Type specimen in the context of "Type site"

Java Man (Homo erectus erectus, formerly also Anthropopithecus erectus or Pithecanthropus erectus) is an early human fossil discovered in 1891 and 1892 on the island of Java (Indonesia). Estimated to be between 700,000 and 1,490,000 years old, it was, at the time of its discovery, the oldest hominid fossil ever found, and it remains the type specimen for Homo erectus.

Led by Eugène Dubois, the excavation team uncovered a tooth, a skullcap, and a thighbone at Trinil on the banks of the Solo River in East Java. Arguing that the fossils represented the "missing link" between apes and humans, Dubois gave the species the scientific name Anthropopithecus erectus, then later renamed it Pithecanthropus erectus. The fossil aroused much controversy. Within a decade of the discovery almost eighty books or articles had been published on Dubois's finds. Despite Dubois's argument, few accepted that Java Man was a transitional form between apes and humans. Some dismissed the fossils as apes and others as modern humans, whereas many scientists considered Java Man as a primitive side branch of evolution not related to modern humans at all. In the 1930s Dubois made the claim that Pithecanthropus was built like a "giant gibbon", a much misinterpreted attempt by Dubois to prove that it was the "missing link". Eventually, similarities between Java Man and Sinanthropus pekinensis (Peking Man) led Ernst Mayr to rename both Homo erectus in 1950, placing them directly in the human evolutionary tree.

Rubus fruticosus L. is the ambiguous name of a European blackberry species in the genus Rubus (part of the rose family). The name has been interpreted in several ways:

• The species represented by the type specimen of Rubus fruticosus L., which is also the type specimen of the genus Rubus. This specimen is considered to match the species R. plicatus, in Rubus subgenus Rubus, section Rubus.
• Various species consistent with Carl Linnaeus' original description of the species, which was based on a mixture of specimens now considered to match Rubus ulmifolius and R. plicatus
• a species aggregate (group of similar species) Rubus fruticosus agg. (a nomen ambiguum) that includes most (or rarely all) of a group called Rubus subgenus Rubus (or less often: Rubus section Rubus [sensu latissimo] ):
  • in a narrow sense, sometimes separated as the section Glandulosus (alternative name: subsection Hiemales) In this sense the species aggregate does not include the type of the genus Rubus.
  • in a broad sense: (1) (i) sections Glandulosus and Rubus [sensu stricto] (in non-British systems, these two sections are classified together as section Rubus [sensu lato], section Glandulosus being called subsection Hiemales and section Rubus [sensu stricto] being called subsection Rubus) or (ii) "most of" these sections; or (2) sections Glandulosus, Rubus [sensu stricto] and Corylifolii. Section Rubus [sensu stricto] are probably hybrids involving members of section Glandulosus with either R. idaeus or R. allegheniensis. Section Corylifolii are probably hybrids involving members of section Glandulosus with R. caesius.
  • even more broadly, including all the taxa in the subgenus Rubus

Mosasaurus (/ˌmoʊzəˈsɔːrəs/; "lizard of the Meuse River") is the type genus (defining example) of the mosasaurs, an extinct group of aquatic squamate reptiles. It lived from about 82 to 66 million years ago during the Campanian and Maastrichtian stages of the Late Cretaceous. The genus was one of the first Mesozoic marine reptiles known to science—the first fossils of Mosasaurus were found as skulls in a chalk quarry near the Dutch city of Maastricht in the late 18th century, and were initially thought to be crocodiles or whales. One skull discovered around 1780 was famously nicknamed the "great animal of Maastricht". In 1808, naturalist Georges Cuvier concluded that it belonged to a giant marine lizard with similarities to monitor lizards but otherwise unlike any known living animal. This concept was revolutionary at the time and helped support the then-developing ideas of extinction. Cuvier did not designate a scientific name for the animal; this was done by William Daniel Conybeare in 1822 when he named it Mosasaurus in reference to its origin in fossil deposits near the Meuse River. The exact affinities of Mosasaurus as a squamate remain controversial, and scientists continue to debate whether its closest living relatives are monitor lizards or snakes.

The largest species, M. hoffmannii, is estimated to measure up to 12 meters (39 ft) in maximum length, making it one of the largest mosasaurs. The skull of Mosasaurus had robust jaws and strong muscles capable of powerful bites using dozens of large teeth adapted for cutting prey. Its four limbs were shaped into paddles to steer the animal underwater. Its tail was long and ended in a downward bend and a paddle-like fluke. Mosasaurus possessed excellent vision to compensate for its poor sense of smell, and a high metabolic rate suggesting it was endothermic ("warm-blooded"), an adaptation in squamates only found in mosasaurs. There is considerable morphological variability across the currently-recognized species in Mosasaurus—from the robustly-built M. hoffmannii to the slender and serpentine M. lemonnieri—but an unclear diagnosis (description of distinguishing features) of the type species M. hoffmannii led to a historically problematic classification. As a result, more than fifty species have been attributed to the genus in the past. A redescription of the type specimen in 2017 helped resolve the taxonomy issue and confirmed at least five species to be within the genus. Another five species still nominally classified within Mosasaurus are planned to be reassessed.