Flagellicaudata is a clade of Dinosauria. It belongs to

Sauropoda 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 ...

and includes two families, the

Dicraeosauridae Dicraeosauridae is a family of diplodocoid sauropods who are the sister group to Diplodocidae. Dicraeosaurids are a part of the Flagellicaudata, along with Diplodocidae. Dicraeosauridae includes genera such as '' Amargasaurus'', '' Suuwassea'', ...

and the

Diplodocidae Diplodocids, or members of the family Diplodocidae ("double beams"), are a group of sauropod dinosaurs. The family includes some of the longest creatures ever to walk the Earth, including '' Diplodocus'' and '' Supersaurus'', some of which may ha ...

Phylogeny

The clade Flagellicaudata was erected by Harris and Dodson (2004) for the diplodocoid clade formed by Dicraeosauridae and Diplodocidae in their paper describing a new genus of sauropod dinosaur, '' Suuwassea''. The authors carried out a phylogenetic analysis and noted that ''Suuwassea'', although more derived than Rebbachisauridae, is in a trichotomy with other families belonging to Diplodocoidea (Diplodocidae and Dicraeosauridae). Flagellicaudata was defined as a node-based clade consisting of the most recent common ancestor of '' Dicraeosaurus'' and ''

Diplodocus ''Diplodocus'' (, , or ) was a genus of diplodocid sauropod dinosaurs, whose fossils were first discovered in 1877 by S. W. Williston. The generic name, coined by Othniel Charles Marsh in 1878, is a neo-Latin term derived from Greek διπ� ...

'' and all of its descendants. The word "Flagellicaudata" refers to long, whip-like tails of that animals (''flagellum'' is a Latin word meaning "whip" and ''cauda'' means in Latin "tail"). Fragment of cladogram presented in Harris and Dodson, 2004:

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q2680965 Diplodocimorpha