''Jaklapallisaurus'' is a

genus Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms as well as viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus comes above species and below family. In binomial n ...

of unaysaurid

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 l ...

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 (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 ...

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 ...

) in what is now

Telangana Telangana (; , ) is a state in India situated on the south-central stretch of the Indian peninsula on the high Deccan Plateau. It is the eleventh-largest state and the twelfth-most populated state in India with a geographical area of and ...

, 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 ...

. 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 seve ...

ISI ISI or Isi may refer to: Organizations * Intercollegiate Studies Institute, a classical conservative organization focusing on college students * Ice Skating Institute, a trade association for ice rinks * Indian Standards Institute, former name of ...

R274,

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 s ...

l material which was collected from the Upper Maleri Formation (late Norian–earliest Rhaetian) of the Pranhita–Godavari Basin and from the referred material ISI R279, partially complete right

femur The femur (; ), or thigh bone, is the proximal bone of the hindlimb in tetrapod vertebrates. The head of the femur articulates with the acetabulum in the pelvic bone forming the hip joint, while the distal part of the femur articulates wit ...

which was collected from the Lower Dharmaram Formation (latest Norian–Rhaetian). 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 Tharavat S. Kutty in 2011 and the

type species In zoological nomenclature, a type species (''species typica'') is the species name with which the name of a genus or subgenus is considered to be permanently taxonomically associated, i.e., the species that contains the biological type specimen( ...

is ''Jaklapallisaurus asymmetrica''. The generic name is derived from the Indian town of ''Jaklapalli'' which is close to the type locality. The specific name refers to the highly asymmetrical astragalus of this species in distal view. A

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 ch ...

analysis by Novas et al. found that all valid plateosaurid species form a large

polytomy An internal node of a phylogenetic tree is described as a polytomy or multifurcation if (i) it is in a rooted tree and is linked to three or more child subtrees or (ii) it is in an unrooted tree and is attached to four or more branches. A tr ...

. ''Jaklapallisaurus'' was found along with the basal sauropodomorph '' Nambalia'', a guaibasaurid, and two basal

dinosauriforms 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 lage ...

Classification

''Jaklapallisaurus'', alongside ''

Macrocollum ''Macrocollum'' is a genus of unaysaurid sauropodomorph dinosaur that lived during the Late Triassic period (early Norian) in what is now Brazil. It is one of the oldest dinosaurs known. Discovery ''Macrocollum'' was discovered in 2012 in Rio ...

'' and '' Unaysaurus'', was found to belong to the clade

Unaysauridae Unaysauridae is a clade of basal sauropodomorphs from the Late Triassic of India and Brazil. Diagnosis and systematics Unaysauridae was defined by Müller ''et al.'' (2018) as the most inclusive clade including ''Unaysaurus tolentinoi'', but n ...

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 {{triassic-reptile-stub