Bagualosauria

Bagualosauria is a clade of sauropodomorph dinosaurs uniting Bagualosaurus with its more derived relatives, including the group Plateosauria and, nested within it, the sauropods. It is the sister lineage to Saturnaliidae, a group of smaller, more basal Carnian sauropodomorphs from South America such as Saturnalia and Chromogisaurus, and Bagualosauria excludes these earliest-diverging forms. Bagualosaurus itself, among the most basal known members of the clade, already shows skull and dental modifications linked to more efficient herbivory along with a moderate increase in body size compared to its saturnaliid relatives, hinting at trends that became far more pronounced later in the group's history. Because it excludes only that earliest-diverging grade, Bagualosauria encompasses most sauropodomorph diversity, ranging from moderate-sized Triassic and Early Jurassic forms to the giant long-necked sauropods of the later Mesozoic.