Aachenosaurus
Aachenosaurus ("Lizard of Aachen") was considered a genus of dinosaurs at the end of the 19th century . Since the fossils that served as the basis for the scientific description are petrified wood , Aachenosaurus is considered a noun dubium .
On October 31, 1888, Abbé Gerard Smets found fossils near Aachen near Moresnet in the German-Belgian border region, which he believed to be the jaw fragments of a hadrosaur . In his scientific description he gave it the name Aachenosaurus multidens . Smets reconstructed the animal as a bipedal dinosaur about 4.5 meters long with back plates. But in the same year the Belgian Louis Dollo realized that the find was petrified wood. Smets then doubted Dollo's competence and cited the paleontologists George Boulenger and Richard Lydekker as supporters of his interpretation. In the scientific work they published, however, they followed Dollo's view. Smets then largely withdrew from paleontology.
Individual evidence
- ^ G. Smets: Notices palaeontologiques. Ann. Soc. Science Brussels (Bulletin de la société Belge de Géologie de Paléontologie & D'Hydrologie), Vol. 12, No. 2, pp. 193-214