Thecocoelurus

Taxobox
name = "Thecocoelurus"
fossil_range = Early Cretaceous
regnum = Animalia
phylum = Chordata
classis = Sauropsida
superordo = Dinosauria
ordo = Saurischia
subordo = Theropoda
unranked_familia = Coelurosauria
genus = "Thecocoelurus"
genus_authority = von Huene, 1923
subdivision_ranks=Species
subdivision=
*"T. daviesi" (Seeley, 1888 [originally "Thecospondylus"] ) (type)

"Thecocoelurus" is a genus of theropod dinosaur from the early Cretaceous period of England. It is known only from half of a single cervical vertebra, discovered by the Rev. William Fox on the Isle of Wight during the 19th century and described by Harry Seeley in 1888. Seeley named the fossil "Thecospondylus daviesi" and referred it to a genus he had named earlier for the incomplete cast of a sacrum. However, in 1923 Friedrich von Huene decided that it should be removed from "Thecospondylus" and given its own genus, "Thecocoelurus". Though it had long been identified as an indeterminate small theropod, "Thecocoelurus" was reidentified by Darren Naish and colleagues in 2001 as a member of Oviraptorosauria, a group of omnivorous maniraptoran theropods, which would make it the only oviraptorosaur fossil that has ever been found in Europe. Numerous detailed similarities are shared by the specimen and the cervical vertebrae of caenagnathid oviraptorosaurs. In 2004 it was theorized that "Thecocoelurus" might not be an oviraptorosaur, but a member of the therizinosaur lineage instead.

References

* [http://home.comcast.net/~eoraptor/Therizinosauroidea.htm#Thecocoelurusdaviesi "Thecospondylus"] in the Theropod Database