Albisaurus

Taxobox
name = "Albisaurus"
status = fossil
regnum = Animalia
phylum = Chordata
classis = Sauropsida
unranked_ordo = Archosauria
genus = "Albisaurus"
genus_authority = Fritsch, 1905
subdivision_ranks = Species
subdivision =
*"A. albinus" (Fritsch, 1893)
*"A. scutifer" Fritsch, 1905

"Albisaurus" (meaning "Albis [River] lizard") was once thought to be a genus of dinosaur, but is now thought to be a non-dinosaurian archosaur.de icon Brinkmann, W. (1988). Zur Fundgeschichte und Systematik der Ornithopoden (Ornithischia, Reptilia) aus der Ober-Kreide von Europa. "Documenta Naturae" 45:1-157.] [cite book|title=Dinosaurs: The Encyclopedia|year=1997|chapter=Excluded Genera|author=Glut, D.F.|pages=1005-1010|publisher=McFarland & Company|id=ISBN 0-89950-917-7] 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

External links

* [http://www.dinoruss.org/de_4/5a7b2af.htm Dinoruss]