Amanzia
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''Amanzia'' (after Swiss geologist Amanz Gressly) is a genus of
turiasauria Turiasauria is an unranked clade of basal sauropod dinosaurs known from Middle Jurassic to Early Cretaceous deposits in Europe, North America, and Africa. Description Turiasauria was originally erected by Royo-Torres et al. (2006) to include '' ...
n sauropod
dinosaur Dinosaurs are a diverse group of reptiles of the clade Dinosauria. They first appeared during the Triassic period, between 243 and 233.23 million years ago (mya), although the exact origin and timing of the evolution of dinosaurs is t ...
from the Reuchenette Formation in
Moutier Moutier () is a municipality in Switzerland. Currently, the town belongs to the Jura bernois administrative district of the canton of Bern. On 28 March 2021, the population voted to secede from the canton of Bern and join the Canton of Jura; the ...
, Switzerland. The type and only species is ''Amanzia greppini'', originally named as a species of ''
Ornithopsis ''Ornithopsis'' (meaning "bird-likeness") was a medium-sized Early Cretaceous sauropod dinosaur, from England. The type species, which is the only species seen as valid today, is ''O. hulkei''. History of discovery Gideon Algernon Mantell descr ...
'' and '' Cetiosauriscus''.


Discovery and naming

The
holotype A holotype is a single physical example (or illustration) of an organism, known to have been used when the species (or lower-ranked taxon) was formally described. It is either the single such physical example (or illustration) or one of sever ...
remains were originally discovered in the 1860s, by workers in a limestone quarry in the Basse Montagne. Some of the remains were sold to collectors; when geologist Jean-Baptiste Greppin heard of this situation, he acquired all remaining bones and added them to the collection of the '' Naturhistorisches Museum Basel''. Due to being found in association with the
theropod Theropoda (; ), whose members are known as theropods, is a dinosaur clade that is characterized by hollow bones and three toes and claws on each limb. Theropods are generally classed as a group of saurischian dinosaurs. They were ancestrally c ...
tooth MH 350 found near
Moutier Moutier () is a municipality in Switzerland. Currently, the town belongs to the Jura bernois administrative district of the canton of Bern. On 28 March 2021, the population voted to secede from the canton of Bern and join the Canton of Jura; the ...
that probably belonged to ''
Ceratosaurus ''Ceratosaurus'' (from Greek κέρας/κέρατος, ' meaning "horn" and σαῦρος ' meaning "lizard") was a carnivorous theropod dinosaur in the Late Jurassic period ( Kimmeridgian to Tithonian). The genus was first described in 1 ...
'' or an indeterminate member of the
Ceratosauria Ceratosaurs are members of the clade Ceratosauria, a group of dinosaurs defined as all theropods sharing a more recent common ancestor with ''Ceratosaurus'' than with birds. The oldest known ceratosaur, '' Saltriovenator'', dates to the earliest ...
, they were misidentified as belonging to a predatory dinosaur, for which Greppin in 1870 coined the name "''
Megalosaurus ''Megalosaurus'' (meaning "great lizard", from Greek , ', meaning 'big', 'tall' or 'great' and , ', meaning 'lizard') is an extinct genus of large carnivorous theropod dinosaurs of the Middle Jurassic period (Bathonian stage, 166 million years ...
meriani''" (named after Peter Merian). In 1920,
Werner Janensch Werner Ernst Martin Janensch (11 November 1878 – 20 October 1969) was a German paleontologist and geologist. Biography Janensch was born at Herzberg (Elster). In addition to Friedrich von Huene, Janensch was probably Germany's most impo ...
reassigned the tooth to the genus '' Labrosaurus''. However, in 1922, Janensch realized the vertebrae belonged to a sauropod, so he wrote to Friedrich von Huene, who gave them the name ''Ornithopsis greppini''. In 1927, von Huene assigned the species to his new genus '' Cetiosauriscus''. From then on it has received little attention, with the few papers that mention it usually calling it a '' nomen dubium'' without further comment. After its fossils were for the first time cleaned and prepared, in 2003 by Antoine Heitz, it was realized not to be closely related to ''Cetiosauriscus''. In 2005, a master thesis by C. Hofer was dedicated to the subject. In 2007, the rare presence of fossilised cartilage in a limb joint was reported.Schwarz, D., Wings, O., & Meyer, C.A. 2007. "Super sizing the giants: first cartilage preservation at a sauropod limb joint". ''Journal of the Geological Society'', 164: 61–65 In 2020, Daniela Schwarz, Philip D. Mannion, Oliver Wings and Christian A. Meyer gave it the genus name ''Amanzia'', after Swiss geologist Amanz Gressly, who was the first to discover dinosaur bones in Switzerland. ''Amanzia'' is itself the first sauropod named from Swiss remains. In 2020, no
lectotype In biology, a type is a particular specimen (or in some cases a group of specimens) of an organism to which the scientific name of that organism is formally attached. In other words, a type is an example that serves to anchor or centralizes the ...
was selected, the naming authors maintaining the original
syntype In biological nomenclature, a syntype is any one of two or more biological types that is listed in a description of a taxon where no holotype was designated. Precise definitions of this and related terms for types have been established as part of ...
series indicated by von Huene, consisting of forty-nine bones. The Reuchenette Formation in which they were found dates from the early
Kimmeridgian In the geologic timescale, the Kimmeridgian is an age in the Late Jurassic Epoch and a stage in the Upper Jurassic Series. It spans the time between 157.3 ± 1.0 Ma and 152.1 ± 0.9 Ma (million years ago). The Kimmeridgian follows the Oxford ...
, about 157 million years old. They include some neck vertebrae, many tail vertebrae and material from the shoulder girdle, the pelvis and limbs. Seventy-five additional sauropod specimens in the collection of the museum, from the same site as the syntypes, were in 2020 referred to the species. These also include some limited skull material and a broken tooth. The bones are not articulated, have generally been strongly compressed and had often been damaged when being forcefully removed from the rock. Von Huene had already concluded that the material represented two or three individuals; in 2020 this was increased to a minimum of four. Of these, individuals "A" and "B" have about the same size, while an individual "C" is 15% longer and an individual "D" 20% shorter. None of the specimens are clearly juvenile.


References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q86426410 Turiasauria Late Jurassic dinosaurs of Europe Kimmeridgian life Fossils of Switzerland Fossil taxa described in 2020