Epanterias

Epanterias
Temporal range: Late Jurassic, 146.8 Ma
Illustration of material
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Reptilia
Clade: Dinosauria
Order: Saurischia
Suborder: Theropoda
Family: Allosauridae
Genus: Epanterias
Cope, 1878
Species: E. amplexus
Binomial name
Epanterias amplexus
Cope, 1878
Synonyms
Life restoration
Size comparison of the type specimen (largest), a human, and several Allosaurus specimens

Epanterias is a dubious genus of theropod dinosaur from the Kimmeridgian-Tithonian-age Upper Jurassic upper Morrison Formation of Garden Park, Colorado. It was described by Edward Drinker Cope in 1878. The type species is Epanterias amplexus.[1] This genus is based on what is now AMNH 5767, parts of three vertebrae, a coracoid, and a metatarsal.[2] Although Cope thought it was a sauropod,[1] it was later shown to be a theropod.[2] Gregory S. Paul reassessed the material as pertaining to a large species of Allosaurus in 1988 (which he classified as Allosaurus amplexus).[3] Other authors have gone further and considered E. amplexus as simply a large individual of Allosaurus fragilis.[4] In 2010, Gregory S. Paul and Kenneth Carpenter noted that the E. amplexus specimen comes from higher in the Morrison Formation than the type specimen of Allosaurus fragilis, and is therefore "probably a different taxon". They also considered its holotype specimen not diagnostic and classified it as a nomen dubium.[5]

References

  1. 1 2 Cope, Edward Drinker (1878). "A new opisthocoelous dinosaur". American Naturalist. 12 (6): 406. doi:10.1086/272127.
  2. 1 2 Osborn, Henry Fairfield; Mook, Charles C. (1921). "Camarasaurus, Amphicoelias, and other sauropods of Cope". Memoirs of the American Museum of Natural History, New Series. 3 (3): 247–387.
  3. Paul, Gregory S. (1988). "Genus Allosaurus". Predatory Dinosaurs of the World. New York: Simon & Schuster. pp. 307–313. ISBN 0-671-61946-2.
  4. Holtz, Thomas R., Jr.; Molnar, Ralph E.; Currie, Philip J. (2004). Weishampel, David B.; Dodson, Peter; Osmólska Halszka (eds.), eds. The Dinosauria (2nd ed.). Berkeley: University of California Press. pp. 71–110. ISBN 0-520-24209-2.
  5. Paul, G.S. and Carpenter, K. (2010). "Case 3506: Allosaurus Marsh, 1877 (Dinosauria, Theropoda): proposed conservation of usage by designation of a neotype for its type species Allosaurus fragilis Marsh, 1877." Bulletin of Zoological Nomenclature, 67(1): 53-56.
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