Yates Adam M, Kitching James W
Department of Earth Sciences, University of Bristol, Queens Road, Bristol BS8 1RJ, UK.
Proc Biol Sci. 2003 Aug 22;270(1525):1753-8. doi: 10.1098/rspb.2003.2417.
A partial dinosaur skeleton from the Upper Triassic (Norian) sediments of South Africa is described and named Antetonitrus ingenipes. It provides the first informative look at a basal sauropod that was beginning to show adaptations towards graviportal quadrupedalism such as an elongated forelimb, a modified femoral architecture, a shortened metatarsus and a changed distribution of weight across the foot. These adaptations allowed the clade to produce the largest-ever terrestrial animals. However, A. ingenipes lacked specializations of the hand found in more derived sauropods that indicate it retained the ability to grasp. Antetonitrus is older than the recently described Isanosaurus from Thailand and is the oldest known definitive sauropod.
描述并命名了一具来自南非上三叠统（诺利阶）沉积物的部分恐龙骨骼，名为灵巧原腿龙（Antetonitrus ingenipes）。它首次提供了有关基础蜥脚类恐龙的信息，这类恐龙开始表现出向重型四足行走的适应性特征，比如前肢拉长、股骨结构改变、跖骨缩短以及足部重量分布变化。这些适应性特征使该类群能够演化出有史以来最大的陆地动物。然而，灵巧原腿龙缺乏在更衍化的蜥脚类恐龙中发现的手部特化特征，这表明它仍保留着抓握能力。原腿龙比最近描述的来自泰国的伊森龙更古老，是已知最古老的确定的蜥脚类恐龙。
