Saurophaganax was a massive genus of allosaurid that lived in the Jurassic, discovered by John Willis Stovall, over the years of 1931 and 1932. Named by Daniel Chure 1995, named Saurophagus Maximus and revised to Saurophaganax Maximus due to it not fitting zoological nomenclature. In December. 21, 2024, a paper published in ResearchGate by 6 researchers mainly by Andy D Danison explained that fossils that were assigned to Saurophaganax Maximus were more akin to that of sauropod dinosaurs in the same Kenton 1 quarry in the Morrison formation of Oklahoma. The sauropod dinosaurs were diplodocids at least 2 along with some fossil that was that of a mature theropod dinosaur of which was named allosaurus anax taking Saurophaganax’s place as the carnivore described with the remaining theropod fossils. The name Saurophaganax Maximus would be the name of one of the sauropod dinosaurs.
Saurophaganax Maximus”s name being given to a sauropod and being made invalid sent ripples through the dinosaur community. Social media was filled with nothing but things about Saurophaganax being made invalid in many different forms of content. This all lasted about a week or two. This only being mainstream for that little time was a bit disappointing because of how cool Saurophaganax was as a large carnivorous theropod. It had many cool iterations in pop culture with one am most familiar with being from DinosaurKing. It was a theropod that wasn’t thought to be as big as Tyrannosaurus Rex, or Gigantosaurus but was thought to be right below animals around and of their size bracket making it still absolutely massive still and very capable of hunting its prey, something that Allosaurus Anax would still be capable of doing but to a lesser degree since the way its described leaves it as bigger than other Allosaurids but without the fossils that ended up belonging to sauropod dinos much smaller than what Saurophaganax was thought to be.
When the fossils were examined the hip fossils that gave Saurophaganax its size were what was then more akin to diplodocid fossils. The 3 sets of fossils made it a chimera but luckily it was only one theropod dinosaur meaning, possibly the coolest part of what was Saurophaganax Maximus in its claws belongs to Allosaurus Anax. Its claws were made for killing its prey and some of the deadliest claws on a theropod dinosaur that has been discovered and thankfully most likely belongs to Allosaurus Anax. In an article published to Oklahoma State universities newspaper they had got a quote from Andy Danison the main researcher saying that within 10 days of his original paper being published with the six others it had been “more than 2,800 people downloaded” it as well as a ton of art that had been made in that same time frame.
