Spondylosoma

Spondylosoma Temporal range: Middle Triassic PreЄ Є O S D C P T J K Pg N
Skeletal restoration showing known material, with a mostly hypothetical outline
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Sauropsida
Superorder:	Archosauria
Genus:	Spondylosoma von Huene, 1942
Species
S. absconditum von Huene, 1942 (type)

Spondylosoma (meaning "vertebra body") is a genus of archosaur of uncertain affinities from the late Ladinian-age Middle Triassic Lower Santa Maria Formation in Geopark of Paleorrota, Brazil.

History

Friedrich von Huene based the genus on a fragmentary postcranial skeleton held at the University of Tübingen. This skeleton includes two teeth, two cervical vertebrae, four dorsal vertebrae, three sacral vertebrae, scapulae, part of a humerus, part of a femur, and part of a pubis. At the time, he thought it was a prosauropod.^[1]

With the discovery of basal dinosaur Staurikosaurus, Spondylosoma drew attention as a possible relative. Authors went back and forth on the question, considering it either as a basal dinosaur, or as a "thecodont" or other basal archosaur. In 2000, Peter Galton noted that it lacks dinosaurian characteristics and was probably a rauisuchian more closely related to rauisuchids,^[2] whereas in 2004 Max Langer disputed this and included Spondylosoma as a possible basal dinosaur similar to the herrerasaurs (but did not firmly rule out raisuchian affinities).^[3] In his 2009 thesis on archosaur evolution, Sterling Nesbitt placed Spondylosoma at Archosauria incertae sedis, noting that the characters used by Galton to tentatively place the genus in Rauisuchidae are also found in Aetosauria, and that the holotype lacks characters to place it in either Pseudosuchia or Ornithodira.^[4]

References