Megapnosaurus

Megapnosaurus
	Megapnosaurus kayentakatae
Temporal occurrence
	Lower Jurassic ( Hettangian to Sinemurian )
	201.3 to 190.8 million years
Locations
	Africa ( Zimbabwe ); North America ( Arizona );
Systematics
	Dinosaur (dinosauria)
	Lizard dinosaur (Saurischia)
	Theropoda
	Neotheropoda
	Coelophysoidea
	Megapnosaurus
Scientific name
	Megapnosaurus
	Ivie , Slipinski & Wegrzynowicz , 2001
species
	Megapnosaurus rhodesiensis; Megapnosaurus kayentakatae;

Megapnosaurus ("big dead lizard"), formerly Syntarsus , is a genus of small theropod dinosaurs from the early Lower Jurassic , which arevery similar tothe Coelophysis species.

So far, two species have been described, Megapnosaurus rhodesiensis as Syntarsus rhodesiensis 1969 and Megapnosaurus kayentakatae as Syntarsus kayentakatae 1989.

In 2001 Syntarsus by entomologists Ivie, Slipinski and Wegrzynowicz in Megapnosaurus renamed after it turned out that the original genus name had been awarded in 1869 for a beetle ( Syntarsus (Raath, 1969)).

features

Megapnosaurus differs from Coelophysis, among other things, by its fused foot bones, its somewhat smaller size and the two crescent-shaped bone ridges on the skull. With a length of a good two meters, it weighed around 15 kilograms.

Systematics

Megapnosaurus belongs to the Coelophysoidea , a group of primitive theropods . He is very closely related to Coelophysis . Kladogram according to Tykoski and Rowe (2004):

Coelophysoidea

Coelophysidae

	Megapnosaurus rhodesiensis

	Megapnosaurus kayentakatae

literature

Randall B. Irmis: First report of Megapnosaurus (Theropoda: Coelophysoidea) from China. In: PaleoBios. Vol. 24, No. 3, 2004, ISSN 0031-0298 , pp. 11-18, full text (PDF; 881 kB) .

Individual evidence

^ Gregory S. Paul : The Princeton Field Guide To Dinosaurs. Princeton University Press, Princeton NJ 2010, ISBN 978-0-691-13720-9 , pp. 73-74, online .
^ Michael A. Raath: A new Coelurosaurian dinosaur from the Forest Sandstone of Rhodesia. In: National Museums of Southern Rhodesia. Arnoldia. Vol. 4, No. 28, 1969, ISSN 0066-7781 , pp. 1-25.
↑ Timothy Rowe : A new species of theropod dinosaur Syntarsus from the Early Jurassic Kayenta Formation of Arizona. In: Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology. Vol. 9, No. 2, 1989, ISSN 0272-4634 , pp. 125-136, doi : 10.1080 / 02724634.1989.10011748 .
↑ Michael A. Ivie, Stanisław A. Slipinski, Piotr Wegrzynowicz: Generic homonyms in the Colydiinae (Coleoptera: Zopheridae). In: Insecta Mundi. Vol. 15, 2001, ISSN 0749-6737 , pp. 63-64.
↑ Inner and outer systematics of the coelophysoidea

[paul_10-1] Gregory S. Paul : The Princeton Field Guide To Dinosaurs. Princeton University Press, Princeton NJ 2010, ISBN 978-0-691-13720-9 , pp. 73-74, online .

[2] Michael A. Raath: A new Coelurosaurian dinosaur from the Forest Sandstone of Rhodesia. In: National Museums of Southern Rhodesia. Arnoldia. Vol. 4, No. 28, 1969, ISSN 0066-7781 , pp. 1-25.

[3] Timothy Rowe : A new species of theropod dinosaur Syntarsus from the Early Jurassic Kayenta Formation of Arizona. In: Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology. Vol. 9, No. 2, 1989, ISSN 0272-4634 , pp. 125-136, doi : 10.1080 / 02724634.1989.10011748 .

[4] Michael A. Ivie, Stanisław A. Slipinski, Piotr Wegrzynowicz: Generic homonyms in the Colydiinae (Coleoptera: Zopheridae). In: Insecta Mundi. Vol. 15, 2001, ISSN 0749-6737 , pp. 63-64.

[5] Inner and outer systematics of the coelophysoidea