Neosauropoda

Neosauropoda
Live reconstruction of Brachiosaurus
Temporal occurrence
Middle Jurassic to Upper Cretaceous ( Bathonian to Maastrichtian )
168.3 to 66 million years
Locations
North America South America Europe Asia Africa Australia
Systematics
Dinosaur (dinosauria) Lizard dinosaur (Saurischia) Sauropodomorpha Sauropods (Sauropoda) Eusauropoda Neosauropoda
Scientific name
Neosauropoda
Bonaparte , 1986

Neosauropoda is the name of a sauropod dinosaur . It includes the Diplodocoidea and the Macronaria .

A typical basal neosauropod is the genus Haplocanthosaurus . He lived in the late Jurassic about 155 million years ago. Later genera, including Diplodocus , Apatosaurus, and Brachiosaurus , are also defined as Neosauropoda.

The taxon was defined by José Fernando Bonaparte in 1986 .

features

Neosauropods were usually very large, always quadruped (four-footed) locomoting herbivores (herbivores). The body structure was similar in all neosauropods and is characterized by a usually very long neck and tail, a massive, barrel-shaped body with columnar legs and a proportionally small head. Their size ranges from six meters in length in the case of the island form Europaaurus, discovered in Germany, to over 30 meters in length and presumably over 70 tons in weight for giant forms such as Argentinosaurus , whose actual size can only be estimated, however, due to the mostly fragmentary finds.

Somewhat older images show, especially with the diplodocoids and titanosaurs, how they stretch their long necks almost vertically upwards to graze trees like a giraffe and drag their tails behind them. Today it is believed that most neosauropods held their necks horizontally above the ground. The extent to which the neck could be moved laterally and vertically, however, depends on the individual species and their vertebral structure. The almost complete lack of tail prints in fossil tracks suggests that the tail was always held above the ground.

Systematics

External system

The cladogram shows the external system within the Eusauropoda ; simplified from Upchurch et al. from 2004:

Barapasaurus

Sauropoda	Vulcanodon   Eusauropoda    Shunosaurus     Barapasaurus     Cetiosaurus     Neosauropoda

Internal system

Diplodocus

Argentinosaurus

The two orders within the Neosauropoda are the Diplodocoidea and the Macronaria . The Upchurch et al. from 2004 shows the internal system:

Neosauropoda	Diplodocoidea   Diplodocidae     Dicraeosauridae     Rebbachisauridae   Macronaria  Camarasauridae   Titanosauriformes   Brachiosauridae     Titanosauria

Whether the Cetiosauridae also belongs to the Neosauropods is discussed, as they are possibly the ancestral forms of the Neosauropods. The Cetiosauridae is therefore considered to be paraphyletic .

Individual evidence

1. ^ Gregory S. Paul : The Princeton Field Guide To Dinosaurs. Princeton University Press, Princeton NJ u. a. 2010, ISBN 978-0-691-13720-9 , pp. 185-213, online .
2. ↑ ^{a b} Vertebrate Paleontology (University of Bristol)
3. ↑ ^{a b} TaxonSearch entry for Neosauropoda ( Memento of the original from October 27, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
4. ^ Paul Upchurch , Paul M. Barrett , Peter Dodson : Sauropoda. In: David B. Weishampel , Peter Dodson, Halszka Osmólska (eds.): The Dinosauria . 2nd edition. University of California Press, Berkeley CA et al. a. 2004, ISBN 0-520-24209-2 , pp. 259-324, here pp. 273-295.
5. ↑ P. Martin Sander , Octávio Mateus, Thomas Laven, Nils Knötschke: Bone histology indicates insular dwarfism in a new Late Jurassic sauropod dinosaur. In: Nature . Vol. 441, No. 7094, 2006, pp. 739–741, doi: 10.1038 / nature04633 , digitized version (PDF; 264.58) ( Memento of July 7, 2006 in the Internet Archive ).
6. ^ Gerardo V. Mazzetta, Per Christiansen, Richard A. Fariña: Giants and Bizarres: Body Size of Some Southern South American Cretaceous Dinosaurs. In: Historical Biology. Vol. 16, No. 2/4, 2004, pp. 71-83, doi: 10.1080 / 08912960410001715132 , digital version (PDF; 574.66 kB) .
7. ↑ John S. McIntosh, Michael K. Brett-Surman, James O. Farlow: Sauropods. In: James O. Farlow, Michael K. Brett-Surman (Eds.): The complete Dinosaur. Indiana University Press, Bloomington IN et al. a. 1997, ISBN 0-253-33349-0 , pp. 269-271.
8. ^ ^{A b} Paul Upchurch, Paul M. Barrett, Peter Dodson: Sauropoda. In: David B. Weishampel, Peter Dodson, Halszka Osmólska (eds.): The Dinosauria. 2nd edition. University of California Press, Berkeley CA et al. a. 2004, ISBN 0-520-24209-2 , pp. 259-324.
9. ^ Robert L. Carroll : Paleontology and Evolution of the Vertebrates. Georg Thieme, Stuttgart a. a. 1993, ISBN 3-13-774401-6 .