''Orosaurus'' ("mountain lizard") is a dubious genus of basal sauropodomorph from the Late
Triassic of
South Africa.
Classification
The holotype was discovered in 1863. It was first described by
Thomas Henry Huxley in 1867 based on
holotype NHMUK R1626, a proximal end of a left tibia (misidentified as a distal femur). However, Huxley declined to provide a species name. In his 1889 catalogue of fossil reptiles in the Natural History Museum in London, Richard Lydekker mistakenly considered ''Orosaurus'' preoccupied by the lizard genus ''
Oreosaurus
''Oreosaurus'' is a genus of lizards in the family Gymnophthalmidae. The genus is found in South America.
Species
The genus ''Oreosaurus'' contains 7 species which are recognized as being valid."''Oreosaurus'' ". The Reptile Database. www.re ...
'' and coined ''Orinosaurus capensis'' for NHMUK R1626. Along with ''
Euskelosaurus'', Lydekker considered ''Orosaurus'' (''Orinosaurus'' of his usage) to be an ornithischian dinosaur.
von Huene (1940) treated ''Orosaurus'' as a species of ''Euskelosaurus'', as ''E. capensis''. van Heerden (1979) considered ''Orosaurus'' a synonym of ''Euskelosaurus''. However, Gauffre (1996) referred ''Orosaurus'' to his ''nomen ex dissertationae'' "Kholumolumosaurus" (now ''
Kholumolumo
''Kholumolumo'' (referring to a type of dragon the local Basuto associate with dinosaurs), formerly "Kholumolumosaurus" or "Thotobolosaurus", is an extinct genus of massopodan sauropodomorph dinosaur, which was closely related to '' Sarahsauru ...
'') along with ''
Meroktenos'' and ''
Plateosauravus
''Plateosauravus'' ("grandfather of ''Plateosaurus''") is a basal plateosaurian of uncertain affinities from the Late Triassic Elliot Formation of South Africa.
Sidney Haughton named ''Plateosaurus cullingworthi'' in 1924 from a partial skeleto ...
''. Meanwhile, ''Orosaurus'' was listed as a ''nomen dubium'' in the 2nd edition of ''
The Dinosauria''.
[Galton, P.M & Upchurch, P. (2004). "Prosauropoda". In D. B. Weishampel, P. Dodson, & H. Osmólska (eds.), '' The Dinosauria'' (second edition). ''University of California Press, Berkeley'': 232–258.]
References
Sauropodomorphs
Late Triassic dinosaurs of Africa
Fossils of South Africa
Fossil taxa described in 1867
Taxa named by Thomas Henry Huxley
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