Albisaurus

Albisaurus (meaning "Albis [River] lizard") was once thought to be a genus of dinosaur, but is now thought to be a non-dinosaurian archosaur.^[1][2] It was first described by Antonin Fritsch (also spelt Frič), a Czech palaeontologist, in 1893, but the remains are sparse. The validity of the species cannot be proven based on the fossil remains, and it is usually marked as a nomen dubium.

The generic name Albisaurus is derived from the Latin albus (albi-); after the River Albis, as it was known in Roman times, now the Bílé Labe (or "White Elbe"), a part of the Elbe River system, which flows through the western Czech Republic, near a site where the type fossils were found; plus the Greek sauros meaning "lizard". Fritsch originally published the name as Iguanodon albinus in 1893. After re-evaluating the fossils, however, he decided they were distinct from Iguanodon. In 1905, he published a new name for this material, calling it Albisaurus.

The type species is Albisaurus albinus. The specific name albinus is derived from the Latin albus (alb-), "white, bright", and the Latin suffix -inus; "belonging to", alluding to the modern-day Bile Labe of the western Czech Republic, known during the rule of the Roman Empire for the purity and clarity of the water. A second species, A. scutifer, was actually the original type species, but, as A. albinus is thought to be the same thing, A. scutifer was sunk into the older name.

References

• Fritsch, A., 1905. Synopsis der Saurier der Bohmischen Kreideformation. SITZ. KONIG. BOHM. GES. WISS., II. Classe. 7 pp.

External links

Dinosaurs portal

• Dinoruss

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