Erectopus
Name: Erectopus
(upright foot).
Phonetic: E-rek-to-pus.
Named By: Friedrich von Huene - 1923.
Synonyms: Erectopus sauvagei,
Megalosaurus superbus.
Classification: Chordata, Reptilia, Dinosauria,
Saurischia, Theropoda, Carnosauria.
Species: E. superbus (type).
Diet: Carnivore.
Size: Comparison to allosauroid theropods suggest a
length of about 3 meters for the holotype.
Known locations: France.
Time period: Albian of the Cretaceous.
Fossil representation: Partial maxilla (upper
jaw) as well as partial post cranial fossils.
The
taxonomic history of Erectopus is a little
muddled, but to begin with
Erectopus was named as a species of Megalosaurus,
M. superbus.
This was in 1882 when Henri-�mile Sauvage added fossil remains to
a private collection owned by Louis Pierson that had first been
described in 1875 by Charles Barrois. Then when the fossils
were studied by Friedrich von Huene they were concluded to not
represent a species of Megalosaurus. The result
was that the fossils
were named as Erectopus sauvagei, while others
were ‘Gen.
indeterm. superbus’.
After
the death of Pierson his private fossil collection was broken up with
the fossils going to many, and often unrecorded destinations. As a
result the genus Erectopus fell into obscurity and
feared lost. But
then towards the end of the twentieth century the original partial
maxilla was found to be with a fossil dealer in Paris, while casts of
the original bones were found stored in the National Museum of Natural
History, also in Paris. In 2005 Ronan Allain wrote a new study
concerning Erectopus, which resulted in the type
species name being
established as Erectopus superbus in order to
include all of the
original fossil material, with the maxilla as lectotype.
As
an actual dinosaur, Erectopus seems to have been
similar to the genus
Allosaurus,
and so Erectopus is regarded as a carnosaur. The
holotype of Erectopus however seems to have been
towards the smaller
end of the scale for a theropod dinosaur, and so was probably a
predator of other small dinosaurs.
Further reading
- Les reptiles du terrain Cr�tac� du nord-est du Bassin de Paris.
- Bulletin scientifique, historique et litt�raire du Nord, 6:
1-11. - C. Barrois - 1875.
- Notes sur les reptiles fossiles. - Bulletin de la Soci�t�
G�ologique de France, 4: 435-442. - H. -�. Sauvage -
1876.
- Recherches sur les reptiles trouv�s dans le Gault de l'est du
bassin de Paris. - M�moires de la Soci�t� G�ologique de France,
s�rie 3 2(4): 1-42. - H. -�. Sauvage - 1882.
- Carnivorous Saurischia in Europe since the Triassic. - Bulletin
of the Geological Society of America 34:449-458. - F. v.
Huene - 1923.
- The enigmatic theropod dinosaur Erectopus superbus
(Sauvage,
1882) from the Lower Albian of Louppy-le-Ch�teau (Meuse,
France), by Ronan Allain. In The Carnivorous Dinosaurs
(Indiana University Press), K. carpenter eds. - 2005.
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