Lexovisaurus

Lexovii lizard

• Lexovii · Latin · the Lexovii (a Gallic tribe of ancient Normandy)
• saurus · Greek · lizard

The name combines "Lexovii," the Latin name for an ancient Gaulish tribe who inhabited the region of present-day Normandy and Calvados in northern France, with the Greek word "sauros," meaning lizard. It was chosen because the fossils were recovered from rocks in the Calvados region of France, the heartland of the Lexovii people. The name therefore means "Lexovii's lizard," honoring the ancient inhabitants of the land where the dinosaur was found.

Named by

Hoffstetter

Year named

1957

Period

Middle Jurassic

Stages

Callovian – Oxfordian

Found in

Normandy (Calvados), France, and possibly England

Lexovisaurus is currently considered a nomen dubium. It was a stegosaurid dinosaur, related to Stegosaurus, and was one of the earliest known stegosaurs from Europe. The genus was erected on fragmentary material, and some specimens previously assigned to it have been reassigned to other genera (e.g., Loricatosaurus). Its taxonomic validity is doubted because the type material is too incomplete to reliably diagnose a distinct genus.