Fulengia
Extinct genus of dinosaurs
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Fulengia is a dubious genus of basal sauropodomorph dinosaur from the Early Jurassic Lufeng Formation of China.[1] The type species, F. youngi, was described by Carroll and Galton in 1977.[2] It is a nomen dubium and may be the same animal as Lufengosaurus (from which it is anagramized). It was originally thought to be a lizard.
| Fulengia Temporal range: Early Jurassic, | |
|---|---|
Scientific classification  | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Reptilia |
| Clade: | Dinosauria |
| Clade: | Saurischia |
| Clade: | †Sauropodomorpha |
| Clade: | †Massopoda |
| Genus: | †Fulengia Carroll and Galton, 1977 |
| Species: | †F. youngi |
| Binomial name | |
| †Fulengia youngi Carroll and Galton, 1977 | |
History
The holotype of Fulengia (CUP 2037), a mineralised lump containing a small skull, just under 4 centimetres (1.6 in) long, a single vertebra, and a jumble of unidentifiable bones, was originally catalogued as a juvenile specimen of Yunnanosaurus huangi by Simmons in 1965,[3] who reckoned they were "coprolitic in origin", but there is no way to accurately prove this.[3] Twelve years later Carroll and Galton reclassified it as a lizard of Late Triassic age and named the species Fulengia youngi.[2]
The holotype remains, and two other nodules (CUP 2038a and CUP 2038b)[4] from the same site were also found during reinspection of the Catholic University of Peking collections in 1989.[5] In 1989, Evans and Milner classified Fulengia as an Early Jurassic sauropodomorph.[5]
