Tornieria

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Tornieria Fossil range: Late Jurassic
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia Phylum: Chordata Class: Sauropsida Superorder: Dinosauria Order: Saurischia Suborder: Sauropodomorpha Infraorder: Sauropoda Family: Diplodocidae Subfamily: Diplodocinae Genus: Tornieria Sternfeld, 1911
Species
T. africana (Fraas, 1908 [originally Gigantosaurus]) (type)  ?T. gracilis (Janensch, 1961 [originally Barosaurus])

Torniera ("Tornier's") is a genus of sauropod dinosaur from Late Jurassic Tanzania. It has an extremely convoluted taxonomic history.

[edit] Taxonomic history

In 1908, paleontologist Eberhard Fraas identified the remains of two sauropod species in Tanzania, which he named "Gigantosaurus" robusta ("Robust giant lizard") and "Gigantosaurus africanus ("African giant lizard"). A third species, "G." dixeyi, was named by Haughton, 1928, and has since been re-assigned to Malawisaurus.

Unfortunately, the name Gigantosaurus had already been used for a European sauropod. Another paleontologist (Sternfeld, 1911) renamed the Tanzanian sauropod Tornieria, making the two species T. robusta and T. africana. A re-evaluation of Torneria in 1961 by Werner Janensch found that one species, T. africana, was actually an African species of the North American sauropod Barosaurus (though some paleontologists disagree with this assessment). The other African species, T. robusta, turned out to belong to a titanosaur. The titanosaur remains, which could obviously no longer be called Tornieria, were renamed Janenschia (Wild, 1991).

As it stands, there are two possible species of Tornieria: T. africana and T. gracilis (another African Barosaurus species which would carry over if Tornieria and Barosaurus are not synonymous).

If Tornieria is the same genus as Barosaurus, then the name Tornieria would be abandoned.