Rebbachisauridae
Skull of Nigersaurus
- South America
- Africa
The Rebbachisauridae are a family of Diplodocoidea. It was defined in 1997 by José Fernando Bonaparte. The Rebbachisauridae lived on the continents of Europe, South America and Africa.
- 2.1 taxonomy
- 2.2 Outer systematics
- 2.3 Branches
Features
The Rebbachisauridae were like all sauropods, four-legged running ( Quadrupedie ), herbivorous ( herbivorous ) dinosaurs. They had a small head, a long neck and tail.
Unique to see the sauropods, and only at the Rebbachisauriden are tooth batteries. It shows for a herbivorous dinosaur extreme adjustments and also this adjustment is only found in Hadrosauriern and Ceratopsiden.
If you look at the lower jaw from above, it appears L- shaped and forms a very broad, box-shaped teeth containing geraded rows of teeth that are transverse to the longitudinal shaft of the mandible - a unique feature among dinosaurs. The total length of the mandible is easily surpassed by the width of the muzzle.
Maxilla as the mandible have tooth batteries, which are deeply embedded in the maxilla, the Premaxillare and the Dental. So were under each of the more than 100 active teeth up to 10 permanent teeth, the skull had a total of about 500 teeth. The teeth had the sections vegetation like scissors. The teeth wore out quickly from there - no other dinosaur greater Abnutzrate is known. The tooth batteries made for a continuous change of teeth, according to Sereno about every month grew by a tooth. Anyway Nigersaurus had none of the special adaptations that have been demonstrated in other dinosaurs with tooth batteries.
Hull
The neck is short compared with other sauropods, the 13 cervical vertebrae have only 130 % of the length of the back spine. A short neck and a smaller size distinguish the most Rebbachisauriden and Dicraeosauriden that are so unlike the large, long-necked diplodocids. Whether these features of diplodocids are derived characteristics of this family, or whether the common characteristics of Dicraeosauridae and Rebbachisauridae have developed convergent, but it is not clear.
Systematics and Taxonomy
Taxonomy
The first genus of Rebbachisauridae, Rebbachisaurus, was written by Jack McIntosch 1990 in the Diplodocidae, subfamily Dicraeosaurinae, like. As in the years to other dinosaurs were discovered, it became clear that these dinosaurs formed a certain group called Bonaparte 1997 Rebbachisauridae.
Outer systematics
The Rebbachisauridae are within the Diplodocoidea, a group of Neosauropoden. The sister taxon are the Flagellicaudata ( Diplodocidae Dicraeosauridae ). The following cladogram shows the phylogenetic relationships:
Rebbachisauridae
Dicraeosauridae
Diplodocidae
Genera
- Cathartes aura
- Demandasaurus
- Limaysaurus
- Nigersaurus
- Nopcsaspondylus
- Rayososaurus
- Rebbachisaurus
- Tataouinea