Gongxianosaurus

Gongxianosaurus may have reached in length. Like other sauropods, it moved quadrupedally (on four legs), as indicated by the elongated fore limbs that reached 70 to 75% of hind limb length. The pedal phalanges were short and robust, as typical for sauropods. The pedal phalangeal formula, counting the number of phalanges for each digit starting from the innermost, was 2-3-4-5-1. All but the outermost digit ended in claws. Unlike in other sauropods, pleurocoels (deep lateral excavations of the vertebrae) were absent; thus, the vertebrae would have been quite massive. The sacrum was made of three fused sacral vertebrae, fewer than in later sauropods. The chevrons were unbifurcated. An important characteristic of sauropod limbs is their reduced ossification – the tendency to replace bone by cartilage. Gongxianosaurus is the only known sauropod with ossified distal tarsals. Thus, either Gongxianosaurus was one of the basalmost sauropods, or ossified distal tarsals were present in other early sauropods but are simply not preserved due to the fragmentation of the specimens. ==Classification==

Because the fossils are not fully described yet, available character information that can be used in cladistic analyses is limited. Thus, only few cladistical analyses have incorporated Gongxianosaurus. A recent analysis by Apaldetti et al. (2011) suggests that Gongxianosaurus was more basal than Vulcanodon, Tazoudasaurus and Isanosaurus, but more derived than the early sauropods Antetonitrus, Lessemsaurus, Blikanasaurus, Camelotia and Melanorosaurus. ==Discovery==

Gongxianosaurus fossils were found near the village of Shibei (Sichuan province) in purple mudstones pertaining to the Ziliujing Formation (Dongyuemiao Member). The holotype of Gongxianosaurus was kept in situ and a protective exhibition hall was built over it. The exhibition hall subsequently collapsed, and the specimen was most likely destroyed. ==References==