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Betasuchus was a theropod dinosaur which lived during the Late Cretaceous Period. Its fossils were found in The Netherlands, and originally described as a new species of Megalosaurus in 1883. A re-evaluation of the fossils by Friedrich von Huene in 1932, however, showed that they came from a genus distinct from Megalosaurus (which in the 19th and early 20th centuries was a "wastebin" taxon where many unrelated carnivorous dinosaurs were lumped together). Huene thought that the fossils actually belonged to an ornithomimosaur, and gave them the provisional name "Ornithomimidorum genus b". Huene kept this designation when he formally re-named it in 1932, calling it Betasauchus (or "B crocodile"). Betasuchus is known only from a single incomplete femur, so its exact relationships with other theropods have been difficult to determine. Some recent analyses find it to be a small abelisaur.
[edit] References
- Seeley (1883). "On the dinosaurs from the Maastricht beds." Q. J. Geol. Soc. London, 39: 246-253.
- Huene (1932). "Die fossile Reptile-Ordnung Saurischia, ihre Entwicklung und Geschichte." Monogr. Geol. Palaeontol. (Pt. I and II, Ser. I) 4, 1-361.
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