LILIENSTERNUS
a meat-eating coelophysoid theropod dinosaur from the Late Triassic of Germany.
Pronunciation: LIL-ee-en-SHTER-nus
Meaning: for Lilienstern
Author/s: Welles (
1984)
Synonyms: Halticosaurus liliensterni
First Discovery: Thuringia, Germany
Discovery Chart Position: #312
Liliensternus liliensterni
Liliensternus was initially assigned to
Halticosaurus as
Halticosaurus liliensterni by Friedrich von Huene in 1934. But when Samuel Paul Welles found that the
Halticosaurus type specimen (
Halticosaurus longotarsus) was dubious on account of its remains being hardly identifiable as the property of a dinosaur, von Huene's critter was in need of a new name. Welles coined
Liliensternus in 1984 for Dr. Hugo Rühle von Lilienstern, following the lead of von Huene, who named the epithet after Lilienstern too. But was
Liliensternus liliensterni so good they named it twice? Well, no. Despite being the best-represented Triassic theropod from the whole of Europe, "the best" isn't that good.
Etymology
Liliensternus is named in honor of Hugo Rühle von Lilienstern, full-time doctor and amateur palaeontologist from Bedheim, Germany. The
species epithet was named for von Lilienstern too, as a thank you for opening a paleontological museum in his castle on July 1st, 1934. The
Liliensternus fossils remained there until 1969 when they were transferred to the Humboldt Museum in Berlin.
Discovery
The remains of
Liliensternus (two partial skeletons, initially described as
Halticosaurus liliensterni by von Huene in 1934) were discovered in
the Trossingen Formation of Großen Gleichberg, Römhild, Thuringia, central Germany, by Hugo Rühle von Lilienstern in 1922 and 1923. In keeping with the bad habits of early palaeontologists,
Halticosaurus liliensterni was not assigned a
holotype. Welles designated the "larger" of the two specimens (HMN BM.R 2175) as the lectotype when he coined
Liliensternus in 1984, but it's almost impossible to separate the pair by size, and they may even represent more than two individuals. Rauhut and Hungerbuühler erred on the side of caution in 1998, and bundled all of the material into
Liliensternus as the syntypes.
Estimations
Timeline:
Era: Mesozoic
Epoch: Triassic
Stage: Norian
Age range: 228-209 mya
Stats:
Est. max. length: 6 meters
Est. max. hip height: 2 meters
Est. max. weight: 400 Kg
Diet: Carnivore
Liliensternus
liliensterni
Liliensternus airelensis
Giles Cuny and Peter Galton named a second species of
Liliensternus —
Liliensternus airelensis (Latin: "from Airel") — in 1993, based on remains dragged from Airel Quarry in Normandy's Moon-Airel Formation in 1966 that Claude Larsonneur and Albert-Félix de Lapparent had assigned to
Halticoaurus sp.
It was renamed
Lophostropheus airelensis by Cuny and Martin Ezcurra in 2007.
References
• von Huene F (1934) "Ein neuer Coelurosaurier in der thüringischen Trias" [A new coelurosaur in the Thuringian Trias].
Paläontologische Zeitschrift, 16(3-4): 145-170.
• Larsonneur C and de Lapparent AF (1966) "
Un dinosaurien carnivore, Halticosaurus, dans le Réthien Airel (Manche)".
Bulletin Société Linnéenne de Normandie, 10: 108–116. [English translation by Matthew Carrano.]
• Welles SP (1984) "
Dilophosaurus wetherilli (Dinosauria, Theropoda): osteology and comparisons".
Palaeontographica Abteilung A, 185(4-6): 85-180.
• Paul GS (1988) "
Predatory Dinosaurs of the World".
• Cuny G and Galton PM (1993) "Revision of the Airel theropod dinosaur from the Triassic-Jurassic boundary (Normandy, France)".
Neues Jahrbuch für Geologie und Paläontologie, Abhandlungen, 187(3): 261–288.
• Rahaut OWM and A Hungerbuhler (1998) "
A review of European Triassic theropods".
GAIA, 15: 75-88.
• Rauhaut OWM (2003) "
Special Papers in Palaeontology, The Interrelationships and Evolution of Basal Theropod Dinosaurs".
Special Papers in Palaeontology, 69: 1–213.
• Tykoski RS and Rowe T (2004) Chapter 3: "Ceratosauria". In Weishampel, Dodson and Osmólska (eds.) "
The Dinosauria: Second Edition".
• Fastovsky DE, Weishampel DB and Sibbick J (2005) "
The Evolution and Extinction of the Dinosaurs".
• Ezcurra MD and Cuny G (2007) "The coelophysoid
Lophostropheus airelensis, gen. nov.: a review of the systematics of "
Liliensternus"
airelensis from the Triassic-Jurassic boundary outcrops of Normandy (France)".
Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, 27(1): 73–86. DOI: 10.1671/0272-4634(2007)27[73:TCLAGN]2.0.CO;2.
• Mohr BAR, Kustatscher E, Hiller C and Böhme G (2008) "
Hugo Rühle von Lilienstern and his palaeobotanical collection: an East-West German story".
Earth Sciences History, 27: 278-296.
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Atkinson, L.
"
LILIENSTERNUS :: from DinoChecker's dinosaur archive".
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