Anchisauria

Anchisauria Temporal range: Late Triassic—Late Cretaceous, 228–66 Ma PreЄ Є O S D C P T J K Pg N
Life restoration of Anchisaurus
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Order:	Saurischia
Suborder:	†Sauropodomorpha
Clade:	†Sauropodiformes
Clade:	†Anchisauria Galton & Upchurch, 2004
Subgroups[1][2]
†Aardonyx †Ammosaurus †Anchisaurus †Sefapanosaurus †Leonerasaurus †Melanorosauridae †Sauropoda

The Anchisauria were a clade of sauropodomorph dinosaurs that lived during the Late Triassic and Early Jurassic. The name Anchisauria was first used by Galton and Upchurch in the second edition of The Dinosauria. Galton and Upchurch assigned two families of dinosaurs to the Anchisauria: the Anchisauridae and the Melanorosauridae. The more common prosauropods Plateosaurus and Massospondylus were placed in the sister clade Plateosauria.

However, recent research indicates that Anchisaurus is closer to sauropods than traditional prosauropods; thus, Anchisauria would also include Sauropoda.^[3]

The following cladogram simplified after an analysis presented by Blair McPhee and colleagues in 2014.^[4]

Anchisauria	Anchisaurus Aardonyx Melanorosaurus Blikanasaurus Lessemsaurus Antetonitrus Gongxianosaurus Sauropoda

References

1. Otero, A.; Pol, D. (2013). "Postcranial anatomy and phylogenetic relationships of Mussaurus patagonicus (Dinosauria, Sauropodomorpha)". Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology 33 (5): 1138. doi:10.1080/02724634.2013.769444.
2. Apaldetti, C.; Martinez, R. N.; Alcober, O. A.; Pol, D. (2011). Claessens, Leon, ed. "A New Basal Sauropodomorph (Dinosauria: Saurischia) from Quebrada del Barro Formation (Marayes-El Carrizal Basin), Northwestern Argentina". PLoS ONE 6 (11): e26964. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0026964. PMC 3212523. PMID 22096511.
3. Yates, Adam M. (2010). "A revision of the problematic sauropodomorph dinosaurs from Manchester, Connecticut and the status of Anchisaurus Marsh". Palaeontology 53 (4): 739–752. doi:10.1111/j.1475-4983.2010.00952.x.
4. McPhee, B. W.; Yates, A. M.; Choiniere, J. N.; Abdala, F. (2014). "The complete anatomy and phylogenetic relationships of Antetonitrus ingenipes(Sauropodiformes, Dinosauria): Implications for the origins of Sauropoda". Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society 171: 151. doi:10.1111/zoj.12127.

Sources

• Galton, P. M. & Upchurch, P. (2004). "Prosauropoda". In D. B. Weishampel, P. Dodson, & H. Osmólska (eds.), The Dinosauria (second edition). University of California Press, Berkeley 232-258.
• Yates, Adam M. (2007), "The first complete skull of the Triassic dinosaur Melanorosaurus Haughton (Sauropodomorpha: Anchisauria)", in Barrett, Paul M. & Batten, David J., Special Papers in Palaeontology, vol. 77, pp. 9–55, ISBN 978-1-4051-6933-2