Dryptosauroides

• Madhya Pradesh, India ( Lameta Formation)

• Dryptosauroides grandis

Dryptosauroides is a dubious ( doubtful ) genus of theropod dinosaur from the Upper Cretaceous ( Maastrichtian ) of India. It is only known from a few vertebrae and rib fragments, which were discovered near the town of Jabalpur in the layers of Lameta lineup. Today Dryptosauroides is classified within the Ceratosauria. The only way is Dryptosauroides grandis.

Features

Known are six fragmentary vertebrae, a cervical vertebra and four fragmentary ribs. The vertebrae are from the rear of the fuselage, as the vertebral bodies showed no Pleurocoele (lateral cavities ). Overall, the bone follow the blueprint that is typical for representatives of Abelisauridae.

System

Initially was Dryptosauroides as a representative of the Coelurosauria. Novas (2004 ) showed that it was a representative of the Ceratosauria, which may be classified within the Abelisauroidea.

History of research, naming and validity

Coeluroides was described in 1933 by the paleontologist Friedrich von Huene and Charles Matley; The findings come from the layers of Lameta formation near the city Jabalpur. The name Dryptosauroides means as much as " Dryptosaurus -like"; von Huene and Matley chose this name because they found similarities with the genus Dryptosaurus.

Since the fossils show no features that allow differentiation from other genres Dryptosauroides is now considered as a noun dubium. Dryptosauroides joins more than half a dozen genera of Abelisauroidea that have been described from the Lameta lineup. Since the bones were rarely found in the context, but usually insulated, and since a large part of these fossils has been lost today, these genera can not make sense distinguish from each other in the current situation. So was the bone material, which has been described as Dryptosauroides, Coeluroides, Lametasaurus, Indosuchus, Indosaurus, Ornithomimoides mobilis and Rajasaurus, probably only one or two different genera.