Re: Prosauropods

["Jean-Michel BENOIT" <s.aegyptiacus@free.fr>]

Funny, I was thinking that prosauropods could be basal dinosaurs, more
related to theropods than to sauropods, kind of early plant-eating or
omnivorous theropods

Jean-Michel

----- Original Message -----
From: <Dinogeorge@aol.com>
To: <dinosaur@usc.edu>
Sent: Friday, August 02, 2002 10:06 AM
Subject: Re: Prosauropods


> In a message dated 8/1/02 7:47:29 PM EST, qilongia@yahoo.com writes:
>
> << --+--Saturnalia
>    `--+--Thecodontosaurus
>       `--+--Anchisaurus
>          `--+--Plateosauria
>             `--+--Melanorosauridae (limited)
>                |--Blikanasaurus
>                `--Sauropoda >>
>
> Still don't see how sauropods could reevolve a two-phalanx fifth pedal
digit,
> which is vestigial (one phalanx) or lost (zero phalanges) in all known
> prosauropods. Unless of course the fifth digit is lost repeatedly and
> independently in each separate prosauropod lineage in this cladogram, and
> also in ornithischians and in theropods.
>
> More interesting is to consider the possibility that sauropods are basal
to
> all other dinosaurs, that prosauropods and ornithischians are sister
groups,
> and that theropods are a sister group to the prosauropod+ornithischian
group.
> This is what the feet say, anyway.
>