Erectopus

Erectopus (meaning "upright foot") is an extinct genus of basal allosauroid theropod from the Early Cretaceous La Penthiève Beds Formation of France and also possibly the Cernavodă Formation of southern Romania. The type species is E. superbus, which was initially known as a species of Megalosaurus.

==Discovery and naming== thumb|left|150px|Femur The holotype, specimen MNHN 2001-4, was discovered during the early 1870s in the phosphate-bearing beds of La Penthiève (Mammilatum Zone; lower Albian) at Louppy-le-Château in eastern France, which have also produced remains of plesiosaurs, ichthyosaurs, and crocodiles. The fossils originally resided in the private collection of Louis Pierson. The first, two teeth and a vertebra, were first described by Charles Barrois in 1875. After more remains had been found, in 1882 Henri-Émile Sauvage made them the basis for a new taxon, Megalosaurus superbus. In 1923, the material was redescribed by Friedrich von Huene, who argued that it could not be included within the genus Megalosaurus and created for the Pierson theropod a separate genus, naming the species Erectopus superbus. In 1932 von Huene concluded that the original fossils described by Barrois were not necessarily of the same species as the later finds. Assuming that Sauvage had used the former as the holotype of Megalosaurus superbus, he therefore created another species: Erectopus sauvagei. Von Huene even declined to use the generic name Erectopus for the first species, indicating it as "Gen. indeterm. superbus", which however does not constitute a valid name.