page_title: Poekilopleuron
section_title: Discovery and naming
hierarchical_section_title: Poekilopleuron / Discovery and naming
caption_attribution_description: Français&#160;: falaise en Normandie à Trouville
context_page_description: Poekilopleuron is a genus of megalosauroid dinosaur, which lived during the middle Bathonian of the Jurassic, about 168 to 166 million years ago. The genus has been used under many different spelling variants, although only one, Poekilopleuron, is valid. The type species is P. bucklandii, named after William Buckland, and many junior synonyms of it have also been erected. Few material is currently known, as the holotype was destroyed in World War II, although many casts of the material still exist.
context_section_description: Poekilopleuron is a genus of theropod with a long and complex history. The genus was first named and described by Jacques-Amand Eudes-Deslongchamps in a report published in 1836, based on holotype material that is now destroyed. In 1837, Eudes-Deslongchamps published a more detailed account of this discovery in a monograph which was also inserted next year in volume 6 of the "Mémoires de la Société Linnéenne Normandie".
  The holotype, which was housed in Musée de la Faculté des Sciences de Caen and destroyed during World War II, included gastralia, phalanges, a left forelimb, caudal vertebrae, chevrons, ribs and a hindlimb. Of all the material, few is still preserved, although the gastralia, phalanges and forelimb were cast and now represent the plastotype, with casts in the Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle (specimen MNHN 1897-2) and Yale Peabody Museum (specimen YPM 4938). The original material was uncovered in a layer of the Calcaire de Caen in Normandy, France. Poekilopleuron can be assigned to the middle Bathonian in age, about 167.7 to 166 million years ago.
   
  In the same 1836 publication, Eudes-Deslongchamps also named the type species of Poekilopleuron, P. bucklandii. Eudes-Deslongchapms noted similarities with some material of Megalosaurus bucklandii and Poekilopleuron, and chose the species name bucklandii for Poekilopleuron, so that it the two genera were synonymized, only the genus name would be suppressed. The generic name is derived from Greek ποίκιλος, poikilos, "varied", and πλευρών, pleuron, "rib", a reference to the three types of rib present. The specific name, honouring William Buckland, was deliberately identical to that of Megalosaurus bucklandii.
caption: Geography of Normandy, France, where remains of Poekilopleuron have been found
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