Avipes Temporal range: Middle Triassic, 240 Ma |
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Foot | |
Scientific classification | |
Kingdom: | Animalia |
Phylum: | Chordata |
Class: | Reptilia |
Clade: | Archosauria |
Genus: | †Avipes |
Type species | |
†Avipes dillstedtianus Huene, 1932 |
Avipes (meaning "bird foot") is a genus of extinct archosaurians represented by the single species Avipes dillstedtianus, which lived during the middle Triassic period. The only known fossil specimen, a partial foot (metatarsals), was found in Bedheim, Thuringia, Germany, in deposits of Lettenkohlensandstein (a form of sandstone). Avipes was named in 1932 by Huene. Although originally classified as a coelurosaur or a ceratosaur, a new study of the fossil specimen found that it was too incomplete to assign to a group more specific than Archosauria, and so it was regarded as indeterminate by Rauhut and Hungerbuhler in 2000.