Palaeoscincus

ancient skink

• palaeo- · Greek · ancient, old
• skinkos (scincus) · Greek/Latin · skink (a type of lizard)

The name combines the Greek word 'palaeos' (ancient) with the Latinised Greek 'scincus' (skink, a type of smooth-scaled lizard). Joseph Leidy coined it in 1856 based on isolated teeth that reminded him of the teeth of a skink lizard, only much older and larger. The name thus reflects both the great age of the animal and the superficial resemblance of its teeth to those of modern skinks.

Named by

Leidy

Year named

1856

Period

Late Cretaceous

Stage

Campanian

Found in

Judith River Formation, Montana, USA

Palaeoscincus is a classic nomen dubium — it was described from only a few isolated teeth, which are far too fragmentary to be reliably assigned to any particular ankylosaur species or even family. For much of the 19th and early 20th century the name was loosely applied to a great many armoured dinosaur remains from North America, and it appeared in many popular books as a 'standard' ankylosaur, but it can no longer be meaningfully diagnosed. It is not a junior synonym of any specific genus but rather an indeterminate ankylosaur. The name does not belong to any other group; it is a true (if undiagnosable) dinosaur.