| Tornieria | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Caudal vertebra ofT. africana | |
Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Reptilia |
| Clade: | Dinosauria |
| Clade: | Saurischia |
| Clade: | †Sauropodomorpha |
| Clade: | †Sauropoda |
| Superfamily: | †Diplodocoidea |
| Clade: | †Flagellicaudata |
| Family: | †Diplodocidae |
| Subfamily: | †Diplodocinae |
| Genus: | †Tornieria Sternfeld, 1911 |
| Type species | |
| †Gigantosaurus africanus Fraas, 1908 | |
| Species | |
| Synonyms[1] | |
Genus synonymy
Species synonymy
| |
Tornieria ("forTornier") is agenus ofdiplodocidsauropoddinosaur from theLate Jurassic inLindi Region ofTanzania.
In 1907, German paleontologistEberhard Fraas who was working theTendaguru Beds inGerman East Africa (presently Tanzania), discovered two sauropod specimens at a single site ("Quarry A"). The two individuals, designated "Skeleton A" and "Skeleton B", each represented a different sauropod species. In 1908 he named these respectivelyGigantosaurus africanus ("African giant lizard") andG. robustus ("Robust giant lizard").[2] A third, unrelated African species, "Gigantosaurus"dixeyi, was named by in 1928, and has since been reassigned toMalawisaurus.
However, the nameGigantosaurus had already been used for the European sauropodGigantosaurus megalonyx Seeley, 1869. Fraas, not intending to place his species in the same genus as this English form, had believed that the name was available, since at the time the latter species was considered to be ajunior synonym ofOrnithopsis and Seeley in his opinion had not provided a sufficient description anyway. Another German paleontologist,Richard Sternfeld, renamed the Tanzanian sauropodTornieria in 1911, making the two speciesTornieria africana andT. robusta. The generic name honours the Germanherpetologist Gustav Tornier.[3]
A re-evaluation ofTornieria in 1922 byWerner Janensch concluded that one species,T. africana, was actually an African species of the North American sauropod genusBarosaurus:Barosaurus africanus.[4] The other African species,T. robusta, later turned out to belong to atitanosaur. The titanosaur species for a time was calledTornieria, but this was incorrect asT. africana had been thetype species. It needed a generic name of its own and this was provided in 1991 whenRupert Wild renamed itJanenschia.
IfTornieria were the same genus asBarosaurus, then the nameTornieria would be abandoned as ajunior subjective synonym. However, later researchers proposed generic distinction between the American and the African form. In the early 21st century this usage became prevalent and in 2006Kristian Remes in a review concluded thatTornieria was indeed distinct and a valid genus.[5]
A complication is formed by the fact that Janensch in 1961 recognised a variety ofB. africanus:B. africanus var.gracilis, amorph distinguished by more gracile hind limbs.[6] In 1980, Russell et al. informally promoted this taxon to the species level,Barosaurus gracilis;[7] it was officially elevated toB. gracilis by John McIntosh in 1990,[1][8] and was combined to asTornieria gracilis by George Olshevsky in 1991.[9]
In 2006, Remes suggested thatB. gracilis is anomen nudum, with neither theholotype nor diagnosis having been provided by Russell et al. (1980).[5] However, Bivens, Greenfield and Curtice (2025) suggested thatT. gracilis is not anomen nudum but a validly named species, since the name has been made available by Chure & McIntosh (1989) as a subspecies ofT. africana (then referred toB. a. gracilis) who explicitly credited the species' authorship to Janensch (1961), which is in accordance with theInternational Code of Zoological Nomenclature (ICZN) article 13.1.2; they concluded thatT. gracilis is an available name with the correct authorship being Chure & McIntosh (1989) in accordance with the ICZN articles 45.5.1 and 50.1, and designated a lectotype in accordance with the ICZN articles 74.1 and 74.7.[1][10]
Elements of the original "Skeleton A" were designated by Fraas as asyntype series: SMNS 12141a, 12145a, 12143, 12140, 12142, all from thepostcrania. Later some other bones from the same individual were recovered. Janensch would also refer many other fossils toB. africanus, in total 630 specimens representing at least 56 separate individuals. Of these 188 would be left after the bombardments during theSecond World War. Remes, however, concluded that merely a second partial skeleton, "Skeleton k", including also some skull elements, could be reliably referred, and a series of caudal vertebrae. The remains are from the later strata of the Tendaguru, theobere Dinosauriermergel or "Upper Dinosaur Marl", dating from theTithonian.[5]
Tornieria was a large sauropod; according toGregory S. Paul, it was 25 m (82 ft) in length, and weighed 10 metric tons.[11] It shared elongated neck vertebrae and a rather long forelimb withBarosaurus. However, it differed from the American form by details in the anteriorcaudalvertebrae and fromBarosaurus andDiplodocus both by itsplesiomorphic hindlimb proportions with a short lower leg.
After performing acladistic analysis, Remes (2006) concluded thatTornieria was thesister taxon of aclade formed byBarosaurus andDiplodocus. It would thus be a member of theDiplodocinae.[5] The followingcladogram is based on the phylogenetic analysis conducted by Whitlock in 2011, showing the relationships ofTornieria among the other genera assigned to the taxonDiplodocidae:[12]
