Blikanasauridae
Encyclopedia
The Blikanasauridae were a group of early sauropodomorph dinosaur
Dinosaur
Dinosaurs are a diverse group of animals of the clade and superorder Dinosauria. They were the dominant terrestrial vertebrates for over 160 million years, from the late Triassic period until the end of the Cretaceous , when the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event led to the extinction of...

s. The clade
Clade
A clade is a group consisting of a species and all its descendants. In the terms of biological systematics, a clade is a single "branch" on the "tree of life". The idea that such a "natural group" of organisms should be grouped together and given a taxonomic name is central to biological...

 was first proposed by Galton and van Heerden in 1985. The family consists of Blikanasaurus
Blikanasaurus
Blikanasaurus was a genus of sauropodomorph dinosaur found in Lower Elliot Formation rocks from the Late Triassic in what is now South Africa's Cape Province. Known from a left lower limb only, it has been variously classified as a prosauropod or basal sauropod...

and its nearest relatives. However, it is not clear which other genera
Genus
In biology, a genus is a low-level taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms, which is an example of definition by genus and differentia...

 are included in the family. The family is not used in many current taxonomies; Benton
Michael J. Benton
Michael J. Benton is a British paleontologist, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, and professor of vertebrate palaeontology in the Department of Earth Sciences at the University of Bristol....

 (2004) does not list the clade. The Blikanasaurids were once considered Prosauropods, but new research indicates they may in fact have been basal Sauropods.

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