Pronunciation: HAL-tik-o-SOR-us
Meaning: Nimble lizard
Author/s: Huene (1908)
Synonyms: None known
First Discovery: Baden-Württemberg, Germany
Acta Ordinal: #95
Halticosaurus longotarsus
Friedrich von Huene named Halticosaurus in 1908 for a hotch-potch of skull bones, teeth and skeletal fragments that were found mingled with the remains of what might be "Sellosaurus Fraasi" and "Teratosaurus
minor", both of which have since been synonymised with Sellosaurus gracilis... which may just be a species of Plateosaurus.
After a thorough review in 1998 by Rauhut and Hungerbuhler, who were pretty diplomatic when they described its fossils as "very poorly preserved", there isn't a lot more to say. Two fragmentary Coelophysis-like thighbones are the only remains that can be assigned here with any certainty and the rest, including five-fingered hands, a hip bone sporting only two fused vertebrae, and an 18" long, lightly built, large-windowed skull that were assigned here later, aren't identifiable as the property of a theropod dinosaur, and have mostly been lost.
A second species — "Halticosaurus orbitoangulatus", named by von Huene in 1932 for a mangled skull (SMNS 12353b) from the same Weißer Steinbruch Quarry as the type specimen — was erroneously identified as a crocodylomorph known as Saltoposuchus, and a third — "Halticosaurus liliensterni", named by von Huene in 1934 for a pair of fragmentary specimens from Thuringia's Trossingen Formation — was reclassified as Liliensternus liliensterni by Samuel Paul Welles in 1984.
In 2013, Hans-Dieter Sues and Rainer Schoch coined Apatosuchus ("deceptive crocodile") for "Halticosaurus orbitoangulatus" after further preparation of the specimen revealed that it represented a basal archosaur rather than a dinosaur or a crocodylomorph.
After a thorough review in 1998 by Rauhut and Hungerbuhler, who were pretty diplomatic when they described its fossils as "very poorly preserved", there isn't a lot more to say. Two fragmentary Coelophysis-like thighbones are the only remains that can be assigned here with any certainty and the rest, including five-fingered hands, a hip bone sporting only two fused vertebrae, and an 18" long, lightly built, large-windowed skull that were assigned here later, aren't identifiable as the property of a theropod dinosaur, and have mostly been lost.
A second species — "Halticosaurus orbitoangulatus", named by von Huene in 1932 for a mangled skull (SMNS 12353b) from the same Weißer Steinbruch Quarry as the type specimen — was erroneously identified as a crocodylomorph known as Saltoposuchus, and a third — "Halticosaurus liliensterni", named by von Huene in 1934 for a pair of fragmentary specimens from Thuringia's Trossingen Formation — was reclassified as Liliensternus liliensterni by Samuel Paul Welles in 1984.
In 2013, Hans-Dieter Sues and Rainer Schoch coined Apatosuchus ("deceptive crocodile") for "Halticosaurus orbitoangulatus" after further preparation of the specimen revealed that it represented a basal archosaur rather than a dinosaur or a crocodylomorph.
Etymology
Halticosaurus is derived from the Greek "haltikos" (good at leaping, nimble) and "sauros" (lizard), possibly because of the exceptional length and slenderness of a metatarsal which was associated with its remains.
First discovery
Halticosaurus longotarsus was discovered in the Middle Stubensandstein Member of the Löwenstein Formation (formerly the Stubensandstein Formation) at the now-abandoned sandstone quarry known as the Weißer Steinbruch (aka Burrer/Burrerschen quarry), Pfaffenhofen town, Baden-Württemberg (one of Germany's 16 states), by A. Burrer, G. Mayer, and E. Fraas in 1902. The holotype (SMNS 12353) originally comprised a fragmentary lower jaw,
partial neck, back, hip, and tail vertebrae, fragments of an upper arm, a pelvic bone and two thigh bones, and a complete metatarsal.
In 1907/8 von Huene assigned a skull with the same catalogue number (SMNS 12353a) to "Sellosaurus", in 1921 referred some fragmentary remains from the Baerecke-Limpricht clay pit of Halberstadt to a cf. Halticosaurus longotarsus, in 1932 used a second skull with the same catalogue number (SMNS 12353b) to raise Halticosaurus orbitoangulatus, and in 1934 named two skeletons from the Trossingen Formation of Thuringia, Halticosaurus lilliensterni.
Of all those remains, only the original thigh fragments can be assigned to Halticosaurus with any certainty. The rest have either vanished from the Staatliches Museum für Naturkunde
Stuttgart (SMNS) collections, are so poorly preserved as to be highly dubious, or belong to some other critter entirely.
