Massopoda
The Massopoda is a clade of sauropodomorph dinosaurs which lived during the Late Triassic to the Late Cretaceous periods. It was named by paleontologist Adam M. Yates of the University of the Witwatersrand in 2007. Massopoda is a stem-based taxon, defined as all animals more closely related to Saltasaurus loricatus than to Plateosaurus engelhardti.
The name Massopoda, ;, is also contraction of Massospondylidae and Sauropoda, two disparate taxa in the clade.Classification
Yates assigned the Massopoda to Plateosauria. Within the clade, he assigned the families Massospondylidae and Riojasauridae as well as the Sauropoda.
The following is a simplified cladogram from an analysis presented by Blair McPhee and colleagues in 2014:
