Xingxiulong chengi is a basal sauropod from the Sauropodoformes family. It is relatively small, bipedal, and has a proportionally long neck and tail.
Xingxiulong lived in the sub-tropical to tropical possibly swampy Early Jurassic area that is now modern-day central Yunnan province in China. Being early in the sauropod evolutionary line, it was still bipedal and small, before sauropods started growing the the giantic creatures of the later Jurassic and Cretaceous.
The holotype is a relatively complete skeleton that was discovered near Sankeshu Village, in the Chinese province of Yunnan, in 2013 by personnel of Lufeng World Dinosaur Valley. Two other skeletons of the same species were found in the same location, and are describes as two additional paratypes.
"Xingxuilong" comes from Mandarin; "Xingxiu" meaning "constellation". That part of the name was chosen from Xingxiu Bridge, a bridge in Lufeng County that was built during the Ming dynasty (somewhere between 1368 and 1644). "Long" is Mandarin for "dragon", which is the name typically used for Chinese dinosaurs in place of the typical "saur" for "lizard". "Chengi" is to honour Professor Zheng-Wu Chen, for his contributions to Chinese biostratigraphy.
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