Pronunciation: yoo-hee-LOP-oh-dih-day
Author: Alfred Sherwood Romer
Year: 1956
Meaning: Euhelopus family (see etymology)
Locomotion: Quadrupedal (four legs)
Synonyms: Helopodidae (Wiman, 1929)
[D'Emic, 2012]Definition
Neosauropods more closely related to Euhelopus zdanskyi than to Neuquensaurus australis.
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Etymology
Euhelopodidae is derived from the Greek "eu" (good, true), "helos" (marsh), "pous" (foot), and "idae" (family), named for the group anchor Euhelopus. Euhelopus was originally named Helopus (marsh foot) and nominated to anchor Helopodidae in 1929 by Carl Wiman, who likened its broad-soled hind feet with splayed toes to "trugors": a type of shoe worn in northern Sweden by man and horse to prevent sinkage into loose snow and soft, swampy ground. However, the name Helopus turned out to be pre-occupied by a water bird (Helopus caspius, Wagler 1832), and so Romer chose Euhelopus (true marsh foot) and Euhelopididae (true marsh foot family) as replacement names in 1956.
Relationships
References
• Wiman Carl (1929) "Die Kreide-Dinosaurier aus Shantung". Palaeontologia Sinica, 6(1): 85.
• Romer AS (1956) "Osteology of the Reptiles". Chicago: University of Chicago Press, pp. 1-772.
• Wilson JA and Upchurch P (2009) "Redescription and reassessment of the phylogenetic affinities of Euhelopus zdanskyi (Dinosauria: Sauropoda) from the early cretaceous of China". Journal of Systematic Palaeontology, 7(2): 199-239. DOI: 10.1017/S1477201908002691.
• D'Emic MD (2012) "The early evolution of titanosauriform sauropod dinosaurs". Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society, 166(3): 624-671. DOI: 10.1111/j.1096-3642.2012.00853.x.
• Poropat SF (2013) "Carl Wiman’s sauropods: The Uppsala Museum of Evolution's collection". GFF, 135(1): 104-119. DOI: 10.1080/11035897.2012.759268.
• Moore AJ, Upchurch P, Barrett PM, Clark JM and Xu X (2020) "Osteology of Klamelisaurus gobiensis (Dinosauria, Eusauropoda) and the evolutionary history of Middle—Late Jurassic Chinese sauropods". Journal of Systematic Palaeontology, 18(16): 1299-1393. DOI: 10.1080/14772019.2020.1759706.
