Elaphrosaurus bambergi Janensch 1920
Creators: name: Rauhut, Oliver W. M.
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2003
Subjects: Biodiversity
Taxonomy
Animalia
Chordata
Reptilia
Dinosauria
Ornithomimidae
Elaphrosaurus
Elaphrosaurus bambergi

description: <i>Elaphrosaurus bambergi</i> Janensch, 1920 <i>Age.</i> Kimmeridgian. <i>Occurrence.</i> Middle Dinosaur beds, Tendaguru, Tanzania. <i>Diagnosis.</i> Cervical vertebrae with thin lateroventral laminae bordering the posterior pleurocoel ventrally; cervical vertebrae strongly concave ventrally, the ventral margin arching above the mid-height of the anterior articular facet at its highest point; scapular blade broader than height of vertebral column; brevis fossa of ilium extremely widened so that the brevis shelf forms an almost horizontal lateral flange. <i>Remarks. Elaphrosaurus bambergi</i> is known from a partial postcranial skeleton from the famous dinosaur beds of Tendaguru, Tanzania. It was first described briefly by Janensch in 1920, followed by a detailed description in 1925 and some additional notes on its anatomy in 1929. In the latter paper, Janensch referred previously unrecognized ribs and pectoral girdle elements, as well as an isolated left radius to the same species. Since the ribs and pectoral girdle are from the type locality and probably even from the type specimen, their referral is accepted here. The radius, however, came from another locality in the Upper Dinosaur beds, while the holotype is from the slightly older Middle Dinosaur beds. Since the radius is, furthermore, not preserved in the type, the element from the Upper Dinosaur beds (MB R. 1755) cannot be shown to belong to <i>Elaphrosaurus</i> with any certainty. Nopcsa (1928) first referred <i>Elaphrosaurus bambergi</i> to the Ornithomimidae, a view that became widely accepted in the 1970s-1980s (Russell 1972; Russell <i>et al.</i> 1980; Galton 1982; Barsbold and Osmólska 1990; Smith and Galton 1990). However, the o rn ithomimid status of <i>Elaphrosaurus</i> has recently been questioned by several authors (Paul 1988«; Holtz 1994; Sereno 1997; Rauhut 1998), who argued for close relationships with more basal taxa. Therefore,. <i>bambergi</i> is treated separately here.
description: Published as part of <i>Rauhut, Oliver W. M., 2003, The interrelationships and evolution of basal theropod dinosaurs, pp. 1-213 in Special papers in palaeontology 69</i> on page 26, DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.3382576
description: {"references": ["JANENSCH, w. 1920. Ueber Elaphrosaurus bambergi und die Megalosaurier aus den endaguru-Schichten Deutsch-Ostafrikas. Sitzungsberichte der Gesellschaft Naturforschender Freunde zu Berlin, 1920, 225 - 235.", "------ 1928. The genera of reptiles. Palaeobiologica, 1, 163 - 188.", "------ 1982. Elaphrosaurus, an ornithomimid dinosaur from the Upper Jurassic of North America and Africa. Palaontologische Zeitschrift, 56, 265 - 275.", "------ 1990. Basal Sauropodomorpha-Prosauropoda. 320 - 344. In weishampel, d. b., dodson, p. and osmOlska, h. (eds). The Dinosauria. University of California Press, Berkeley, 733 pp.", "HOLTZ,. R. Jr 1994. The phylogenetic position of the Tyrannosauride: implications for theropod systematics. Journal of Paleontology, 68, 1100 - 1117."]}