Bothriospondylus

Bothriospondylus (from Ancient Greek βοθρίον (bothríon), meaning "trench", and σπόνδυλος (spóndulos), meaning "vertebra") is a dubious genus of possibly neosauropodan sauropod dinosaur. It lived during the Late Jurassic in England and the type (and only) species is B. suffossus.

==Discovery and naming== The type species, Bothriospondylus suffossus, was described by Richard Owen in 1875. The specific epithet suffossus means "undermined" in Latin, a reference to the fact that pleurocoels had hollowed out the sides of the vertebra. It is often incorrectly spelled as "suffosus". Owen based the species on holotype NHMUK PV R 44592-5, a set of four dorsal vertebrae found in Wiltshire in stratum from the Kimmeridgian, the Kimmeridge Clay. Also three unfused sacral vertebrae were referred. thumb|left|Holotype of B. magnus (Lectotype of Ornithopsis) At the same time Owen named three other species of Bothriospondylus. B. robustus was based on NHMUK PV R 22428, a dorsal from the same location. B. elongatus was based on a vertebra from Sussex, NHMUK PV R 2239, an original syntype of Ornithopsis hulkei. Finally, Bothriospondylus magnus was a new name for another syntype of Ornithopsis hulkei Seeley 1870, the present lectotype NHMUK PV OR 28632. Owen himself in an addendum to the same publication renamed B. robustus to Marmarospondylus robustus. Friedrich von Huene in 1908 referred the material to Pelorosaurus and in 1922 made B. suffossus into a Ornithopsis suffossa because the latter generic name has priority.