Kynigosaurus
| Kynigosaurus Temporal range: Bathonian?, 167 Ma |
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| Life restoration based off the 2019 paper by Nitz | |||
| Scientific classification | |||
| Kingdom: | Animalia | ||
| Phylum: | Chordata | ||
| Class: | Reptilia | ||
| Superorder: | Dinosauria | ||
| Suborder: | Theropoda | ||
| Family: | †Megalosauridae | ||
| Subfamily: | †Afrovenatorinae | ||
| Genus: | †Kynigosaurus | ||
| Species | |||
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| Synonyms | |||
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Kynigosaurus (meaning "toothy hunter" in Greek) - suggested names included Afrovenator tyrannius, Elaphrotyrannus,Tyranniusaurus ebe and E-Tyrannus, is the name for a dubious genus of theropod dinosaurs which may have been the same animal as Afrovenator. It was formally named and described in 2019.This species lived during the Middle Jurassic period in what is now northeastern Niger. One tooth of Kynigosaurus odontotos, the type and only species, exists and was discovered during the 1930s in an unknown formation in Niger.
Discovery and naming[edit]
The slang term "E-Tyrannus" was first used in 1957 by paleontologists who were trying to figure out what the tooth found in a Nigerian farmer's ranch belonged to. The word E comes from early and tyrannos (τύραννος, "tyrant"), a reference to its original classification as an early member of the Tyrannosauroidea. It is now classified as a basal Afrovenatorine related to Afrovenator. The name E-Tyrannus means 'early tyrant'.
The name Kynigosaurus was not used until 2019, when the genus was formally described by Krumpun Nitz, the purported buyer of the tooth in 1957.
Kynigosaurus is only known from one complete tooth acquired from a fossil dealer who claimed the tooth had its provenance in a single quarry within an unknown Nigerian farm. They were thus probably found in a layer of the Tiourarén Formation, dating from the Bathonian, approximately 167 million years old. The specimens had been cut into pieces about the size of bath mats, which could be carried by two people.
The holotype, UC OBA 31, consists of a single tooth almost destroyed in 1966. A possible paratype was discovered in 2002 (known as UC OBA 65), consisting of a tooth of a smaller individual too from Niger. The fossils are part of the collections of the University of Chicago but have been prepared by the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, under no guidance.
Description[edit]
According to a 2018 study, Kynigosaurus would have been somewhat around 4-6 meters long.