Nuthetes

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Nuthetes Fossil range: Early Cretaceous
Conservation status
Extinct (fossil)
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia Phylum: Chordata Class: Sauropsida Superorder: Dinosauria Order: Saurischia Suborder: Theropoda Infraorder:  ?Deinonychosauria Family:  ?Dromaeosauridae Genus: Nuthetes Species: N. destructor
Binomial name
Nuthetes destructor Owen, 1854

Nuthetes is the name given to a dubious genus of reptile thought (by some) to be a dinosaur. The fossils are fragmentary, consisting mostly of jaw fragments and teeth. It has been variously classified as a lizard, juvenile megalosaur, and, most recently, a dromaeosaurid (Milner, 2002). Whatever it was, it lived in Berriasian (Early Cretaceous) England. If it was a dromaeosaur, it would have been one of the first known.

The type species, Nuthetes destructor, was described by Owen in 1854.

[edit] References

• Milner, A. (2002). Theropod dinosaurs of the Purbeck Limestone Group, southern England. In: Milner and Batten (eds.). Life and Environment in Purbeck Times. Special Paper in Palaeontology 68(268):191-201.

[edit] External links

• Extensive description from the Milner paper, on the Dinosaur Mailing List.
• Described as a lizard
• Described as a dromaeosaurid