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| - Fossils of Sarcosaurus were found in the Lower Lias of England. The type species, Sarcosaurus woodi, was first described by Charles William Andrews in 1921 shortly after a partial skeleton had been found by S.L. Wood near Barrow-on-Soar. The generic name is derived from Greek sarx, "flesh". The specific name honours Wood. The holotype, BMNH 4840/1, consists of a pelvis, a vertebra and the upper part of a femur. The preserved length of the femur is 31.5 centimetres.[1]
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abstract
| - Fossils of Sarcosaurus were found in the Lower Lias of England. The type species, Sarcosaurus woodi, was first described by Charles William Andrews in 1921 shortly after a partial skeleton had been found by S.L. Wood near Barrow-on-Soar. The generic name is derived from Greek sarx, "flesh". The specific name honours Wood. The holotype, BMNH 4840/1, consists of a pelvis, a vertebra and the upper part of a femur. The preserved length of the femur is 31.5 centimetres.[1] A second species, Sarcosaurus andrewsi, was named by Friedrich von Huene in 1932,[2] based on a 445 millimetres long tibia, BMNH R3542, described by Arthur Smith Woodward in 1908 and found near Wilmcote.[3] Confusingly von Huene in the same publication named the very same fossil Magnosaurus woodwardi. Later he made a choice for S. andrewsi to be the valid name.[4] In 1974 S. andrewsi was reclassified as Megalosaurus andrewsi by Michael Waldman, on the probably erroneous assumption it was a megalosaurid.[5] A later study concluded the two species to be indistinguishable except for size,[6] but other authors consider any identity to be unprovable as there are no comparable remains and conclude both species to lack autapomorphies and therefore to be nomina dubia.[7] Von Huene in 1932 referred a partial skeleton from the collection of the Warwick Museum to S. woodi but the identity is unproven; in 1995 it was given the generic name "Liassaurus"[8] but this has remained a nomen nudum. Andrews originally assigned Sarcosaurus to the Megalosauridae. The first to suggest a more basal position was Samuel Paul Welles who placed it in the Coelophysidae.[9] Later analyses resulted in either a position in the Ceratosauria,[10] or in the Coelophysoidea.
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