Pronunciation: ah-lih-WALL-ee-uh
Meaning: of the Aliwal Park reserve
Author/s: Galton (1985)
Synonyms: n/a
First Discovery: Cape Province, South Africa
Discovery Chart Position: #
Aliwalia rex
Aliwalia caused much excitement within scientific circles, not because of a partial thighbone that represents the bulk of its remains, but because Harry Seeley linked its partial thighbone to a sharp-tooth-packed maxilla (upper jaw bone), which hinted at the presence of an enormous meat-eating 'saur in the Triassic of South Africa.
For many years, the sheer size of these remains led many experts to believe that Aliwalia was a remarkably large carnivore for the age in which it lived and would have given the greatest Jurassic and Cretaceous theropods a run for their money, if not for the fact that they evolved dozens of millions of years later, of course.
To this day, the toothy jawbone's owner remains a complete mystery. But the femur, as proven by further discoveries from the same area, is the property of Eucnemesaurus fortis—a non-sauropod sauropodomorph (aka "prosauropod") similar to Riojasaurus—which is itself historically tangled with Euskelosaurus.
For many years, the sheer size of these remains led many experts to believe that Aliwalia was a remarkably large carnivore for the age in which it lived and would have given the greatest Jurassic and Cretaceous theropods a run for their money, if not for the fact that they evolved dozens of millions of years later, of course.
To this day, the toothy jawbone's owner remains a complete mystery. But the femur, as proven by further discoveries from the same area, is the property of Eucnemesaurus fortis—a non-sauropod sauropodomorph (aka "prosauropod") similar to Riojasaurus—which is itself historically tangled with Euskelosaurus.
(Aliwal King)Etymology
Aliwalia is named for Aliwal North, a small town on the banks of the Orange River close to which it was discovered. The town itself was founded and named in 1850 by Sir Henry George Wakelyn Smith, known for most of his life simply as Harry Smith, the Governor of Cape Colony and High Commissioner, to commemorate the Smith-led British victory over the Sikhs of India at the famous Battle of Aliwal in 1846.
The species epithet, rex, means "king" in Latin.
Discovery
Aliwalia rex was found in the lower Elliot Formation at Barnard's
Spruit (also called Ezelsklip) in the Stormberg Mountains, Ward, about 15 miles south of Aliwal North, Albert (Burgersdorp) District, Cape Province, South Africa, by Alfred "Gogga" Brown—an amateur 19th-century fossil collector—in 1866.
The holotype (NMW 1886-XV-39 and NMW-1876-VII-B124) is both ends of what appears to be the same femur (thighbone). It arrived at the Naturhistorisches Museum in Vienna in one of five boxes shipped to various European museums.
The previously-mentioned upper jawbone, catalogued as BMNH R3301, was described in 1894 and assigned to Euskelosaurus browni by Harry Govier Seeley, albeit with some reservations.
