page_title: Glacialisaurus
section_title: Phylogeny
hierarchical_section_title: Glacialisaurus / Phylogeny
caption_attribution_description: English: Life restoration of Glacialisaurus hammeri, part of the Antarctic Dinosaur exhibit at the Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago, IL, 2018. I cast of the fossil femur and hind limb is also present for comparison. The smaller specimen (life restoration in green) is of an yet to be named prosauropod, exhibited as Prosauropod B, also from Antarctica.
context_page_description: Glacialisaurus is a genus of massospondylid sauropodomorph dinosaur. It lived during the Early Jurassic period in what is now central Transantarctic Mountains of Antarctica. It is known from the holotype FMNH PR1823, a partial hind limb and from the referred material FMNH PR1822, a left femur.
context_section_description: In their phylogenetic analysis of the relationships of Glacialisaurus, Smith and Pol found that it is a massospondylid, a non-eusauropod sauropodomorph more advanced than other forms such as Saturnalia and Plateosaurus. Features of its foot are similar to Lufengosaurus (from the Early Jurassic of China), and the phylogenetic study suggests that Lufengosaurus may have been a close relative of Glacialisaurus, whereas other massospondylids such as Coloradisaurus and Massospondylus found to be more basal forms. Recent cladistic analyses by Yates (2007), Yates et al. (2010, 2011) and Novas et al. (2011) found the same results. The discovery of Glacialisaurus is important to the study of the early distribution of sauropod dinosaurs. The presence of this primitive sauropodomorph in the Hanson Formation (which has also yielded remains attributed to true sauropods) shows that both primitive and advanced members of this lineage existed side by side in the early Jurassic Period.
caption: Model of G. hammeri, Field Museum of Natural History (smaller specimen is of a not-yet-named prosauropod also from Antarctica.)
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