Pronunciation: al-woh-KEH-ree-uh
Meaning: for Alick Walker
Author/s: Chatterjee and Creisler (1994)
Synonyms: None known
First Discovery: Andhra Pradesh, India
Discovery Chart Position: #388
Alwalkeria maleriensis
Despite what some might consider long overdue, British palaeontologist Alick Walker eventually had a dinosaur named in his honour, but Walkeria didn't last long. It had already been tagged as an indeterminate dinosaur by Novas in 1989 before Chatterjee realised the name Walkeria had been assigned to a type of aquatic invertebrate (a bryozoan) by Fleming in 1823. So, in 1994, he and Ben Creisler put their heads together, cunningly added the first two letters of Walker's given name, and came up with Alwalkeria. But it soon attracted more suspicious glances.
Although initially described as a small "podokesaurid" theropod, akin to Procompsognathus, Coelophysis and Syntarsus, Remes and Rauhut announced that Alwalkeria was a chimaera in 2005, with parts of a crurotarsan (crocodile ancestor) and a prolacertiform (long-necked non-dinosaurian archosauromorph) amongst other things, and that the small theropod bits didn't amount to much. The good news? Its thigh and ankle are unmistakably dinosaurian. The bad news? They’re too primitive to belong to a theropod. The current consensus places Alwalkeria as a basal member of Saurischia: one of the two great lineages of Dinosauria that also encompasses Theropoda and Sauropoda. The other lineage is Ornithischia.
Although initially described as a small "podokesaurid" theropod, akin to Procompsognathus, Coelophysis and Syntarsus, Remes and Rauhut announced that Alwalkeria was a chimaera in 2005, with parts of a crurotarsan (crocodile ancestor) and a prolacertiform (long-necked non-dinosaurian archosauromorph) amongst other things, and that the small theropod bits didn't amount to much. The good news? Its thigh and ankle are unmistakably dinosaurian. The bad news? They’re too primitive to belong to a theropod. The current consensus places Alwalkeria as a basal member of Saurischia: one of the two great lineages of Dinosauria that also encompasses Theropoda and Sauropoda. The other lineage is Ornithischia.
(For Alick Walker, from Maleri)Etymology
Alwalkeria honours famous British palaeontologist Alick Donald Walker (26th of October 1925 – 4th of December 1999) for his valuable contributions to Mesozoic vertebrate studies.
The species epithet, maleriensis, means "from Maleri" in Latin, referring to the Formation where it was found.
Discovery
The only known specimen of Alwalkeria was discovered in the Maleri Formation at Nennal (Nehal) village, Godavari Valley, Adilabad District, Andhra Pradesh, India, by Sankar Chatterjee in 1974.
The holotype (ISI R306, housed at the Indian Statistical Institute in Calcutta) consists of parts of the front ends of the upper and lower jaws, 28 incomplete vertebrae from all parts of the spinal column, most of a femur (thigh bone), and an astragalus (ankle bone). Despite being identified as a chimaera, no-one has officially removed the non-dinosaurian bits (everything barring the thigh and ankle) from the holotype.
