Barapasaurus

Name: Barapasaurus ‭(‬Big legged lizard‭)‬.
Phonetic: Bah-rap-o-sore-us.
Named By: Jain,‭ ‬Kutty,‭ ‬Roy-Chowdhury and Chatterjee‭ ‬-‭ ‬1975.
Classification: Chordata,‭ ‬Reptilia,‭ ‬Dinosauria,‭ ‬Saurischia,‭ ‬Sauropodomorpha,‭ ‬Sauropoda.
Species: B.‭ ‬tagorei‭ (‬type‭)‬.
Diet: Herbivore.
Size: Around‭ 14‭ ‬meters long.
Known locations: India.
Time period: Toarcian of the Jurassic.
Fossil representation: Remains of‭ ‬5‭ ‬individuals,‭ ‬but so far known only from the post cranial skeleton.

       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
- 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.

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