretaceous , when the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event led to the extinction of...

, but with the discovery of more complete remains of the related Revueltosaurus

Revueltosaurus

Revueltosaurus is a genus of prehistoric crurotarsan from Late Triassic New Mexico and Arizona.According to William Parker, who discovered the partial skeleton, "we have pretty much erased the record of Triassic ornithischian dinosaurs from North America, Europe and worldwide, except for South...

, this has been shown to be incorrect (Irmis et al., 2007, who assign it to Revueltosaurus sp.).

Pekinosaurus lived during the Carnian

Carnian

The Carnian is the lowermost stage of the Upper Triassic series . It lasted from about 228.7 till 216.5 million years ago . The Carnian is preceded by the Ladinian and is followed by the Norian...

 stage

Faunal stage

In chronostratigraphy, a stage is a succession of rock strata laid down in a single age on the geologic timescale, which usually represents millions of years of deposition. A given stage of rock and the corresponding age of time will by convention have the same name, and the same boundaries.Rock...

, around 225 million years ago.