''Tuebingosaurus'' (meaning "

Tübingen Tübingen (; ) is a traditional college town, university city in central Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It is situated south of the state capital, Stuttgart, and developed on both sides of the Neckar and Ammer (Neckar), Ammer rivers. about one in ...

lizard") is a genus of

massopoda 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 ...

n sauropodomorph dinosaur 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 ...

Trossingen Formation The Trossingen Formation, formerly the Knollenmergel (also known as the Arnstadt Formation), is a geological formation in Germany and Switzerland. It dates back to the late Norian-Rhaetian. It belongs to the Keuper Group of the Germanic Triassi ...

of Germany. The type and only species is ''T. maierfritzorum'', originally identified as a specimen of ''

Plateosaurus ''Plateosaurus'' (probably meaning "broad lizard", often mistranslated as "flat lizard") is a genus of plateosaurid dinosaur that lived during the Late Triassic period, around 214 to 204 million years ago, in what is now Central and Northern Eu ...

''.

Discovery and naming

The holotype, GPIT-PV-30787, also known as "GPIT IV", is a partial postcranial skeleton. It was discovered in 1922 and stored in the paleontological collection of the university of Tübingen. It was originally assigned to the species ''

Gresslyosaurus ''Gresslyosaurus'' (meaning "Amanz Gressly's lizard") is a genus of plateosaurian sauropodomorph dinosaur that lived during the Late Triassic period, around 214 to 204 million years ago, in France, Germany, Norway, Greenland and Switzerland. Di ...

plieningeri''.von Huene F (1932) Die fossile Reptil-Ordnung Saurischia, ihre Entwicklung und Geschichte. ''Monographien zur Geologie und Palaeontologie'' (Serie 1) 4: 1–361. Later, it was considered an exemplar of ''Plateosaurus'', sometimes being used as reference materials for phylogenetic analyses using its name. However, it actually contains several features with more derived sauropodomorphs, which allowed it to be named as the distinct taxon ''Tuebingosaurus maierfritzorum'' in 2022. The generic name, "''Tuebingosaurus''", honors the city of Tübingen while the specific name, "''maierfritzorum''", refers to both Uwe Fritz and Wolfgang Maier; the former is an editor at the journal ''

Vertebrate Zoology Vertebrate zoology is the biological discipline that consists of the study of Vertebrate animals, i.e., animals with a backbone, such as fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals. Many natural history museums have departments named ''Vertebrat ...

'' which hosted a ''

Festschrift In academia, a ''Festschrift'' (; plural, ''Festschriften'' ) is a book honoring a respected person, especially an academic, and presented during their lifetime. It generally takes the form of an edited volume, containing contributions from the h ...

'' honoring Maier; its description was a part of this academic event.

Classification

Although its describers only assigned it as a massopodan sauropodomorph, they also performed a phylogenetic analysis which placed it within the Sauropoda proper, possibly close to ''

Schleitheimia ''Schleitheimia'' (named after the type locality of Schleitheim), is an extinct genus of sauropodiform sauropodomorph dinosaur, from the Gruhalde Member of Klettgau Formation of Switzerland. The type species, ''Schleitheimia schutzi'' was formall ...

''.

Paleoenvironment

The Trossingen Formation was originally interpreted as a synchronic deposit of animals, but is now considered to be a constant accumulation of mired carcasses that were deposited over hundreds of years by a river. Other specimens from this deposit include the theropod ''

Liliensternus ''Liliensternus'' is an extinct genus of basal neotheropod dinosaur that lived approximately 210 million years ago during the latter part of the Triassic Period in what is now Germany. ''Liliensternus'' was a bipedal, ground-dwelling carnivore ...

'' and several sauropodomorphs assigned to ''

'' and several associated names, which are in need of revision.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q113859091 Massopoda Dinosaur genera Norian dinosaurs Fossil taxa described in 2022 Dinosaurs of Germany