Saltopus
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Saltopus Temporal range: Late Triassic, 228 Ma |
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| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Reptilia |
| Clade: | Dinosauriformes |
| Genus: |
†Saltopus Huene, 1910 |
| Species: | †S. elginensis |
| Binomial name | |
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Saltopus elginensis Huene, 1910 |
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Saltopus ("hopping foot") is a genus of very small bipedal dinosauriforms containing the single species S. elginensis from the late Triassic period of Scotland.
Saltopus elginensis is known only from a single partial skeleton lacking the skull but including parts of the vertebral column, the forelimbs, the pelvis and the hindlimbs. These have been mainly preserved as impressions or natural casts in the sandstone; very little bone material is present. It was about the size of a domestic cat, and would have been roughly 80–100 centimetres (31–39 in) long. It had hollow bones like those of birds and other dinosaurs. It may have weighed around 1 kilogram (2.2 lb). Most of the length was accounted for by the tail. It had five-fingered hands, with the fourth and fifth finger reduced in size. Contrary to the original description, in 2011 it was established that the sacrum (hip vertebrae) as made up of two vertebrae, the primitive ancestral condition, not four.
The only known fossil of Saltopus was discovered by William Taylor in the Lossiemouth West & East Quarries. It was named and described by Friedrich von Huene in 1910 as the type species Saltopus elginensis. The generic name is derived from Latin saltare, "to jump" and Greek πούς, pous, "foot". The specific name refers to its provenance near Elgin. The holotype NHMUK R.3915, was excavated from the Lossiemouth Sandstone Formation dating from the Carnian-Norian stage.
Saltopus has been variously identified as a saurischian (lizard-hipped) dinosaur, a more advanced theropod, and a close relative of the herrerasaurs, but its taxonomy has been in dispute because only fragmentary remains have been recovered. Some researchers, such as Gregory S. Paul, have suggested it may represent a juvenile specimen of a coelophysid theropod such as Coelophysis or Procompsognathus. Rauhut and Hungerbühler in 2000 concluded it is a primitive dinosauriform, not a true dinosaur, closely related to Lagosuchus.Michael Benton, continuing the studies of the late Alick Walker redescribing the fossil, in 2011 found it to be a dinosauriform more derived than Pseudolagosuchus and outside the smallest clade including Silesauridae and Dinosauria.
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