Pronunciation: FAB-ro-SOR-us
Meaning: Fabre's lizard
Author/s: Ginsburg (1964)
Synonyms: None known
First Discovery: Likhoele, Lesotho
Discovery Chart Position: #212
Fabrosaurus australis
Fabrosaurus, "Jean Fabre's lizard", named in 1964 for a tooth-bearing partial lower jaw from the Early Jurassic mudstones of Lesotho, is among the earliest known ornithischians, and was regarded as something of a trailblazer after Richard Thulborn referred several more specimens from the same quarry to it in the early seventies.
Initially placed in Scelidosauridae (Ginsburg, 1964), moved to Hypsilophodontidae (Thulborn, 1971), and then nominated to anchor Fabrosauridae (Galton, 1978), Fabrosaurus was thought to lack cheeks to aid with chewing, so it relied on tooth-to-tooth shearing, which was a stepping-stone towards more efficient herbivory. Its hips, too, were thought to mark the earliest evolutionary shift toward the backwards-pointing pubis that defines the true ornithischian (bird-hipped) pelvis. Then that all changed.
In 1974, Charig and Crompton relieved Fabrosaurus of those referred fossils, and Galton snaffled them to raise a new dinosaur that he named Lesothosaurus diagnosticus, which left Fabrosaurus with just the holotype jaw, but that remains a bone of contention. Both Gow and Thulborn are adamant that (1) Fabrosaurus is diagnostic on account of the highly characteristic shape, size, and structure of its teeth, (2) that all "fabrosaurid" remains from the Lower Jurassic of southern Africa belong to it, and (3) Lesothosaurus is its junior synonym. Pretty much everyone else, however, believes that Lesothosaurus diognosticus is the diagnostic one, and Fabrosaurus is dubious at best.
Initially placed in Scelidosauridae (Ginsburg, 1964), moved to Hypsilophodontidae (Thulborn, 1971), and then nominated to anchor Fabrosauridae (Galton, 1978), Fabrosaurus was thought to lack cheeks to aid with chewing, so it relied on tooth-to-tooth shearing, which was a stepping-stone towards more efficient herbivory. Its hips, too, were thought to mark the earliest evolutionary shift toward the backwards-pointing pubis that defines the true ornithischian (bird-hipped) pelvis. Then that all changed.
In 1974, Charig and Crompton relieved Fabrosaurus of those referred fossils, and Galton snaffled them to raise a new dinosaur that he named Lesothosaurus diagnosticus, which left Fabrosaurus with just the holotype jaw, but that remains a bone of contention. Both Gow and Thulborn are adamant that (1) Fabrosaurus is diagnostic on account of the highly characteristic shape, size, and structure of its teeth, (2) that all "fabrosaurid" remains from the Lower Jurassic of southern Africa belong to it, and (3) Lesothosaurus is its junior synonym. Pretty much everyone else, however, believes that Lesothosaurus diognosticus is the diagnostic one, and Fabrosaurus is dubious at best.
(Southern Fabre Lizard)Etymology
Fabrosaurus is derived from "Fabre" (in honour of Jean Henne Fabre, a French geologist and a colleague of Ginsburg on the expedition that collected its fossils) and the Greek "sauros" (lizard).The species epithet, australis, means "southern" in Latin and refers to its discovery in what was South Africa before it became Lesotho.
Discovery
The first remains of Fabrosaurus were discovered in the upper Elliot Formation at the Likhoele Mountain locality near Mafeteng settlement, Lesotho (previously known as Basutoland), by François Ellenberger, Jean Fabre, and Leonard Ginsburg in 1959.
The Holotype (MNHN LES9, housed at the Muséum national d'histoire naturelle) is a partial lower jaw bone with well-preserved teeth.
Specimens found by Dr K. A. Kermack and Mrs F. Mussett during a 1963-1964 expedition to Lesotho by the University College London (NHMUK RUB17 found on the northern flank of Likhoele Mountain, and NHMUK RUB23 from a hillside between Fort Hartley and Cutting Camp), were assigned to Fabrosaurus by Thulborn in 1970, 1971 and 1972. However, they were removed by Alan J. Charig and Alfred W. Crompton in 1974, and named Lesothosaurus by Peter Galton in 1978.
