Pronunciation: BAYT-uh-SOOK-us
Meaning: 'B' crocodile
Author/s: von Huene (1923)
Synonyms: Megalosaurus bredai
First Discovery: Maastricht, Holland
Discovery Chart Position: #131
Betasuchus bredai
Discovered in the Netherlands near Maastricht, Betasuchus is known only from a single, incomplete femur that took a bit of a battering at the hands of ham-fisted quarrymen during extraction. Bow-saws are never the best tools for precision excavations, and to top it off they never even bothered to log the temporal horizon. Sheesh.
It was first described as Megalosaurus bredai by Harry Govier Seeley in 1883 in honor of the late Dutch geologist Jacob Gijsbertus Samuel van Breda, but von Huene is never far away when there is Megalosaurus muck to wallow in. Assuming it was actually a second hitherto unknown species of ornithomimosaur, he gave it the provisional title "Ornithomimidorum gen. b" in 1926 before officially renaming it Betasuchus in 1932. For clarity; "Ornithomimidorum gen. a" was initially known as Megalosaurus lonzeensis (Dollo, 1903), and Oskar Kuhn transferred it to Ornithomimus in 1965.
Being known from such meagre fossils, the appearance of Betasuchus is, well, uncertain, but it has been the subject of much moving and shaking on the theropod dinosaur family tree. David Norman labelled it a nomen dubium (1990), le Loeuff and Buffetaut considered it an abelisaur close to Tarascosaurus (1991), and Carpenter et al were convinced it was a tyrannosauroid akin to Dryptosaurus in 1997. Dale Russell, however, had tagged Betasuchus a "nomen vanum" (failed emendation) back in 1972 claiming dinosaurs that are based upon undiognostic remains are in no position to be accepting new names, and all things considered he may have a valid point.
It was first described as Megalosaurus bredai by Harry Govier Seeley in 1883 in honor of the late Dutch geologist Jacob Gijsbertus Samuel van Breda, but von Huene is never far away when there is Megalosaurus muck to wallow in. Assuming it was actually a second hitherto unknown species of ornithomimosaur, he gave it the provisional title "Ornithomimidorum gen. b" in 1926 before officially renaming it Betasuchus in 1932. For clarity; "Ornithomimidorum gen. a" was initially known as Megalosaurus lonzeensis (Dollo, 1903), and Oskar Kuhn transferred it to Ornithomimus in 1965.
Being known from such meagre fossils, the appearance of Betasuchus is, well, uncertain, but it has been the subject of much moving and shaking on the theropod dinosaur family tree. David Norman labelled it a nomen dubium (1990), le Loeuff and Buffetaut considered it an abelisaur close to Tarascosaurus (1991), and Carpenter et al were convinced it was a tyrannosauroid akin to Dryptosaurus in 1997. Dale Russell, however, had tagged Betasuchus a "nomen vanum" (failed emendation) back in 1972 claiming dinosaurs that are based upon undiognostic remains are in no position to be accepting new names, and all things considered he may have a valid point.
Etymology
Betasuchus is derived from the Greek "beta" (second letter of their alphabet) and "soukhos" (crocodile) alluding to von Huene's designation of the species as "Ornithomimidorum genus b" - a hitherto unknown genus of ornithomimid.
The species epithet, bredai, is named for the late Dutch biologist and geologist Jacob Gijsbertus Samuel van Breda.
Discovery
The remains of Betasuchus were discovered at the St Pietersberg chalkstone quarry (aka "the Maastrict theropod site") in the Maastricht beds, near Maastricht, Limburg, Holland, and aquired by Jacob Gijsbertus Samuël van Breda some time between 1820 and 1860. Although director of the Teylers Museum, Breda purchased the fossil for his personal collection. It was sold to the British Museum of Natural History after his death in 1867. The holotype (NHM R 42997) is a partial right femur (312 mm long). In keeping with the chopping-and-changing theme the holotype was originally catalogued as BMNH 42997.
