''Avalonianus'' is a highly dubious and possibly invalid genus of

archosaur Archosauria () or archosaurs () is a clade of diapsid sauropsid tetrapods, with birds and crocodilians being the only extant taxon, extant representatives. Although broadly classified as reptiles, which traditionally exclude birds, the cladistics ...

from the

Late Triassic The Late Triassic is the third and final epoch (geology), epoch of the Triassic geologic time scale, Period in the geologic time scale, spanning the time between annum, Ma and Ma (million years ago). It is preceded by the Middle Triassic Epoch a ...

Westbury Formation The Westbury Formation is a geological Formation (geology), formation in England, one of the Penarth Group. It dates back to the Rhaetian.Weishampel, David B; et al. (2004). "Dinosaur distribution (Late Triassic, Europe)." In: Weishampel, David B. ...

England England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...

. It was first described in 1898 by

Harry Seeley Harry Govier Seeley (18 February 1839 – 8 January 1909) was a British paleontologist. Early life Seeley was born in London on 18 February 1839, the second son of Richard Hovill Seeley, a goldsmith, and his second wife Mary Govier. When his fa ...

with the name ''Avalonia'',H. G. Seeley. (1898). On large terrestrial saurians from the Rhaetic Beds of Wedmore Hill, described as ''Avalonia sanfordi'' and ''

Picrodon ''Picrodon'' is the name given to a genus of archosaur, possibly a sauropodomorph dinosaur, from the Rhaetian of England which was possibly synonymous with the dubious archosaur '' Avalonianus''. The type, and only species, ''P. herveyi'', was ...

herveyi''. Geological Magazine, decade 4 5:1-6 but that name was preoccupied (Walcott, 1889), so

Oskar Kuhn Oskar Kuhn (7 March 1908, Munich – 1 May 1990) was a German palaeontologist. Life and career Kuhn was educated in Dinkelsbühl and Bamberg and then studied natural science, specialising in geology and paleontology, at the University of Mun ...

renamed it in 1961, albeit with no epithet (although Seeley added the epithet ''sanfordi'' in 1898). It was thought to be a

prosauropod Sauropodomorpha ( ; from Greek, meaning "lizard-footed forms") is an extinct clade of long-necked, herbivorous, saurischian dinosaurs that includes the Sauropoda, sauropods and their ancestral relatives. Sauropods generally grew to very large siz ...

, but later analysis revealed it was actually a

chimera Chimera, Chimaera, or Chimaira (Greek for " she-goat") originally referred to: * Chimera (mythology), a fire-breathing monster of ancient Lycia said to combine parts from multiple animals * Mount Chimaera, a fire-spewing region of Lycia or Cilicia ...

, with the original teeth coming from a non-dinosaurian

ornithosuchian Avemetatarsalia (meaning "bird metatarsals") is a clade of diapsid reptiles containing all archosaurs more closely related to birds than to crocodilians. The two most successful groups of avemetatarsalians were the dinosaurs and pterosaurs. Dinos ...

(or possibly an early

theropod Theropoda (; from ancient Greek , (''therion'') "wild beast"; , (''pous, podos'') "foot"">wiktionary:ποδός"> (''pous, podos'') "foot" is one of the three major groups (clades) of dinosaurs, alongside Ornithischia and Sauropodom ...

), and later-referred post-cranial prosauropod remains (which were renamed ''

Camelotia ''Camelotia'' (meaning "from Camelot") is a genus of sauropodomorph dinosaur from the Late Triassic or Early Jurassic in what is now England. Paleontologists are divided on which family it may belong to; in the past, ''Camelotia'' has generally b ...

'').Go to ''Camelotia''
for more information The only sufficient remains attributable to ''Avalonianus'' are several now lost fossil teeth from the chimera that were referred to Archosauria.

References

Prehistoric archosaurs Late Triassic reptiles of Europe Paleontological chimeras Fossil taxa described in 1961 {{paleo-archosaur-stub