In Depth
Gryponyx was first named by Robert Broom in 1911who when he described this dinosaur thought that he was naming a theropod dinosaur. This assessment was seconded in 1932 when Friedrich von Huene classified Gryponyx in with the Carnosauria. By 1976 Gryponyx was realised to actually be a sauropodomorph dinosaur (the group ancestral to the later sauropods and titanosaurs), however at this time Gryponyx was synonymised with a species of Massospondylus. M. harriesi in a study by Galton and Cluver. In 1981 M. Harriesi was synonymised in with another Massospondylus species, M. carinatus. Then in 2004 a study by Vasconcelos and Yates resurrected Gryponyx as a distinct genus separate from Massospondylus, and subsequent studies referencing this decision have all supported the re-establishment of the Gryponyx genus.
Gryponyx was a mid-sized sauropodomorph dinosaur probably roaming about on all fours, but able to adopt a bipedal posture when browsing upon plants. While other species of Gryponyx have been named, in modern times only the type species has been considered to be valid.
Another dinosaur named by Robert Broom in 1911 was Geranosaurus.
Further Reading
- On the dinosaurs of the Stormberg, South Africa. - Annals of the South African Museum 7(4):291-308. - Robert Broom - 1911. - Die fossile Reptil-Ordnung Saurischia, ihre Entwicklung und Geschichte. - Monographien zur Geologie und Pal�ontologie, Series 1 4: 1–361. - Friedrich von Huene - 1932. - Anchisaurus capensis (Broom) and a revision of the Anchisauridae (Reptilia, Saurischia). - Annals of the South African Museum 69(6):121-159. - P. M. Galton & M. A. Cluver - 1976. - The prosauropod dinosaur Massospondylus carinatus Owen from Zimbabwe: its biology, mode of life and phylogenetic significance. - Occasional Papers of the National Museums and Monuments of Rhodesia, Series B, Natural Sciences 6(10):689-840. - M. R. Cooper - 1981. - Sauropodomorph biodiversity of the upper Elliot Formation (Lower Jurassic) of southern Africa. - Geoscience Africa, Abstract Volume 2:670. - A. M. Yates - 2004. - A New Basal Sauropod Dinosaur from the Lufeng Basin, Yunnan Province, Southwestern China. - Acta Geologica Sinica (English Edition) 84 (6): 1336–1342. - L� Junchang, Yoshitsugu Kobayashi, Li Tianguang & Zhong Shimin - 2010. - A new transitional sauropodomorph dinosaur from the Early Jurassic of South Africa and the evolution of sauropod feeding and quadrupedalism. - Proceedings of the Royal Society B 277 (1682): 787–794. - A. M. Yates, M. F. Bonnan, J. Neveling, A. Chinsamy & M. G. Blackbeard - 2010.
