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Letters to Nature

Nature 407, 72-74 (7 September 2000) | doi:10.1038/35024060; Received 2 November 1999; Accepted 18 May 2000

The earliest known sauropod dinosaur

Eric Buffetaut1, Varavudh Suteethorn2, Gilles Cuny3, Haiyan Tong1, Jean Le Loeuff4, Sasidhorn Khansubha2 & Sutee Jongautchariyakul2

  1. Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, 16 cour du Liégat, 75013 Paris, France
  2. Geological Survey Division, Department of Mineral Resources, Rama VI Road, Bangkok 10400, Thailand
  3. Department of Earth Sciences, University of Bristol, Bristol BS8 1RJ, UK
  4. Musée des Dinosaures, 11260 Espéraza, France

Correspondence to: Eric Buffetaut1 Correspondence and requests for materials should be addressed to E.B. (e-mail: Email: Eric.Buffetaut@wanadoo.fr).

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Sauropods were a very successful group of dinosaurs during the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods, but their earlier history is poorly known. Until now, the earliest reported sauropod bones were from the Early Jurassic1, 2, 3, and the only tentative evidence of earlier sauropods was in the form of controversial footprints4, 5. Here we report the discovery of an incomplete sauropod skeleton from the Late Triassic period of Thailand, which provides the first osteological evidence of pre-Jurassic sauropods. This dinosaur is markedly different from prosauropods and substantiates theoretical predictions that there was a fairly long period of sauropod evolution during the Triassic.