Saturnaliidae is a

family Family (from ) is a Social group, group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or Affinity (law), affinity (by marriage or other relationship). It forms the basis for social order. Ideally, families offer predictabili ...

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 lo ...

dinosaurs Dinosaurs are a diverse group of reptiles of the clade Dinosauria. They first appeared during the Triassic Geological period, period, between 243 and 233.23 million years ago (mya), although the exact origin and timing of the #Evolutio ...

found in

Brazil Brazil, officially the Federative Republic of Brazil, is the largest country in South America. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by area, fifth-largest country by area and the List of countries and dependencies by population ...

Argentina Argentina, officially the Argentine Republic, is a country in the southern half of South America. It covers an area of , making it the List of South American countries by area, second-largest country in South America after Brazil, the fourt ...

and possibly

Zimbabwe file:Zimbabwe, relief map.jpg, upright=1.22, Zimbabwe, relief map Zimbabwe, officially the Republic of Zimbabwe, is a landlocked country in Southeast Africa, between the Zambezi and Limpopo Rivers, bordered by South Africa to the south, Bots ...

. It is not to be confused with Saturnalidae, a family of radiolarian protists.

Classification

In 2010,

Martin Ezcurra Martin may refer to: Places Antarctica * Martin Peninsula, Marie Byrd Land * Port Martin, Adelie Land * Point Martin, South Orkney Islands Europe * Martin, Croatia, a village * Martin, Slovakia, a city * Martín del Río, Aragón, Spain * M ...

defined the subfamily Saturnaliinae for the clade containing ''

Saturnalia Saturnalia is an Roman festivals, ancient Roman festival and holiday in honour of the List of Roman deities, god Saturn (mythology), Saturn, held on 17 December in the Julian calendar and later expanded with festivities until 19 December. By t ...

'' and '' Chromogisaurus'', which were found to be close relatives in several studies. While they are sometimes found to be a subgroup within the

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

, all recent studies have found the saturnaliines to form an independent lineage at the very base of the sauropodomorph family tree. At one point, '' Agnosphitys'' was recovered as a possible saturnaliine until it was recovered as a member of

Silesauridae Silesauridae is an extinct family of Triassic dinosauriforms. It is most commonly considered to be a clade of non-dinosaur dinosauriforms, and the sister group of dinosaurs. Some studies have instead suggested that most or all silesaurids compr ...

in 2017.Baron, M.G., Norman, D.B., and Barrett, P.M. (2017). A new hypothesis of dinosaur relationships and early dinosaur evolution. ''Nature'', 543: 501–506. Langer and colleagues (2019) recovered '' Pampadromaeus'' and '' Panphagia'' as relatives of ''Saturnalia'' and ''Chromogisaurus'', elevating Saturnaliinae to family rank as Saturnaliidae. In that particular paper, they recovered ''Guaibasaurus'' as a basal theropod.Langer MC, McPhee BW, Marsola JCdA, Roberto-da-Silva L, Cabreira SF (2019) Anatomy of the dinosaur '' Pampadromaeus barberenai'' (Saurischia—Sauropodomorpha) from the Late Triassic Santa Maria Formation of southern Brazil. PLoS ONE 14(2): e0212543. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0212543 Additionally, ''

Eoraptor ''Eoraptor'' () is a genus of small, lightly built, Basal (phylogenetics), basal sauropodomorpha, sauropodomorph dinosaur. One of the earliest-known dinosaurs and one of the earliest sauropodomorphs, it lived approximately 231 to 228 million yea ...

'', ''

Buriolestes ''Buriolestes'' is a genus of early sauropodomorph dinosaurs from the Late Triassic Santa Maria Formation of the Paraná Basin in southern Brazil. It contains a single species, ''B. schultzi'', named in 2016. The type specimen was found alongsid ...

'', '' Bagualosaurus'' and especially ''

Nhandumirim ''Nhandumirim'' (meaning "small Rhea (bird), rhea" in the Tupi language) is a genus of basal Sauropodomorpha, sauropodomorph dinosaur from the Carnian age of Late Triassic Brazil. It is currently considered a Saturnaliidae, saturnaliid sauropodom ...

'' are also possible members of this clade following their position in many recent phylogenetic analyses and the new definition given by Langer et al. (2019), as "the maximal sauropodomorph clade to encompass ''Saturnalia'' but not ''

Plateosaurus ''Plateosaurus'' (probably meaning "broad lizard", often mistranslated as "flat lizard") is a genus of plateosaurid dinosaur that lived during the Late Triassic period, around 214 to 204 million years ago, in what is now Central and Northern Eu ...

''." In several of these analyses, ''Guaibasaurus'' is recovered as distantly related to ''Saturnalia'', sometimes as a more basal sauropodomorph or saurischian, and in some cases specifically related to more derived taxa such as ''

Macrocollum ''Macrocollum'' is a genus of unaysauridae, unaysaurid sauropodomorph dinosaur that lived during the Late Triassic period (geology), period (early Norian) in what is now Brazil. It is one of the oldest dinosaurs known. Discovery and naming ''Mac ...

'' and ''

Unaysaurus ''Unaysaurus'' is a genus of unaysauridae, unaysaurid sauropodomorpha, sauropodomorph herbivore dinosaur. Discovered in southern Brazil, in the geopark of Paleorrota, in 1998, and announced in a press conference on Thursday, December 3, 2004, it ...

.'' This way a Guaibasauridae including ''Saturnalia'' and kin is no longer being supported.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q2591790 Dinosaur families Carnian dinosaurs Dinosaurs of South America