Pronunciation: pro-SOH-ro-PO-duh
Author: von Huene
Year: 1920
Meaning: Before sauropods (see etymology)
Locomotion: Both bipedal and quadrupedal (2 and 4 legs)
Senior synonym: Plateosauridae (Marsh, 1895)
Author: von Huene
Year: 1920
Meaning: Before sauropods (see etymology)
Locomotion: Both bipedal and quadrupedal (2 and 4 legs)
Senior synonym: Plateosauridae (Marsh, 1895)
[Sereno, 2005] Definition
The most inclusive clade containing Plateosaurus engelhardti, Massospondylus carinatus, Lufengosaurus hunei, Yunnanosaurus huangi and Riojasaurus incertus, but not Saltasaurus loricatus.
About
Prosauropoda was named by Huene in 1920 and initially defined by Sereno in 1998 as all animals more closely related to Plateosaurus engelhardti than to Saltasaurus loricatus. The research of Yates in 2007 concluded that Prosauropoda and Plateosauridae contain exactly the same taxa, and because Marsh (1895) had named the latter some 25 years before von Huene (1920) named the former (even though he placed it within Theropoda), his name has priority. Thus, the critters long known as prosauropods should be called plateosaurids.
[Before lizard-feet] Etymology
Prosauropoda is derived from the Greek "pro-" (before), "sauros" (lizard), "pod-" (foot) and "-a" (plural), named to indicate a group that were considered to be directly ancestral to the sauropods ("lizard feet").
Relationships
References
• Marsh OC (1895) "On the affinities and classification of the dinosaurian reptiles". American Journal of Science, 50(300): 483–498. DOI: 10.2475/ajs.s4-7.42.403
• von Huene F (1920) "Bemerkungen zur Systematik und Stammesgeschichte einiger Reptilien" [Remarks on the systematics and phylogeny of some reptiles]. Zeitschrift für Induktive Abstammungs und Vererbungslehre, 22: 209-212
• Sereno PC (1998) "A rationale for phylogenetic definitions, with applications to the higher-level taxonomy of Dinosauria". Neues Jahrbuch für Geologie und Paläontologie, Abhandlungen, 210: 41-83. DOI: 10.1127/njgpa/210/1998/41
• Galton P (2001) "The prosauropod dinosaur Plateosaurus MEYER, 1837 (Saurischia: Sauropodomorpha; Upper Triassic). II. Notes on the referred species". Revue de Paleobiologie, 20(2): 435-502
• Galton PM and Upchurch P (2004) "Prosauropoda". In Weishampel, Dodson and Osmólska (Eds.) "The Dinosauria: Second Edition".
• Yates AM (2007) "The first complete skull of the Triassic dinosaur Melanorosaurus Haughton (Sauropodomorpha: Anchisauria)". Evolution and Palaeobiology. 77: 9–55
• Novas FE, Ezcurra MD, Chatterjee S and Kutty TS (2011) "New dinosaur species from the Upper Triassic Upper Maleri and Lower Dharmaram formations of central India". Earth and Environmental Science Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, 101 (3–4): 333–349
