''Belinurus'' is an extinct genus of arthropods belonging to the order

Xiphosura Xiphosura (; , in reference to its sword-like telson) is an order of arthropods related to arachnids. They are more commonly known as horseshoe crabs (a name applied more specifically to the only extant family, Horseshoe crab, Limulidae). They fir ...

. It is part of the family

Belinuridae Belinuridae is an extinct family of arthropods belonging to the order Xiphosura Xiphosura (; , in reference to its sword-like telson) is an order of arthropods related to arachnids. They are more commonly known as horseshoe crabs (a name applie ...

, in the infraorder Belinurina. There used to be a longstanding academic controversy on whether ''Belinurus'' (König, 1820), ''Belinurus'' (Bronn, 1839) or ''Bellinurus'' (Pictet, 1846) had priority as a name over the genus. In 2021, the American paleontologist James C. Lamsdell did a study on this controversy and determined that the first name was not formally published and was therefore invalid and that the second one was valid and therefore had priority over the third one, the name of the genus thus being ''Belinurus''. The genus ''Belinurus'' is composed by the species ''B. trilobitoides'' (the

type species In International_Code_of_Zoological_Nomenclature, zoological nomenclature, a type species (''species typica'') is the species name with which the name of a genus or subgenus is considered to be permanently taxonomically associated, i.e., the spe ...

), ''B. lacoei'', ''B. silesiacus'', ''B. sustai'' and the dubious species ''B. iswariensis'', ''B. kiltorcanensis''. ''B. metschensis'' and ''B. stepanovi''.

References

Xiphosura Fossils of Wales {{paleo-arthropod-stub