The Theropod Anchisaurus?

["Thomas R. Holtz, Jr." <tholtz@geol.umd.edu>]

Greetings,

Some of you were wondering why Lull might have a) named Anchisauripus after
Anchisaurus, and b) considered Anchisauripus theropod tracks.

Don't have a copy of Lull handy, but one likely reason was that he, like
many authors at thet time, considered anchisaurids and plateosaurids to be
theropods.  Huene did not name "Prosauropoda" until 1920 and Sauropodomorpha
until 1932.  Most earlier authors considered the then-known prosauropods
(including relatively complete taxa such as Anchisaurus, Ammosaurus, and
Plateosaurus) as primitive members of Theropoda.

                Thomas R. Holtz, Jr.
                Vertebrate Paleontologist
Department of Geology           Director, Earth, Life & Time Program
University of Maryland          College Park Scholars
                College Park, MD  20742
http://www.geol.umd.edu/~tholtz/tholtz.htm
http://www.geol.umd.edu/~jmerck/eltsite
Phone:  301-405-4084    Email:  tholtz@geol.umd.edu
Fax (Geol):  301-314-9661       Fax (CPS-ELT): 301-405-0796