Sister of Quadrupeds

In the describing paper, published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B, Aardonyx is discussed as the sister taxon to obligatory quadrupedal sauropodomorphs. This rather straightforward and almost emotionless statement is one of the most important phrases in the entire paper. Another highly important discovery, to those that love sauropods, is also mentioned in the abstract in a bit more detail; the anatomical orientation of the bones of the foot and their weight bearing capabilities are hinted at briefly. This comment and discussion of the anatomy of the foot leads into a rather interesting discussion on the evolution of bulk browsing in sauropods. This in turn leads to more discussion on obligate quadrupedalism from this facultative quadruped. This image is from the paper and details the remains discovered that were used to describe the new taxon.

From Yates, et al.2009