Kingdom Animalia Class Reptilia | Phylum Chordata | |
Genus Zanclodon
Plieninger, 1846 | ||
Zanclodon is an extinct genus of archosaurian reptile endemic to what would have been Europe during the Middle Triassic-Late Triassic epochs (245—199.6 mya).
Contents
Zanclodon ('scythe tooth') is the name formally used for fossil material that actually belongs to at least two genera of dinosaur from the Late Triassic. Parrish (1993), Nesbitt (2005) and Nesbitt and Norell (2006) do not believe that Zanclodon is a dinosaur and place it in the clade Suchia, incertae sedis. It was formerly placed in the Teratosauridae, within the Theropoda. The type species, Zanclodon laevis, is based on a left maxilla that represents an indeterminate archosaurian. Therefore, the genus is not unambiguously identifiable.
Taxonomy
Zanclodon was named by Plieninger (1846). It was originally named Smilodon, but this name had previously been used for the saber-toothed cat (a preoccupied name), so it was renamed. It was synonymized subjectively with Plateosaurus by Marsh (1895) and Marsh (1896); it was synonymized subjectively with Teratosaurus by Romer (1956); it was considered a nomen dubium by Steel (1970); it was considered a nomen vanum by Welles (1984); it was considered a nomen dubium by Naish and Martill (2007). It was assigned to Lacertilia by Quenstedt (1867); to Megalosauridae by Lydekker (1888); to Plateosauridae by von Zittel (1911); to Zanclodontidae by Sauvage (1882), Marsh (1882), Marsh (1884), Marsh (1884), Marsh (1885), Fraas (1900), Huene (1908), Huene (1909) and Huene (1914); to Carnosauria by Huene (1923); and to Archosauria by Galton (2001).