New skulls of the basal sauropodomorph Plateosaurus trossingensis from Frick, Switzerland: is there more than one species?

The Triassic basal sauropodomorph Plateosaurus trossingensis is well-known from mass accumulations at the German localities of Trossingen and Halberstadt and the Swiss locality of Frick, and is significant especially regarding its ta-phonomy and proposed developmental plasticity. These implications, however, rely on the assumption that this material derives from a single species, which has been questioned. Here we describe new skull material from Frick including eight complete and six partial skulls, more than doubling the number of known skulls of P. trossingensis. This exceptional sample size allows for gaining a deeper understanding of variability that may occur in a single species. The …