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Diplodocoid

Diplodocoids
Temporal range: Late JurassicLate Cretaceous, 154–93 Ma
Skeletons of Apatosaurus and Diplodocus
Holotype skeletons of Diplodocus carnegiei and Apatosaurus louisae, Carnegie Museum of Natural History
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Reptilia
Clade: Dinosauria
Order: Saurischia
Suborder: Sauropodomorpha
Clade: Neosauropoda
Superfamily: Diplodocoidea
Marsh, 1884 vide Upchurch, 1995
Type species
Diplodocus longus
Marsh, 1878
Subgroups

Haplocanthosaurus
Diplodocimorpha

Synonyms

Haplocanthosaurus
Diplodocimorpha

Diplodocoidea is a superfamily of sauropod dinosaurs, which included some of the longest animals of all time, including slender giants like Supersaurus, Diplodocus, Apatosaurus, and Amphicoelias. Most had very long necks and long, whip-like tails; however, one family (the dicraeosaurids) are the only known sauropods to have re-evolved a short neck, presumably an adaptation for feeding low to the ground. This adaptation was taken to the extreme in the highly specialized sauropod Brachytrachelopan. A study of snout shape and dental microwear in diplodocoids showed that the square snouts, large proportion of pits, and fine subparallel scratches in Apatosaurus, Diplodocus, Nigersaurus, and Rebbachisaurus suggest ground-height nonselective browsing; the narrow snouts of Dicraeosaurus, Suuwassea, and Tornieria and the coarse scratches and gouges on the teeth of Dicraeosaurus suggest mid-height selective browsing in those taxa. This taxon is also noteworthy because diplodocoid sauropods had the highest tooth replacement rates of any vertebrates, as exemplified by Nigersaurus, which had new teeth erupting every 30 days.

The below taxonomy follows the study of Emanuel Tschopp, Octavio Mateus and Roger Benson, 2015:

The phylogenetics of Diplodocoidea were reviewed in 2015 with a specimen-level phylogenetic analysis, as well as a species-level analysis. Their cladistic analysis is shown below.

Haplocanthosaurus priscus

Zapalasaurus bonapartei

Cathartesaura anaerobica


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