Avalonianus is a highly dubious and possibly invalid genus of archosaur from the Late Triassic Westbury Formation of England. It was first described in 1898 by Harry Seeley with the name Avalonia,[1] but that name was preoccupied (Walcott, 1889), so Oskar Kuhn renamed it in 1961, albeit with no epithet (although Seeley added the epithet sanfordi in 1898[1]). It was thought to be a prosauropod, but later analysis revealed it was actually a chimera,[2] with the original teeth coming from a non-dinosaurian ornithosuchian (or possibly an early theropod), and later-referred post-cranial prosauropod remains (which were renamed Camelotia).[3] The only sufficient remains attributable to Avalonianus are several now lost fossil teeth from the chimera that were referred to Archosauria.

Avalonianus
Temporal range: Late Triassic, Rhaetian
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Reptilia
Clade: Archosauromorpha
Clade: Archosauriformes
Clade: Archosauria
Genus: Avalonianus
Kuhn, 1961
Species:
A. sanfordi
Binomial name
Avalonianus sanfordi
Seeley, 1898
Synonyms
Holotype tooth of the possible synonym Picrodon

References

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  1. ^ a b H. G. Seeley. (1898). On large terrestrial saurians from the Rhaetic Beds of Wedmore Hill, described as Avalonia sanfordi and Picrodon herveyi. Geological Magazine, decade 4 5:1-6
  2. ^ P. M. Galton. (1988). Saurischian dinosaurs from the Upper Triassic of England: Camelotia (Prosauropoda, Melanorosauridae) and Avalonianus (Theropoda, ?Carnosauria). Palaeontographica Abteilung A 250(4-6):155-172
  3. ^ Go to Camelotia for more information