''Inosaurus'' (meaning "

In Tedreft IN, In or in may refer to: Places * India (country code IN) * Indiana, United States (postal code IN) * Ingolstadt, Germany (license plate code IN) * In, Russia, a town in the Jewish Autonomous Oblast Businesses and organizations * Independ ...

lizard") is the name given to a dubious

genus Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of extant taxon, living and fossil organisms as well as Virus classification#ICTV classification, viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus com ...

theropod Theropoda (; ), whose members are known as theropods, is a dinosaur clade that is characterized by hollow bones and three toes and claws on each limb. Theropods are generally classed as a group of saurischian dinosaurs. They were ancestrally c ...

dinosaur Dinosaurs are a diverse group of reptiles of the clade Dinosauria. They first appeared during the Triassic period, between 243 and 233.23 million years ago (mya), although the exact origin and timing of the evolution of dinosaurs is t ...

from the

Early Cretaceous The Early Cretaceous ( geochronological name) or the Lower Cretaceous (chronostratigraphic name), is the earlier or lower of the two major divisions of the Cretaceous. It is usually considered to stretch from 145 Ma to 100.5 Ma. Geology Pro ...

-aged "

Continental intercalaire The Continental intercalaire, sometimes referred to as the Continental intercalaire Formation, is a term applied to Cretaceous strata in Northern Africa. It is the largest single stratum found in Africa to date, being between thick in some places. ...

" and Early Cretaceous (

Albian The Albian is both an age of the geologic timescale and a stage in the stratigraphic column. It is the youngest or uppermost subdivision of the Early/Lower Cretaceous Epoch/Series. Its approximate time range is 113.0 ± 1.0 Ma to 100.5 ± 0.9 M ...

)-aged

Echkar Formation The Echkar Formation is a geological formation comprising sandstones and claystones in the Agadez Region of Niger, central Africa. Description Its strata date back to the Late Albian to Late Cretaceous (Cenomanian stages, about 100-95 million ...

Niger ) , official_languages = , languages_type = National languagesLate Cretaceous The Late Cretaceous (100.5–66 Ma) is the younger of two epochs into which the Cretaceous Period is divided in the geologic time scale. Rock strata from this epoch form the Upper Cretaceous Series. The Cretaceous is named after ''creta'', the ...

(

Cenomanian The Cenomanian is, in the ICS' geological timescale, the oldest or earliest age of the Late Cretaceous Epoch or the lowest stage of the Upper Cretaceous Series. An age is a unit of geochronology; it is a unit of time; the stage is a unit in the s ...

)-aged

Baharija Formation The Bahariya Formation (also transcribed as Baharija Formation) is a List of fossiliferous stratigraphic units in Egypt, fossiliferous Formation (stratigraphy), geologic formation dating back to the early Cenomanian, which outcrops within the Bahar ...

Egypt Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediter ...

The type, and only species, is ''Inosaurus tedreftensis''.

Classification and taxonomy

The type specimen was described by

Albert-Félix de Lapparent Albert-Félix de Lapparent (1905–1975) was a French palaeontologist. He was also a Sulpician priest. He undertook a number of fossil-hunting explorations in the Sahara desert. He contributed greatly to our knowledge of dinosaurs and other prehist ...

in 1960,A. F. de Lapparent, (1960), "Les Dinosauriens du "

" du Sahara central", ''Mémoires de la Société géologique de France, nouvelle série'' 39(88A): 1-57 after being discovered by de Lapparent in 1953. The genus was also commented on by de Lapparent in 1959. The

binomial name In taxonomy, binomial nomenclature ("two-term naming system"), also called nomenclature ("two-name naming system") or binary nomenclature, is a formal system of naming species of living things by giving each a name composed of two parts, bot ...

is derived from the location of the site,

. De Lapparent based the species on a set of remains found in a single location, a number of vertebrae and the top end of a left tibia. They were probably discovered in a stratum of the

". He also indicated four other specimens, all vertebrae found in Niger in the Tegama Group, early

, as

paratype In zoology and botany, a paratype is a specimen of an organism that helps define what the scientific name of a species and other taxon actually represents, but it is not the holotype (and in botany is also neither an isotype nor a syntype). Of ...

s. All the specimens are part of the collection of the ''

Muséum national d'histoire naturelle The French National Museum of Natural History, known in French as the ' (abbreviation MNHN), is the national natural history museum of France and a ' of higher education part of Sorbonne Universities. The main museum, with four galleries, is loc ...

'' in

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

. Apart from these De Lapparent referred three caudal vertebrae, ?IPHG 1912 VIII 63c, ?IPHG 1912 VIII 63e and ?IPHG 1912 VIII 63g, described by

Ernst Stromer Ernst Freiherr Stromer von Reichenbach (12 June 1871 in Nürnberg – 18 December 1952 in Erlangen) was a German paleontologist. He is best remembered for his expedition to Egypt, during which the first known remains of ''Spinosaurus'' we ...

in 1934 from the

to ''Inosaurus'',Stromer, E. (1934). Wirbeltierreste der Baharije-Stufe (unterstes Cenoman). 13. Dinosauria. ''Abh. Bayer. Akad. Wissensch. Math.-naturwiss. Abt.'' 22:1-79. but they probably belong to an indeterminate theropod unrelated to ''Inosaurus''. All vertebrae share the same

morphology Morphology, from the Greek and meaning "study of shape", may refer to: Disciplines *Morphology (archaeology), study of the shapes or forms of artifacts *Morphology (astronomy), study of the shape of astronomical objects such as nebulae, galaxies, ...

. Despite being from a small animal they are robustly built and very high with enlarged chevron facets and a median groove on the underside. ''Inosaurus'' is today considered a ''

nomen dubium In binomial nomenclature, a ''nomen dubium'' (Latin for "doubtful name", plural ''nomina dubia'') is a scientific name that is of unknown or doubtful application. Zoology In case of a ''nomen dubium'' it may be impossible to determine whether a s ...

'' because of the fragmentary nature of the fossils discovered.

References

Prehistoric theropods Barremian life Hauterivian life Valanginian life Berriasian life Early Cretaceous dinosaurs of Africa Fossils of Niger Fossil taxa described in 1960 Taxa named by Albert-Félix de Lapparent Nomina dubia {{theropod-stub