Anchisauria

Reconstruction of Melanorosaurus readi, copyright Steveoc 86.

Belongs within: Sauropodomorpha.

The Anchisauria is a clade of prosauropods defined by Galton & Upchurch (2004) as the smallest clade including Anchisaurus and Melanorosaurus.

Characters (from Galton & Upchurch 2004): Length of prefrontal subequal to that of frontal; frontal excluded from margin of supratemporal fossa; at least five teeth present on premaxilla; ratio of forelimb length to hindlimb length greater than 0.60; pubis with pubic foramen completely visible in cranial view; femoral shaft straight in cranial or caudal view; femoral fourth trochanter displaced to caudomedial margin of shaft; proximal end of metatarsal II hourglass-shaped.

<==Anchisauria GU04
    |--Anchisauridae GU04
    |    |--Ammosaurus Marsh 1891 GU04
    |    |    `--A. major (Marsh 1889) [=Anchisaurus major; incl. An. solus Marsh 1892] GU04
    |    `--Anchisaurus Marsh 1885 GU04 (see below for synonymy)
    |         `--*A. polyzelus (Hitchcock 1865) Y03 (see below for synonymy)
    `--Melanorosauridae GU04
         |--Riojasaurus Bonaparte 1969 GU04
         |    `--R. incertus Bonaparte 1969 GU04
         `--+--Melanorosaurus Haughton 1924 GU04
            |    |--M. readi Haughton 1924 GU04
            |    `--M. thabanensis Gauffre 1993 GU04
            `--+--Camelotia Galton 1985 GU04
               |    `--C. borealis Galton 1985 GU04
               `--Lessemsaurus Bonaparte 1999 GU04
                    `--L. sauropoides Bonaparte 1999 GU04

Anchisaurus Marsh 1885 [=Amphisaurus Marsh 1882 (preoc.), Megadactylus Hitchcock 1865 (preoc.), Yaleosaurus Huene 1932] GU04

*Anchisaurus polyzelus (Hitchcock 1865) Y03 [=Megadactylus polyzelus GU04; incl. A. colurus Marsh 1891 GU04, Yaleosaurus colurus N85]

*Type species of generic name indicated

REFERENCES

[GU04] Galton, P. M., & P. Upchurch. 2004. Prosauropoda. In: Weishampel, D. B., P. Dodson & H. Osmólska (eds) The Dinosauria 2^nd ed. pp. 232–258. University of California Press: Berkeley.

[N85] Norman, D. 1985 (reprinted 2000). The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Dinosaurs. Salamander Books: London.

[Y03] Yates, A. M. 2003. A new species of the primitive dinosaur Thecodontosaurus (Saurischia: Sauropodomorpha) and its implications for the systematics of early dinosaurs. Journal of Systematic Palaeontology 1: 1–42.