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''Teratosaurus'' is a genus of rauisuchians known from the Triassic Stubensandstein (Löwenstein Formation - Norian stage) of Germany. ==Discovery== In 1860, Sixt Friedrich Jakob von Kapff at the ''Heslacher Wand'' near Stuttgart discovered the upper jaw bone of a large reptile. The type specimen, which Hermann von Meyer declared to be distinct from ''Belodon'', was described and named by the latter as the type species ''Teratosaurus suevicus''. The generic name is derived from Greek τέρας, ''teras'', "(birth of a ) monster" and ''sauros'', "lizard". The specific name refers to Suevia.〔C. E. H. von Meyer. 1861. "Reptilien aus dem Stubensandstein des oberen Keupers", ''Palaeontographica'' 7: 253-346〕 The holotype, BMNH 38646, was found in the Mittlerer Stubensandstein. It consists of a 245 millimetres long right maxilla with six large, up to five centimetres long, teeth, erroneously interpreted by Meyer as the left maxilla.〔 It indicates a body length of about six metres.〔D. Dixon, B. Cox, R.J.G. Savage & B. Gardiner, 1988, ''Macmillan Illustrated Encyclopedia of Dinosaurs and Prehistoric Animals: A Visual Who's Who of Prehistoric Life'', Macmillan pp 312〕 Later authors, such as Kapff himself, Huene, Osborn, and Edwin H. Colbert, incorrectly attributed postcrania of the sauropodomorph dinosaur ''Efraasia'' to this species or genus and, as a result, it was thought to be a representative of a presumed group of carnivorous Prosauropoda or, alternatively, a very primitive theropod. Following this lead, many popular books in the 20th century depicted "teratosaurs" as the earliest sort of large-bodied meat-eating dinosaur, walking on two legs and preying on the prosauropods of its day. It was thought by many to be a Triassic ancestor to the "carnosaurs" of the Jurassic. Sauropodomorph material was described as ''Teratosaurus'' species such as ''Teratosaurus minor''〔F. v. Huene, 1908, ''Die Dinosaurier der Europäischen Triasformation mit berücksichtigung der Ausseuropäischen vorkommnisse''. Geologische und Palaeontologische Abhandlungen Suppl. 1(1): 1-419〕 and ''Teratosaurus trossingensis''. In 1985 and 1986, Peter Galton and Michael Benton independently showed that ''Teratosaurus'' is actually a rauisuchian, a type of nondinosaurian large predatory archosaur, walking on all fours, which lived alongside dinosaurs during the Late Triassic.〔Galton, P. M. (1985). "The poposaurid thecodontian ''Teratosaurus suevicus'' Meyer, plus referred specimens mostly based on prosauropod dinosaurs". ''Stuttgarter Beiträge zur Naturkunde'', B, 116: 1-29.〕〔Benton, M.J. (1986). "The late Triassic reptile ''Teratosaurus'' - a rauisuchian, not a dinosaur". ''Palaeontology'' 29: 293-301.〕 Apart from the holotype and the sauropodomorph fossils, also some teeth probably belonging to various carnivorous archosaurs were named as ''Teratosaurus'' species. These included ''Teratosaurus lloydi'', a renaming of ''Cladeiodon lloydi'' Owen 1841 by Huene in 1908,〔F. v. Huene. 1908. "Eine Zusammenstellung über die englische Trias und das Alter ihrer Fossilien". ''Zentralblatt für Mineralogie, Geologie und Paläontologie'' 1908: 9-17〕 and ''Teratosaurus bengalensis''.〔H.C. Das-Gupta. 1928. "Batrachian and reptilian remains found in the Panchet Beds at Deoli, Bengal". ''Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, New Series'' 14(13): 473-479〕 ''Teratosaurus silesiacus'', described in 2005 by Tomasz Sulej on the basis of a left maxilla,〔Sulej, T. (2005). "A new rauisuchian reptile (Diapsida: Archosauria) from the Late Triassic of Poland." ''Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology'', 25(1):78-86.〕 was transferred to the genus ''Polonosuchus'' by Brussatte ''et al.'' in 2009. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Teratosaurus」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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