Lamprosauroides

Lamprosauroides Temporal range: Middle Triassic,
Holotype (B–D) and referred (E) maxillae
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Reptilia
Superorder:	†Sauropterygia
Clade:	†Eosauropterygia
Family:	†incertae sedis
Genus:	†Lamprosauroides Schmidt, 1927
Species:	†L. goepperti
Binomial name
†Lamprosauroides goepperti von Meyer, 1860
Synonyms
Lamprosaurus von Meyer, 1860 (preoccupied)

Lamprosauroides is an enigmatic dubious genus of possible sauropterygian reptile known from the Middle Triassic (Anisian age) Muschelkalk of Poland and possibly the Netherlands. The genus contains a single species, Lamprosauroides goepperti, known from several jaw bones. It is characterized by its large, fang-like teeth.

Dentary referred to cf. L. goepperti

Lamprosauroides was originally identified as a nothosaur in 1860 and later a cymatosaur in 1899. Later researchers considered it to be a nomen dubium due to the absence of unique, diagnostic anatomical features. In 2021, Spiekman and Klein tentatively recognized Lamprosauroides as a eosauropterygian. They considered it to be most similar to Cymatosaurus, though still distinct from it, nothosauroids, and pistosauroids.

In their 2024 publication on the Chinese tanysaur Dinocephalosaurus, Spiekman and colleagues noted that the tooth arrangement of Lamprosauroides—slender and slightly recurved in the front and wider and straight toward the back—is similar to Dinocephalosaurus, as is the curved outline of the tooth row. Plicidentine (striations at the tooth base) is known from a mandible referred to cf. L. goepperti, a feature also seen in Dinocephalosaurus. The authors concluded that there was not currently enough evidence to regard Lamprosauroides as a trachelosaurid, but noted that its similarities to this Asian genus and approximately coeval age to the European Trachelosaurus were intriguing.