Massospondylidae

 Massospondylidae is a family of early massopod dinosaurs^[3][4] that existed in Asia, Africa, North America, South America and Antarctica^[5] during the Late Triassic to the Early Jurassic periods. Several dinosaurs have been classified as massospondylids over the years. The largest cladistic analysis of early sauropodomorphs, which was presented by Apaldetti and colleagues in November 2011, found Adeopapposaurus, Coloradisaurus, Glacialisaurus, Massospondylus, Leyesaurusand Lufengosaurus to be massospondylids.^[6]This result supports many previous analyses that tested fewer taxa.^[4][7][8][9] However, this analysis found the two recently described North American massopods, Sarahsaurus and Seitaad, and the South African Ignavusaurusto nest outside Massospondylidae, as opposed to some provisional proposals.^[10][11]Earlier in 2011, Pradhania, a sauropodomorph from India, was tested for the first time in a large cladistic analysis and was found to be a relatively basal massospondylid.^[12]Mussaurus and Xixiposaurus may also be included within Massospondylidae.^[13] In 2019, a specimen previously assigned to Massospondylus from South Africa was re-examined and found to belong to a separate genus that was named Ngwevu.^[14]

Massospondylids Temporal range: Late Triassic – Early Jurassic, 227–176 Ma  PreꞒ Ꞓ O S D C P T J K Pg N
An example of Massospondylidae, Adeopapposaurus
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Clade:	Dinosauria
Clade:	Saurischia
Clade:	†Sauropodomorpha
Clade:	†Massopoda
Family:	†Massospondylidae Huene, 1914
Type species
†Massospondylus carinatus Owen, 1854
Genera[1][2]
?†Adeopapposaurus †Coloradisaurus †Glacialisaurus †Hortalotarsus †Ignavusaurus ?†Leyesaurus †Lufengosaurus †Massospondylus †Ngwevu †Pradhania †Sarahsaurus ?†Xingxiulong

PhylogenyEdit

Massospondylidae, which was first named by Huene in 1914, is a stem-based taxon. It was defined by Sereno as all animals more closely related to Massospondylus carinatus than to Plateosaurus engelhardti and Saltasaurus loricatus.^[15]

The following simplified cladogram is based on an analysis presented by Chapelle and colleagues in 2019.^[1]

Massopoda	Anchisaurus         Jingshanosaurus     Seitaad        Massospondylidae    Massospondylus carinatus         Ignavusaurus     Sarahsaurus         Adeopapposaurus     Leyesaurus           Coloradisaurus     Massospondylus kaalae       Lufengosaurus     Ngwevu             Yunnanosaurus     Sauropodiformes

Below is a simplified cladogram after Müller, 2019.^[2]

Massopoda

Anchisaurus         Adeopapposaurus     Leyesaurus       Massospondylidae     Sarahsaurus     Xingxiulong           Pradhania     Massospondylus kaalae         Massospondylus carinatus       Lufengosaurus     Glacialisaurus     Coloradisaurus               Yunnanosaurus       Jingshanosaurus     Riojasauridae   Riojasaurus   Eucnemesaurus   E. entaxonis     E. fortis           Seitaad     Sauropodiformes

This article uses material from the Wikipedia article  Metasyntactic variable, which is released under the  Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.