Anchisauria
| Sauropodiformes | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Skeleton of Jingshanosaurus xinwaensis at the Miami Science Museum | |||
| Lessemsaurus sauropoides | |||
| Scientific classification | |||
| Domain: | Eukaryota | ||
| Kingdom: | Animalia | ||
| Phylum: | Chordata | ||
| Clade: | Dinosauria | ||
| Clade: | Saurischia | ||
| Clade: | †Sauropodomorpha | ||
| Clade: | †Massopoda | ||
| Clade: | †Sauropodiformes Sereno, 2007 | ||
| Subgroups | |||
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Sauropodiformes is an extinct clade of sauropodomorph dinosaurs that includes the animals more closely-related to Sauropoda than prosauropods like Massospondylus and Plateosaurus. It was named in 2007 by Paul Sereno. Below is a cladogram of basal sauropodomorpha after Apaldetti and colleagues, 2021.
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Anchisauria is a smaller clade within Sauropodiformes. The name Anchisauria was first used Haekel and defined by Galton and Upchurch in the second edition of The Dinosauria. It is a node-based taxon containing the most recent common ancestor of Anchisaurus polyzelus and Melanorosaurus readi, and all its descendants. Galton and Upchurch assigned a family of dinosaurs to the Anchisauria: the Melanorosauridae. The more common prosauropods Plateosaurus and Massospondylus were placed in the sister clade Plateosauria.
However, research has since indicated that Anchisaurus is closer to sauropods than traditional prosauropods; thus, Anchisauria would by definition also include Sauropoda.