South American Sauropodomorph Dinosaurs

OTERO, A.; CARBALLIDO, J.L.; POL, D.

Springer

Año: 2022 p. 582

978-3-030-95959-3

Sauropodomorpha Huene 1932 is one of the most successful groups of dinosaurs that includes the most abundant and diverse herbivorous forms with a worldwide record, extending from the Late Triassic to the Late Cretaceous. Sauropodomorphs include early forms (the formerly traditionally called ?prosauropods?) and the iconic sauropods. With more than 150 valid species and a worldwide distribution, Sauropoda Marsh 1878 comprises the dominant herbivorous dinosaurs from the Middle Jurassic to the Late Cretaceous. The sauropodan body plan, characterized by gigantic size, graviportal locomotion, long necks and tails, and a comparatively small skull, made this group of sauropodomorphs part of the popular culture since the late nineteenth century.Worldwide, the current knowledge about sauropods, their classification, anatom- ical and paleobiological knowledge, is the result of the joint work of numerous researchers, and I could not name some of them without taking the risk of leaving out others. However, abusing a bit of the generosity of Alejandro, José Luis, and Diego, the editors of this book who invited me to preface it, I will recall two that profoundly influenced many of the sauropod specialists of my generation, including myself: Jack McIntosh (1923−2015), Professor at Wesleyan University (Connecticut, USA), and José Bonaparte (1928−2020), for years Head of the Vertebrate Paleontology Section of the Museo Argentino de Ciencias Naturales (at Buenos Aires city, Argentina). Particularly Bonaparte is, to date and without doubts, the greatest exponent of Mesozoic Vertebrate Paleontology in the entire South American continent.This book deals with South American sauropodomorphs, although South America did not exist as a separate continent when sauropodomorphs lived. Actually, for most of the evolutionary history of this group of dinosaurs, South America was integrated to other landmasses, at first to the rest of Gondwana and later to West Gondwana. Beyond this, the geographical demarcation thought for this book is totally justified based on the superlative record of sauropodomorphs in what is today South America, with forms ranging from the Carnian−when they make their appearance in the pale- ontological record−up to the Maastrichtian−when they became extinct−. During all that long period of time (more than 160 million years), sauropodomorphs experi- enced important evolutionary events: diversifications and global or local extinctions,modifying their body plans with the acquisition of unique evolutionary novelties, many of which are directly linked to their herbivory and huge sizes.