Inosaurus (meaning "In Tedreft lizard") is the name given to a dubious genus of theropod dinosaur from the Early Cretaceous "Continental intercalaire" of Niger and possibly from the Late Cretaceous Baharija Formation of Egypt. The type, and only species, is Inosaurus tedreftensis.
Classification and taxonomy[]
The type specimen was described by Albert-Félix de Lapparent in 1960, after being discovered by the same person in 1953. The genus was also commented on in 1959. The binomial name is derived from the location of the site, In Tedreft. De Lapparent based the species on a set of remains found in a single location, a number of vertebrae and the top end of a left tibia, but they probably belong to an indeterminate theropod. They were discovered in a stratum of the Irhazer Group (?Aalenian-Callovian). He also indicated four other specimens, all vertebrae found in Niger in the Tegama Group, early Albian, as paratypes. All the specimens are part of the collection of the Muséum national d'histoire naturelle in Paris. Apart from these De Lapparent referred three vertebrae described by Ernst Stromer from the Baharija Formation of Egypt to Inosaurus, but they probably belong to an indeterminate theropod. All vertebrae share the same morphology. Despite being from a small animal they are robustly built and very high with enlarged chevron facets and a median groove on the underside.
Inosaurus is today considered a nomen dubium because of the fragmentary nature of the fossils discovered.
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