A Big Show

In wrapping up the old set of original posts prior to the "modern" inception of Dinosaur of the Week we have the happy instance to work on one of the largest, most popular, and obviously coolest carnivores of the Jurassic. It is not Ceratosaurus (one of my favorites for coolest headgear) but Allosaurus that we are going to discuss this week; Allosaurus does have some neat little horns above and in front of its eyes though. This list of known, questioned, synonymized, and thrown out names associated with Allosaurus is fairly impressive. The usual suspects that we hear the most about are Allosaurus fragilis and Allosaurus saurophaganax (sometimes labeled as A. maximus). Allosaurus europaeus is the newest name used to describe remains attributed to Allosaurus; the remains for this purported species were recovered from Portugal's Lourinha Formation. The "Other Lizard" is one massively known dinosaur that captures as many, if not more, imaginations these days than Tyrannosaurus rex did in the last three decades or so. One cannot really blame people for falling in love with this massive but agile carnivore; paleontologists love hanging out with Allosaurus whenever possible after all and there is not much more endorsement needed than that.

©Encyclopedia Britannica