''Plateosauravus'' ("

grandfather Grandparents, individually known as grandmother and grandfather, or Grandma and Grandpa, are the parents of a person's father or mother – paternal or maternal. Every sexually reproducing living organism who is not a genetic chimera has a m ...

of ''

Plateosaurus ''Plateosaurus'' (probably meaning "broad lizard", often mistranslated as "flat lizard") is a genus of plateosaurid dinosaur that lived during the Late Triassic period, around 214 to 204 million years ago, in what is now Central and Northern Eu ...

''") is a basal plateosaurian of uncertain affinities 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 a ...

Elliot Formation The Elliot Formation is a geological formation and forms part of the Stormberg Group, the uppermost geological group that comprises the greater Karoo Supergroup. Outcrops of the Elliot Formation have been found in the northern Eastern Cape, so ...

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. Its Provinces of South Africa, nine provinces are bounded to the south by of coastline that stretches along the Atlantic O ...

. Sidney Haughton named ''

cullingworthi'' in 1924 from a partial skeleton,Haughton, S.H. (1924) "The fauna and stratigraphy of the Stormberg Series". ''Annals of the South African Museum'' 12:323-497.

type specimen In biology, a type is a particular wikt:en:specimen, specimen (or in some cases a group of specimens) of an organism to which the scientific name of that organism is formally associated. In other words, a type is an example that serves to ancho ...

SAM 3341, 3345, 3347, 3350–51, 3603, 3607. The specific name honoured collector T.L. Cullingworth. Friedrich von Huene reassessed it in 1932 as belonging to a new genus, which he named ''Plateosauravus''.von Huene, F. (1932).
Die fossile Reptil-Ordnung Saurischia, ihre Entwicklung und Geschichte
. ''Monographien zur Geologie und Palaeontologie'', series 1:4, 361 pp. Jacques van Heerden reassigned it to '' Euskelosaurus'' in 1979, and this has been how it was usually considered.van Heerden, J. (1979). The morphology and taxonomy of '' Euskelosaurus'' (Reptilia: Saurischia; Late Triassic) from South Africa. ''Navorsinge van die Nasionale Museum'' 4(2):23-84. However, recent study indicates that ''Euskelosaurus'' is based on undiagnostic material and thus 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 ...

''; in his series of sauropodomorph and basal sauropod papers, Adam Yates has recommended no longer using ''Euskelosaurus'' and has suggested the use of ''Plateosauravus'' instead.Yates, A.M. (2003). A new species of the primitive dinosaur ''

Thecodontosaurus ''Thecodontosaurus'' ("socket-tooth lizard") is a genus of herbivorous basal sauropodomorph dinosaur that lived during the late Triassic period (Carnian? age). Its remains are known mostly from Triassic "fissure fillings" in South England. ''T ...

'' (Saurischia: Sauropodomorpha) and its implications for the systematics of early dinosaurs. ''Journal of Systematic Palaeontology'' 1(1):1-42Yates, A.M., and Kitching, J.W. (2003). The earliest known sauropod dinosaur and the first steps towards sauropod locomotion. ''Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B'' 270(1525):1753-1758.Yates, A.M. (2006). Solving a dinosaurian puzzle: the identity of '' Aliwalia rex'' Galton. ''Historical Biology'', iFirst article, 1–30. More than a dozen additional partial skeletons have been found in the

Kruger National Park Kruger National Park () is a national park in South Africa covering an area of in the provinces of Limpopo and Mpumalanga in the country's northeast. It extends from north to south and from east to west. The administrative headquarters are i ...

after a discovery by game warden Adriaan Louw on 27 March 1995. These include juvenile individuals.Durand, J.F. 2001. The oldest juvenile dinosaurs from Africa. African Earth Sciences 33:597–603.

References

External links

Adam Yates on basal sauropodomorphs
Sauropodomorpha Dinosaur genera Norian dinosaurs Elliot Formation Dinosaurs of South Africa Fossil taxa described in 1924 Fossil taxa described in 1932 Taxa named by Sidney H. Haughton Taxa named by Friedrich von Huene {{Sauropodomorph-stub