Bothriospondylus

Bothriospondylus Temporal range: Late Jurassic, 161.2–150.8 Ma PreЄ Є O S D C P T J K Pg N
Illustration of the vertebrae
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Reptilia
Clade:	Dinosauria
Order:	Saurischia
Suborder:	†Sauropodomorpha
Clade:	†Neosauropoda
Clade:	†Macronaria
Clade:	†Titanosauriformes
Family:	†Bothriospondylidae Lydekker, 1895
Genus:	†Bothriospondylus Owen, 1875
Species:	†B. suffossus
Binomial name
Bothriospondylus suffossus Owen, 1875

Bothriospondylus ("excavated vertebra") is an dubious genus of sauropod dinosaur. It lived during the Late Jurassic.

The type species, Bothriospondylus suffossus, was described by Richard Owen in 1875. The specific epithet suffossus means "undermined" in Latin, a reference to the fact that pleurocoels had hollowed out the sides of the vertebra. It is often incorrectly spelled as "suffosus". Owen based the species on holotype BMNH R44592-5, a set of four dorsal vertebrae found in Wiltshire in a stratum from the Kimmeridgian, the Kimmeridge Clay. Also three unfused sacral vertebrae were referred.

At the same time Owen named three other species of Bothriospondylus. B. robustus was based on BMNH R22428, a dorsal from the same location. B. elongatus was based on a vertebra from Sussex, BMNH R2239, an original syntype of Ornithopsis hulkei. Finally, B. magnus was a new name for another syntype of Ornithopsis hulkei Seeley 1870, the present lectotype NHM 28632. Owen himself in an addendum to the same publication renamed B. robustus to Marmarospondylus robustus. Friedrich von Huene in 1908 referred the material to Pelorosaurus and in 1922 made B. suffossus into a Ornithopsis suffossa because the latter generic name has priority. Nevertheless other finds were referred to Bothriospondylus. Franz Nopcsa in 1902 had already done that with a vertebra from Argentina that later would be renamed Nopcsaspondylus. Fragments from France and teeth from Portugal would follow.