Fossil Wiki:Featured articles/Species of Allosaurus



There have been a number of potential species assigned to Allosaurus, a carnosaurian dinosaur, since its description in 1877 by Othniel Charles Marsh, but only a handful are still regarded as valid. Allosaurus was originally described from material from the Upper Jurassic Morrison Formation of the western United States of America; the type species A. fragilis became one of the best-known species of dinosaur. The genus Allosaurus was part of the Marsh/Edward Drinker Cope "Bone Wars" of the late 1800s, and its taxonomy became increasingly confused due to the competition, with several genera and species named by Cope and Marsh now regarded as synonyms of Allosaurus or A. fragilis. Since the description of Allosaurus, scientists have proposed additional species from such far-flung locales as Portugal, Siberia, Switzerland, and Tanzania, Australia and unnamed remains from China have also been assigned to the genus at one time or another. It is unclear how many species of Allosaurus there were. Seven species have been considered potentially valid since 1988. There are also at least ten dubious or undescribed species that have been assigned to Allosaurus over the years, along with the species belonging to genera now sunk into Allosaurus. (Read more...)