''Velocipes'' (meaning "quick foot") is a saurischian

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 ...

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 ...

from the

Late Triassic The Late Triassic is the third and final epoch (geology), epoch of the Triassic geologic time scale, Period in the geologic time scale, spanning the time between annum, Ma and Ma (million years ago). It is preceded by the Middle Triassic Epoch ...

that may have been a theropod; its fossils were found in the

Norian The Norian is a division of the Triassic Period. It has the rank of an age (geochronology) or stage (chronostratigraphy). It lasted from ~227 to million years ago. It was preceded by the Carnian and succeeded by the Rhaetian. Stratigraphic defi ...

-age

Lissauer Breccia The Lissauer Breccia, sometimes referred to as the Kocury Locality, is a Norian geologic formation that is part of the larger Keuper limestone, which dominates across most of west and central Europe. Dinosaur remains diagnostic to the genus level ...

of southern

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populous ...

.''Velocipes''
on the Dinosaur Mailing List Upon discovery, ''Velocipes'' was thought to have been a

coelurosaur Coelurosauria (; from Greek, meaning "hollow tailed lizards") is the clade containing all theropod dinosaurs more closely related to birds than to carnosaurs. Coelurosauria is a subgroup of theropod dinosaurs that includes compsognathids, tyrann ...

, but more recent studies have shown that ''Velocipes'' was probably a basal theropod or

dinosauriform Dinosauromorpha is a clade of avemetatarsalian archosaurs (reptiles closer to birds than to crocodilians) that includes the Dinosauria (dinosaurs) and some of their close relatives. It was originally defined to include dinosauriforms and lager ...

History and taxonomy

The

type species In zoological nomenclature, a type species (''species typica'') is the species name with which the name of a genus or subgenus is considered to be permanently taxonomically associated, i.e., the species that contains the biological type specimen ...

, ''V. guerichi'', was first described by Huene in 1932 as a

, based on GPIM UH no. 252, which consists of the proximal portion of a very poorly preserved fibula that was discovered in the Lissauer Breccia of southern Poland by

Georg Gürich Georg Julius Ernst Gürich (25 September 1859, in Dobrodzień, German: Guttentag; Upper Silesia – 16 August 1938 in Berlin) was a German geologist, paleontologist and university teacher, who wrote on Paleozoic geological formations in PolandGür ...

around 1884;Huene, F. von. (1932). ''Die fossile Reptil-Ordnung Saurischia, ihre Entwicklung und Geschichte''. ''Monogr. Geol. Pal''. 4 (1) pts. 1 and 2, viii + 361 pp. the bone was described but not named in 1884. The bone was damaged during the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

and was thought to have been destroyed until it was rediscovered in 2012 by D. Mazurek. In 1956, von Huene placed ''Velocipes'' in the Halticosauridae, which has since become monotypic to only include ''

Halticosaurus ''Halticosaurus'' (pron.:"HAL-tick-oh-SORE-us") is a dubious genus of theropod dinosaur from the late Triassic period (middle Norian stage, around 215.6–208 million years ago). It is known from a single fragmentary fossil specimen of the ...

''. In 1984, Samuel Paul Welles considered ''Velocipes'' to be synonymous with ''

Liliensternus ''Liliensternus'' is an extinct genus of basal neotheropod dinosaur that lived approximately 210 million years ago during the latter part of the Triassic Period in what is now Germany. ''Liliensternus'' was a moderate-sized, bipedal, ground-dwel ...

''. A later paper, published in 2000 by Rauhut and Hungerbuhler, claimed that the only specimen of this animal was not well preserved enough to be confidently identified as part of a fibula, and classified the genus as an "indeterminate

vertebrate Vertebrates () comprise all animal taxa within the subphylum Vertebrata () ( chordates with backbones), including all mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, and fish. Vertebrates represent the overwhelming majority of the phylum Chordata, ...

". In 2004, Ronald Tykoski and Timothy Rowe listed ''Velocipes'' as a possible ceratosaur or

coelophysoid Coelophysoidea were common dinosaurs of the Late Triassic and Early Jurassic periods. They were widespread geographically, probably living on all continents. Coelophysoids were all slender, carnivorous forms with a superficial similarity to the ...

. Weishampel ''et al.'' (2004) also listed ''Velocipes'' as a possible ceratosaur. However, an SVP abstract reviewing putative

remains from the

Triassic The Triassic ( ) is a geologic period and system which spans 50.6 million years from the end of the Permian Period 251.902 million years ago ( Mya), to the beginning of the Jurassic Period 201.36 Mya. The Triassic is the first and shortest period ...

of southern Poland confirmed the original theropod classification of ''Velocipes'' by von Huene, which was elaborated in detail in a 2016 paper.Czepinski ''et al.'', (2014). A Re-evaluation of the Purported Dinosaur Finds From The Middle-Late Triassic Of Poland. ''Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology'' 34 (Supplement to volume 5): 115A.Tomasz Skawiński, Maciej Ziegler, Łukasz Czepiński, Marcin Szermański, Mateusz Tałanda, Dawid Surmik & Grzegorz Niedźwiedzki, (2016). A re-evaluation of the historical 'dinosaur' remains from the Middle-Upper Triassic of Poland. ''Historical Biology'' (advance online publication) DOI:10.1080/08912963.2016.1188385 http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/08912963.2016.1188385 The authors considered ''Velocipes'' to have been a basal theropod or a neotheropod.

Description

The surviving portion of the fibula is 16.4 cm long and after comparing the bone to other related theropods, it is believed that the full fibula was roughly 30-35 cm in length. The medial surface is slightly concave, suggesting that ''Velocipes'' may have been a neotheropod, and on the front side of the lateral surface of the bone there is a clear comb about 52 mm long and about 5 mm high. It is assumed that, based on the estimated size of the fibula, ''Velocipes'' may have reached up to long and weighed around , although this can only be speculated as only one specimen of ''Velocipes'' is currently known to exist.

Paleoecology

''Velocipes'' would have been contemporaneous with the aetosaur genus ''

Kocurypelta ''Kocurypelta'' is an extinct genus of paratypothoracin aetosaur from the Late Triassic (Norian)-aged Lissauer Breccia of southern Poland. Only the type species is known, which is ''K. silvestris'', described by Czepiński ''et al.'' in 2021. Di ...

'', an indeterminate species of

lungfish Lungfish are freshwater vertebrates belonging to the order Dipnoi. Lungfish are best known for retaining ancestral characteristics within the Osteichthyes, including the ability to breathe air, and ancestral structures within Sarcopterygii, i ...

and the stem-

turtle Turtles are an order of reptiles known as Testudines, characterized by a special shell developed mainly from their ribs. Modern turtles are divided into two major groups, the Pleurodira (side necked turtles) and Cryptodira (hidden necked tu ...

''Proterochersis'' cf. ''porebensis''.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q2648713 Nomina dubia Prehistoric theropods Late Triassic dinosaurs of Europe Fossil taxa described in 1932 Taxa named by Friedrich von Huene Paleontology in Poland