Jingshanosaurus xinwaensis
The Massospondylidae are a group of dinosaurs belonging to the Sauropodomorpha.
A Massospondylidae family was first appointed by Galton in 1990 to give Massospondylus a place, then the only gender in that taxon. Von Huene, in 1914 the descriptor of Massospondylus, thus holds the first name.
A cloak Massospondylidae was first defined by Paul Sereno in 1998 as the group consisting of Massospondylus carinatus and all Prosauropoda more closely related to Massospondylus than to Plateosaurus engelhardti. In the years to come, it became increasingly clear that the Prosauropoda could in their traditional conception be a paraphyletic group and the 1998 definition could possibly combine all Sauropoda with the more derived Massopsondylus and its relatives. However, that was not the way the concept was normally understood, as an indication of only the closest relatives of Massospondylus. Therefore, in 2005 Sereno gave a new definition explicitly excluding the sauropods: the group of stocks from Massospondylus carinatus Owen 1854 and all species more closely related to Massospondylus than to Plateosaurus engelhardti Meyer 1837 or Saltasaurus loricatus Bonaparte and Powell 1980.
The oldest known massospondylide is presumably Lufengosaurus hueni from China's Rhaetien; the youngest Massospondylus himself from Pliensbachien. Yunnanosaurus from China and Glacialisaurus from Antarctica are other possible species. It's about sauropods with a fairly flat skull.
Up to the Massospondylidae are counted:
Wikispecieswiki
