Craterosaurus

Opisthokonta

Craterosaurus
Temporal range: 140 Ma
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Reptilia
Superorder: Dinosauria
Order: Ornithischia
Node: Eurypoda
Suborder: Stegosauria
Genus: Craterosaurus
Seeley, 1874
Species: C. pottonensis
Binomial name
Craterosaurus pottonensis
Seeley, 1874

Craterosaurus (meaning krater reptile or bowl reptile) was a genus of stegosaurid dinosaur. It lived during the Early Cretaceous (Valanginian to Barremian stages) around 145-136 million years ago. Its fossils were found in England. Craterosaurus may actually be a junior synonym of Regnosaurus, but only one fossil, a partial vertebra, was recovered.

The type (and only known) species is Craterosaurus pottonensis, described in 1874 by Harry Seeley.[1] The specific name refers to the Potton bonebed. Seeley mistook the fossil, holotype SMC B.28814, for the base of a cranium. Franz Nopcsa in 1912 correctly identified it as the front part of a neural arch.[2]

Notes

  1. ^ Seeley, H.G. (1874). "On the base of a large lacertian cranium from the Potton Sands, presumably dinosaurian". Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society of London 30: 690–692. doi:10.1144/GSL.JGS.1874.030.01-04.62. 
  2. ^ Nopcsa, F., 1912, "Notes on British dinosaurs. Pt. IV. Craterosaurus (Seeley)", Geological Magazine, (ser. 5), 9: 481-484

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