The Melanorosauridae were a family of sauropodomorph

dinosaur Dinosaurs are a diverse group of reptiles of the clade Dinosauria. They first appeared during the Triassic period, between 243 and 233.23 million years ago (mya), although the exact origin and timing of the evolution of dinosaurs is t ...

s which lived during the

Late Triassic The Late Triassic is the third and final epoch (geology), epoch of the Triassic geologic time scale, Period in the geologic time scale, spanning the time between annum, Ma and Ma (million years ago). It is preceded by the Middle Triassic Epoch ...

and Early Jurassic. The name Melanorosauridae was first coined by

Friedrich von Huene Friedrich von Huene, born Friedrich Richard von Hoinigen, (March 22, 1875 – April 4, 1969) was a German paleontologist who renamed more dinosaurs in the early 20th century than anyone else in Europe. He also made key contributions about v ...

in 1929. Huene assigned several families of dinosaurs to the infraorder "

Prosauropod Sauropodomorpha ( ; from Greek, meaning "lizard-footed forms") is an extinct clade of long-necked, herbivorous, saurischian dinosaurs that includes the sauropods and their ancestral relatives. Sauropods generally grew to very large sizes, had lon ...

a": the

Anchisauridae ''Anchisaurus'' is a genus of basal sauropodomorph dinosaur. It lived during the Early Jurassic Period, and its fossils have been found in the red sandstone of the Portland Formation, Northeastern United States, which was deposited from the He ...

, the Plateosauridae, the

Thecodontosauridae Thecodontosauridae is a family of basal sauropodomorph dinosaurs that are part of the Bagualosauria, known from fossil remains found exclusively in the Magnesian Conglomerate of Bristol, England,Camelotia ''Camelotia'' (meaning "from Camelot") is a genus of sauropodomorph dinosaur from the Late Triassic or Early Jurassic in what is now England. Paleontologists are divided on which family it may belong to; in the past, ''Camelotia'' has generally b ...

'', ''

Lessemsaurus ''Lessemsaurus'' is an extinct genus of sauropod dinosaur belonging to Lessemsauridae. Naming and description The type species, ''L. sauropoides'', was formally described by José Fernando Bonaparte in 1999 in honor of Don Lessem, a writer of ...

'', and ''

Melanorosaurus ''Melanorosaurus'' (meaning "Black Mountain Lizard", from the Greek ''melas/'', "black", ''oros/'', "mountain" + ''/'', "lizard") is a genus of basal sauropodomorph dinosaur that lived during the Late Triassic period. A herbivore from South Af ...

'' members of the family Melanorosauridae. A more recent study by Yates (2007) indicates that the melanorosaurids were instead early

sauropod Sauropoda (), whose members are known as sauropods (; from '' sauro-'' + '' -pod'', 'lizard-footed'), is a clade of saurischian ('lizard-hipped') dinosaurs. Sauropods had very long necks, long tails, small heads (relative to the rest of their bo ...

References

* Galton, P.M & Upchurch, P. (2004). "Prosauropoda". In D. B. Weishampel, P. Dodson, & H. Osmólska (eds.), ''The Dinosauria'' (second edition). University of California Press, Berkeley 232–258. * Yates, Adam M. (2007), "The first complete skull of the Triassic dinosaur ''Melanorosaurus'' Haughton (Sauropodomorpha: Anchisauria)", in Barrett, Paul M. & Batten, David J., ''Special Papers in Palaeontology'', vol. 77, pp. 9–55, Anchisauria Prehistoric dinosaur families {{Sauropodomorph-stub