Halticosaurus

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Halticosaurus
Fossil range: Late Triassic
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Sauropsida
Superorder: Dinosauria
Order: Saurischia
Suborder: Theropoda
Superfamily: Coelophysoidea
Genus: Halticosaurus
Huene, 1908
Species
  • H. longotarsus Huene, 1908 (type)

Halticosaurus (meaning "nimble lizard") is a genus of theropod dinosaur from the Late Triassic period (Norian stage, around 205 to 210 million years ago). It was a coelophysoid found in what is present-day Germany. Some researchers consider Halticosaurus the same genus as Liliensternus, but Samuel Welles (1984) found differences in the femoral head and the anterior trochanter.

The type species, Halticosaurus longotarsus, was based on partial jawbones and teeth, partial vertebrae, a few arm and leg bones, and fragments of an ilium, and was found mixed in with the remains of a prosauropod dinosaur, Sellosaurus gracilis. A second species assigned to this genus, "Halticosaurus orbitoangulatus", turned out to be a crocodylomorph (Rauhut and Hungerbuhler, 2000). A third species, H. liliensterni, has been reclassified as Liliensternus.

[edit] References

  • Rauhut, O.M.W. and Hungerbuhler, A. (2000) "A review of European Triassic theropods". Gaia 15: 75-88.

[edit] External links