Avipes

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Avipes
Temporal range: Middle Triassic, 240  Ma
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Avipes.jpg
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Scientific classification Red Pencil Icon.png
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Reptilia
Clade: Archosauria (?)
Genus: Avipes
Type species
Avipes dillstedtianus
Huene, 1932

Avipes (meaning "bird foot") is a genus of extinct archosaurs represented by the single species Avipes dillstedtianus, which lived during the middle Triassic period. The only known fossil specimen, a partial foot (metatarsals), was found in Bedheim, Thuringia, Germany, in deposits of Lettenkohlensandstein (a form of sandstone). Avipes was named in 1932 by Huene. Although originally classified as a coelurosaur or a ceratosaur, a new study of the fossil specimen found that it was too incomplete to assign to a group more specific than Archosauria, and so it was regarded as indeterminate by Rauhut and Hungerbuhler in 2000. [1]

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References

  1. Rauhut, O. W., and Hungerbühler, A. (2000). "A review of European Triassic theropods." Gaia, 15: 75-88.