Syntarsus

fused ankle

• syn · Greek · together, fused
• tarsos · Greek · ankle (tarsus)

The name combines the Greek words for "together" or "fused" and "ankle". Raath chose it because the ankle bones (tarsals) of this small theropod are fused to each other. The name turned out to be already used for a beetle (Syntarsus Fairmaire, 1869), so it was replaced.

Named by

Raath

Year named

1969

Period

Early Jurassic

Found in

Zimbabwe (type species S. rhodesiensis, Forest Sandstone); a second species, S. kayentakatae, came from the Kayenta Formation, Arizona, USA

Preoccupied name (junior homonym of a beetle genus). It was replaced by Megapnosaurus (Ivie, Slipinski and Wegrzynowicz, 2001) for the African species. The Arizona species was later placed in Megapnosaurus or Coelophysis, and some researchers treat Megapnosaurus as a synonym of Coelophysis. The name is still widely used informally.