Pronunciation: an-tro-DEE-muss
Meaning: Chamber bodied
Author/s: Leidy (1870)
Synonyms: None known
First Discovery: Colorado, USA
Discovery Chart Position: #
Antrodemus valens
In 1869, a partial tail vertebra was hauled from Colorado's Morrison Formation by Ferdinand Hayden, and, a year later, it became Poicilopleuron valens — a misspelt second species of the European Poekilopleuron — courtesy of Joseph Leidy. However, the usually sure-footed Leidy dithered on this occasion and had craftily attached a footnote to the official description, requesting that Po.valens be known as Antrodemus if it was proven not to be Poekilopleuron. And so it came to pass.
When Gilmore fully described Marsh's 1877-named Allosaurus in 1920, he argued that features of its vertebrae made it indistinguishable from Antrodemus. Thus, name-wise, Leidy's critter should have had priority, as it trumped Allosaurus by a good seven years. But both names ran a relay of inter-changing through the literature for over half a century until James Madsen turned up in 1976, flexing his pen.
Given the flippant disregard of the "first name stands rule" down the years, no one was surprised when Madsen struck Antrodemus from the dinosaur register in favour of everyone's favourite Jurassic carnivore. The irony is that the holotype of Allosaurus fragillis was extremely fragmentary, so the name was technically dubious and, as such, it lacked the structural integrity required to support an entire genus. In an attempt to remedy this situation, Greg Paul and Kenneth Carpenter submitted a petition to the ICZN in 2010 requesting that the name Allosaurus fragillis be officially transferred to a better specimen from the holotype quarry. In anticipation of the outcome, we sympathise with Antrodemus. And Manospondylus too.
When Gilmore fully described Marsh's 1877-named Allosaurus in 1920, he argued that features of its vertebrae made it indistinguishable from Antrodemus. Thus, name-wise, Leidy's critter should have had priority, as it trumped Allosaurus by a good seven years. But both names ran a relay of inter-changing through the literature for over half a century until James Madsen turned up in 1976, flexing his pen.
Given the flippant disregard of the "first name stands rule" down the years, no one was surprised when Madsen struck Antrodemus from the dinosaur register in favour of everyone's favourite Jurassic carnivore. The irony is that the holotype of Allosaurus fragillis was extremely fragmentary, so the name was technically dubious and, as such, it lacked the structural integrity required to support an entire genus. In an attempt to remedy this situation, Greg Paul and Kenneth Carpenter submitted a petition to the ICZN in 2010 requesting that the name Allosaurus fragillis be officially transferred to a better specimen from the holotype quarry. In anticipation of the outcome, we sympathise with Antrodemus. And Manospondylus too.
