Somphospondyli


Somphospondylans are an extinct clade of titanosauriform sauropods that lived throughout the world from the Late Jurassic through the Cretaceous in North America, South America, Europe, Asia, Africa and Australia.

Classification

The group can be defined as the most inclusive clade that includes Saltasaurus loricatus but excludes Brachiosaurus altithorax. Features found as diagnostic of this clade by Mannion et al. 2013 include the possession of at least 15 cervical vertebrae; a radius bone end; sacral vertebrae with camellate internal texture; posterior articular surfaces of middle to posterior caudal vertebrae; distal caudal vertebrae; humerus anterolateral corner "squared"; among multiple others.
Below are the results for the phylogenetic analysis performed by Fernández-Baldor et al. 2017 during the description of Europatitan: