Quick Search:    advanced search

GSW Home   GeoRef Home   My GSW Alerts   Contact GSW   About GSW   Journals List   Help

Geological Magazine

This Article Figures Only Full Text Full Text (PDF) Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Similar articles in Web of Science Alert me to new issues of the journal Download to citation manager Citing Articles Citing Articles via HighWire Citing Articles via Web of Science (2) Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Articles by UPCHURCH, P. Articles by XING, X. Search for Related Content GeoRef GeoRef Citation

A re-evaluation of Chinshakiangosaurus chunghoensis Ye vide Dong 1992 (Dinosauria, Sauropodomorpha): implications for cranial evolution in basal sauropod dinosaurs

PAUL UPCHURCH^*,1, PAUL M. BARRETT, ZHAO XIJIN and XU XING^,

^* Department of Earth Sciences, University College London, Gower Street, London WC1E 6BT, UK
Department of Palaeontology, The Natural History Museum, Cromwell Road, London SW7 5BD, UK
Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, Academica Sinica, P.O. Box 643, Beijing 100044, People’s Republic of China
Division of Paleontology, American Museum of Natural History, Central Park West at 79th Street, New York, NY 10024-5192, USA

¹ Author for correspondence: p.upchurch{at}ucl.ac.uk

Re-description of the left dentary of Chinshakiangosaurus chunghoensis reveals that it possesses an unusual combination of ‘prosauropod’ and ‘sauropod’ character states. Cladistic analysis places Chinshakiangosaurus as one of the most basal sauropods known currently. Mapping of dentary and dental characters onto the most parsimonious topologies yields insights into the sequence of acquisition of a number of feeding-related characters. For example, it seems that basal sauropodomorphs (traditional prosauropod taxa) possessed a fleshy cheek that attached to the mandible along a marked ridge, and that the same structure was present in the most basal sauropods. The early sauropod skull developed a lateral plate that reinforced the bases of the tooth crowns labially, and had wrinkled tooth enamel and a concavity on the mesial portion of the lingual part of each crown, while retaining a fleshy cheek and a relatively weak symphysis. More advanced sauropods (eusauropods) lost the cheek, perhaps in order to increase the gape of the jaws in response to a change in feeding style that involved collection of larger quantities of poor quality foliage.

Key Words: dentary • Dinosauria • phylogeny • Sauropoda • Sauropodomorpha

This article has been cited by other articles:

				A. M. Yates, M. F. Bonnan, J. Neveling, A. Chinsamy, and M. G. Blackbeard A new transitional sauropodomorph dinosaur from the Early Jurassic of South Africa and the evolution of sauropod feeding and quadrupedalism Proc R Soc B, November 11, 2009; (2009) rspb.2009.1440v1. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]