It's still possible engelhardti can go to its own genus, as Iguanodon anglicus was once reassigned to its own genus "Therosaurus" because the type species of Iguanodon was transferred to I. bernissartensis. But the literature seems to use trossingensis for material once assigned to engelhardti, which is concerning.
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I'm actually curious about this as well. The ICZN designated trossingensis the type species, but didn't explicitly grant it any priority over other species names. So sure there are the possibilities of viewing engelhardti as indeterminate at the species level
or above, or viewing it as a separate diagnosable species than P. trossingensis. But if someone does the latter, are they allowed to create a new genus name for engelhardti like 'Euplateosaurus' since Plateosaurus is based on trossingensis now? Or, if somebody
thinks the species are synonymous, should they call the resulting taxon Plateosaurus engelhardti because engelhardti still has priority? It's like how the type species of Tarbosaurus is T. efremovi, but if Tyrannosaurus bataar is synonymous like most everyone
thinks, it's called Tarbosaurus bataar because that species was named first.
Mickey Mortimer
As you may know, in 2019 the ICZN changed the type species of Plateosaurus from
P. engelhardti to P. trossingensis, on the grounds that the former is undiagnostic. Several papers published since then (e.g. Nau
et al. 2020 and Lallensack et al. 2021) have followed this, using
trossingensis when referring to material once considered to be from engelhardti. But what happened to
engelhardti? Can it still be viewed as a separate, albeit dubious species of
Plateosaurus, or has it been synonymized with P. trossingensis (which is improper, as
engelhardti has priority)? I'm confused. Thanks in advance.
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