Invalid and Synonymous Species
A number of species assigned to Allosaurus are no longer recognized as valid, for one reason or another. Species "A. agilis", seen in Zittel, 1887, and Osborn, 1912, is a typographical error for A. fragilis. Marsh's A. ferox (1896; not to be confused with his 1884 Labrosaurus ferox, also part of Allosaurus taxonomy) was coined for a partial skull in a footnote, and has been recognized as a specimen of A fragilis. A. lucaris, another Marsh name, was given to a partial skeleton in 1878. He later decided it warranted its own genus, Labrosaurus, but this has not been accepted, and A. lucaris is also regarded as another specimen of A. fragilis. "A. whitei", an informally described species coined by Pickering in 1996, is a recasting of the A. atrox versus A. fragilis debate using a better specimen to represent the A. atrox form, and has not been recognized.
Several species coined in genera other than Allosaurus are also now thought to be synonymous with A. fragilis. Labrosaurus ferox was named in 1884 by Marsh for an oddly formed partial lower jaw, with a prominent gap in the tooth row at the tip of the jaw, and a rear section greatly expanded and turned down. Later researchers suggested that the bone was pathologic, showing an injury to the living animal, and that part of the unusual form of the rear of the bone was due to plaster reconstruction. It is recognized as most likely a specimen of A. fragilis. Allosaurus trihedrodon started as Laelaps trihedrodon, the name given to five theropod teeth by Cope in 1877. Long lost but recently relocated, these specimens also appear to pertain to Allosaurus, perhaps A. fragilis. This species is also partly responsible for confusion surrounding Hypsirophus discursus, a species of stegosaurid named by Cope. Cope, who was considering Hypsirophus a theropod at the time, suggested that it might turn out to be the same as Laelaps trihedrodon. Along with a mysterious theropod femur that he associated with Hypsirophus and which may have later been associated with Epanterias, this uncertainty has led to the misconception that Hypsirophus is a chimera, based in part on Allosaurus fragilis remains. Allosaurus valens is a typo for Antrodemus valens accidentally used by Friedrich von Huene in 1932; Antrodemus valens itself may also pertain to Allosaurus fragilis, as Gilmore suggested in 1920. Apatodon mirus, based on a scrap of vertebra Marsh first thought to be a mammalian jaw, may or may not be the same as Allosaurus.
Read more about this topic: Species Of Allosaurus
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