Open Paleo

Plateosauridae

Marsh, 1895 Type genus Plateosaurus

Its genera lived 227.3–174.7 million years ago Late Triassic–Early Jurassic
Late Triassic and Early Jurassic stages

Plateosauridae is a family of plateosaurian sauropodomorph dinosaurs known from the Late Triassic to earliest Jurassic of Europe, Greenland, Africa, and Asia, built around the well-known Plateosaurus. Although many early dinosaurs have been referred to the family over the years, its membership is now restricted, anchored by Plateosaurus and its close relative Issi, with several historically included taxa such as Yimenosaurus and Euskelosaurus regarded as uncertain or disputed; some analyses also recover Unaysaurus within the group (Yates and colleagues, 2010; Rauhut and colleagues, 2020). Its members are medium- to large-bodied, long-necked, facultatively bipedal herbivores. Some workers treat the older concept Prosauropoda as effectively a synonym of Plateosauridae, since both come to contain the same set of taxa. Within the broader clade Plateosauria, the family is typically placed as the sister group to the more sauropod-like Massopoda.

Diagnosis

  1. Large external naris
  2. Transversely broad, leaf-shaped cheek teeth with coarse marginal denticles
  3. Robust, elongate cervical vertebrae
  4. Large, recurved manual pollex ungual

Genera placed directly in Plateosauridae

  • Issi Beccari et al., 2021 Norian (227.3–205.7 Ma)Greenland
  • Plateosaurus Fraas, 1913 Norian (227.3–205.7 Ma)Germany
  • Yimenosaurus Bai et al., 1990 Hettangian–Toarcian (201.4–174.7 Ma)Chinaunder dispute

References

  1. Marsh, O. C. (1895). On the affinities and classification of the dinosaurian reptiles. American Journal of Science 50: 483-498. doi:10.2475/ajs.s3-50.300.483

    Listed and briefly diagnosed the family Plateosauridae, with Zanclodontidae in parentheses, in his classification of the Dinosauria.

    marsh1895a
  2. Yates, A. M.; Bonnan, M. F.; Neveling, J.; Chinsamy, A.; Blackbeard, M. G. (2010). A new transitional sauropodomorph dinosaur from the Early Jurassic of South Africa and the evolution of sauropod feeding and quadrupedalism. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 277(1682): 787-794. The Royal Society. doi:10.1098/rspb.2009.1440

    Described Aardonyx and recovered Plateosauridae as Unaysaurus, Plateosaurus gracilis and Plateosaurus engelhardti.

    yates2010b
  3. Rauhut, O. W. M.; Holwerda, F. M.; Furrer, H. (2020). A derived sauropodiform dinosaur and other sauropodomorph material from the Late Triassic of Canton Schaffhausen, Switzerland. Swiss Journal of Geosciences 113(1). Pensoft Publishers. doi:10.1186/s00015-020-00360-8

    Recovered Unaysaurus within Plateosauridae in describing new sauropodomorph material from Switzerland.

    rauhut2020a