Liliensternus

(Hugo Rühle von) Lilienstern's [dinosaur]

• Lilienstern · German (surname) · Hugo Rühle von Lilienstern, the person honoured
• -us · Latin · Latinised masculine noun ending

Liliensternus honours Hugo Rühle von Lilienstern, a German fossil collector and museum figure who took part in the discovery of the fossils in the 1930s. The species was first named Halticosaurus liliensterni by Friedrich von Huene in 1934. Samuel Welles later made a new genus for it in 1984 and built the name from the species epithet plus a Latinised "-us" ending. The name refers to a person, not to any feature of the animal.

Named by

Welles

Year named

1984

Period

Late Triassic

Stage

Norian

Found in

Trossingen Formation, Thuringia, Germany

A early theropod (a coelophysoid or close relative), about 5 m long. The type species is L. liliensterni. It was first described as a species of Halticosaurus. The exact age and formation details vary between sources.