''Nambalia'' is a

genus Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of extant taxon, living and fossil organisms as well as Virus classification#ICTV classification, viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus com ...

of basal

sauropodomorph 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 ...

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 ...

. It 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 ...

period Period may refer to: Common uses * Era, a length or span of time * Full stop (or period), a punctuation mark Arts, entertainment, and media * Period (music), a concept in musical composition * Periodic sentence (or rhetorical period), a concept ...

(late

Norian The Norian is a division of the Triassic Period. It has the rank of an age (geochronology) or stage (chronostratigraphy). It lasted from ~227 to million years ago. It was preceded by the Carnian and succeeded by the Rhaetian. Stratigraphic defi ...

to earliest

Rhaetian The Rhaetian is the latest age of the Triassic Period (in geochronology) or the uppermost stage of the Triassic System (in chronostratigraphy). It was preceded by the Norian and succeeded by the Hettangian (the lowermost stage or earliest age ...

) in what is now

Telangana Telangana (; , ) is a States and union territories of India, state in India situated on the south-central stretch of the Indian subcontinent, Indian peninsula on the high Deccan Plateau. It is the List of states and union territories of India b ...

, central

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

. It is known from the

holotype A holotype is a single physical example (or illustration) of an organism, known to have been used when the species (or lower-ranked taxon) was formally described. It is either the single such physical example (or illustration) or one of several ...

ISI R273, parts 1–3, partially articulated

postcrania Postcrania (postcranium, adjective: postcranial) in zoology and vertebrate paleontology is all or part of the skeleton apart from the skull. Frequently, fossil remains, e.g. of dinosaurs or other extinct tetrapods, consist of partial or isolated sk ...

l material and from the paratypes ISI R273, parts 4-29, including partial postcrania of at least two individuals of different sizes found closely associated and one of them is nearly the same size as the holotype.

Discovery and naming

ISI R273 was discovered and collected from the

Upper Maleri Formation The Upper Maleri Formation is a sedimentary rock formation found in Telangana, India. It is one of the formations of the Pranhita–Godavari Basin. It is of late Norian and possibly earliest Rhaetian ages (Late Triassic), and is notable for its ...

within the Pranhita–Godavari Basin, north of Nambal village. It was first named by Fernando E. Novas, Martin D. Ezcurra,

Sankar Chatterjee Sankar Chatterjee (born May 28, 1943) is a paleontologist, and is the Paul W. Horn Professor of Geosciences at Texas Tech University and Curator of Paleontology at the Museum of Texas Tech University. He earned his Ph. D. from the University of ...

and T. S. Kutty in

2011 File:2011 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: a protester partaking in Occupy Wall Street heralds the beginning of the Occupy movement; protests against Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi, who was killed that October; a young man celebrate ...

and the type species is ''Nambalia roychowdhurii''. The generic name is derived from the Indian village of ''Nambal'' which is close to the type locality. The specific name honors Dr. Roy Chowdhuri, for his research on the

Triassic The Triassic ( ) is a geologic period and system which spans 50.6 million years from the end of the Permian Period 251.902 million years ago ( Mya), to the beginning of the Jurassic Period 201.36 Mya. The Triassic is the first and shortest period ...

vertebrate faunas of India.

Classification

cladistic Cladistics (; ) is an approach to biological classification in which organisms are categorized in groups (" clades") based on hypotheses of most recent common ancestry. The evidence for hypothesized relationships is typically shared derived char ...

analysis by Novas et al. found that ''Nambalia'' is basal to ''

Efraasia ''Efraasia'' (pronounced "E-FRAHS-ee-A") is a genus of basal sauropodomorph dinosaur. It was a herbivore which lived during the middle Norian stage of the Late Triassic, around 210 million years ago, in what is now Germany. It was named in 1 ...

'', ''

Plateosauravus ''Plateosauravus'' ("grandfather of ''Plateosaurus''") is a basal plateosaurian of uncertain affinities from the Late Triassic Elliot Formation of South Africa. Sidney Haughton named ''Plateosaurus cullingworthi'' in 1924 from a partial skeleto ...

'', ''

Ruehleia ''Ruehleia'' is a genus of sauropodomorph dinosaur from the Late Triassic period of Germany. The type species is ''R. bedheimensis'', described by Galton in 2001,Galton, P.M. (2001). "Prosauropod dinosaurs from the Upper Triassic of Germany", In ...

'' and

Plateosauria Plateosauria is a clade of sauropodomorph dinosaurs which lived during the Late Triassic to the Late Cretaceous. The name Plateosauria was first coined by Gustav Tornier in 1913. The name afterwards fell out of use until the 1980s. Classificat ...

, but more derived than ''

Thecodontosaurus ''Thecodontosaurus'' ("socket-tooth lizard") is a genus of herbivorous basal sauropodomorph dinosaur that lived during the late Triassic period (Rhaetian age). Its remains are known mostly from Triassic "fissure fillings" in South England. ''The ...

'', ''

Pantydraco ''Pantydraco'' (where "panty-" is short for Pant-y-ffynnon, signifying ''hollow of the spring/well'' in Welsh, referring to the quarry at Bonvilston in South Wales where it was found) was a genus of basal sauropodomorph dinosaur from the Late Tri ...

'', and

Guaibasauridae Guaibasauridae is a family of basal sauropodomorph dinosaurs, known from fossil remains of late Triassic period formations in Brazil and Argentina. Classification The exact makeup and classification of the Guaibasauridae remain uncertain. The ...

. ''Nambalia'' was found along with the plateosaurid ''

Jaklapallisaurus ''Jaklapallisaurus'' is a genus of unaysaurid sauropodomorph dinosaur. It lived during the Late Triassic period (late Norian to earliest Rhaetian) in what is now Telangana, central India. It is known from the holotype ISI R274, postcranial ...

'', a guaibasaurid, and two basal

dinosauriform Dinosauromorpha is a clade of avemetatarsalian archosaurs (reptiles closer to birds than to crocodilians) that includes the Dinosauria (dinosaurs) and some of their close relatives. It was originally defined to include dinosauriforms and lager ...

References

Sauropodomorphs Norian life Rhaetian life Dinosaurs of India and Madagascar Late Triassic dinosaurs of Asia Triassic India Fossils of India Fossil taxa described in 2011 Taxa named by Fernando Novas Taxa named by Sankar Chatterjee {{sauropodomorph-stub