In Depth
Barapasaurus was an Early Jurassic sauropod that seems to be caught in between other sauropod forms. The vertebrae of Barapasaurus are solid which has seen this sauropod placed within the Cetiosauridae, however the narrow sacrum is more characteristic of the Vulcanodontidae sauropods. Palaeontologists are split as to which placement is the most valid which is why Barapasaurus is credited as belonging to either one of these groups.
Barapasaurus was big for an early sauropod, but the mix of the above characteristics has seen Barapasaurus described as having a more standard sauropod form. More specialised sauropods would not exist in large numbers until the late Jurassic with the appearance of diplodocids like Diplodocus and Apatosaurus, and macronarians like Camarasaurus and Brachiosaurus. Not long after, the titanosaurs evolved from existing sauropods to take developments even further.
Further Reading
Further reading – The Sauropod Dinosaur from the Lower Jurassic Kota Formation of India – S. L. Jain, T. S. Kutty, T. Roy-Chowdhury & S. Chatterjee – 1975. – Some characteristics of Barapasaurus tagorei, a sauropod dinosaur from the Lower Jurassic of Deccan, India – S. L. Jain, T. S. Kutty, T. Roy-Chowdhury ; S. Chatterjee – 1979. – Osteology of Barapasaurus tagorei (Dinosauria: Sauropoda) from the Early Jurassic of India. – Palaeontology. 53 (3): 533–569. – Saswati Bandyopadhyay, David D. Gillette, Sanghamitra Ray & Dhurjati P. Sengupta – 2010.
