Fulgurotherium

lightning beast

• fulgur · Latin · lightning
• therium · Greek · beast

The name combines the Latin word 'fulgur' (lightning) with the Greek suffix '-therium' (beast or wild animal). It was named after Lightning Ridge, the opal-mining town in New South Wales, Australia, where the fossils were discovered. The "lightning" element is thus a direct reference to the locality's name rather than any physical attribute of the animal itself.

Named by

von Huene

Year named

1932

Period

Early Cretaceous

Stage

Albian

Found in

Griman Creek Formation (formerly Wallumbilla Formation), Lightning Ridge, New South Wales, Australia

Fulgurotherium is generally regarded as a nomen dubium. It was described by Friedrich von Huene in 1932 on the basis of fragmentary material — primarily isolated femur fragments — from Lightning Ridge. It has been tentatively classified as a small ornithopod (hypsilophodontid-grade dinosaur), but the material is too incomplete to confidently diagnose a valid genus. Some later-described Lightning Ridge material was referred to it, but that referral is also uncertain.