Gyposaurus
Name:
Gyposaurus
(Vulture lizard).
Phonetic: Gyp-o-sore-us.
Named By: R. Broom - 1911.
Classification: Chordata, Reptilia, Dinosauria,
Saurischia, Sauropodomorpha.
Species: ‘G. capensis'
(type), G. sinensis.
Diet: Herbivore.
Size: Unavailable.
Known locations: South Africa. China.
Time period: Hettangian of the Jurassic.
Fossil representation: Partial post cranial skeletal
remains.
Gyposaurus
is a genus of sauropodomorph
dinosaur that technically does not exist
anymore. Two species have been named, the type species G.
capensis from South Africa, and G. sinensis
from China. Doubts
were cast upon the validity of the type species in 1976 when a
study by Galton and Cluver came to the opinion that G.
capensis was
actually a specimen of Anchisaurus.
In 1981 however, Michael
Cooper synonymized G. capensis with Massopondylus,
something that
has gained popular acceptance among other palaeontologists.
Now
that the type species of Gyposaurus has been
invalidated, G.
sinensis cannot really be referred to as Gyposaurus
since the fossils
that the species were originally compared to are no longer part of the
genus. In the past G. sinensis has also been
considered to be a
synonym to another genus, this time Lufengosaurus,
a very common
sauropodomorph known from China’s Lufeng Formation, the same fossil
formation that the fossils of G. sinensis came
from. However in
2004, a study by Galton and Upchurch came to the conclusion that G.
sinensis most probably represents its own genus.
Great
care should be taken not to confuse Gyposaurus with
Gryposaurus,
a
genus of hadrosaurid
dinosaur that lived during the late Cretaceous.
Further reading
- On the dinosaurs of the Stormberg, South Africa. Annals of the
South African Museum 7(4):291-308. - R. Broom - 1911.
- Gyposaurus sinensis Young (sp. nov.) a new Prosauropoda from the
Upper Triassic beds at Lufeng, Yunnan. - Bulletin of the Geological
Society of China. 21 (2–4): 205–252. - C. C. Young - 1941.
- Anchisaurus capensis (Broom) and a revision
of the
Anchisauridae (Reptilia, Saurischia). Annals of the South
African Museum 69(6):121-159.- P. M. Galton & M.
A. Cluver - 1976.
- The prosauropod dinosaur Massospondylus carinatus
Owen from
Zimbabwe: its biology, mode of life and phylogenetic significance.
- Occasional Papers of the National Museums and Monuments of
Rhodesia, Series B, Natural Sciences 6(10):689-840. -
Michael R. Cooper - 1981.
- Prosauropoda - P. M. Galton & P. Upchurch. In
The Dinosauria (second edition), D. B. Weishampel, P.
Dodson, & H. Osmólska (eds.) - University of
California Press:Berkeley.
- Taxonomy of "Gyposaurus" sinesis
Young, 1941 from the Early Jurassic
Lufeng Formation of Yunnan Province, southwestern China. - SVP 2017
Meeting Program and Abstracts. Society of Vertebrate Paleontology 77th
Annual Meeting. Calgary: Society of Vertebrate Paleontology. p. 210. -
Y. M. Wang, H. L. You, A. Otero & T. Wang - 2017.
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