page_title: Titanosauria
section_title: New phylogenetic frameworks
hierarchical_section_title: Titanosauria / Classification / New phylogenetic frameworks
caption_attribution_description: Blue Dinosaur Royal Ontario Museum
context_page_description: Titanosaurs were a diverse group of sauropod dinosaurs, including genera from Africa, Asia, South America, North America, Europe, Australia and Antarctica. The titanosaurians were the last surviving group of long-necked sauropods, with taxa still thriving at the time of the extinction event at the end of the Cretaceous. This group includes the largest land animals known to have ever existed, such as Patagotitan—estimated at 37 m long with a weight of 69 tonnes —and the comparably-sized Argentinosaurus and Puertasaurus from the same region.
  The group's name alludes to the mythological Titans of ancient Greek mythology, via the type genus Titanosaurus. Together with the brachiosaurids and relatives, titanosaurians make up the larger sauropod clade Titanosauriformes. Titanosaurs have long been a poorly-known group, and the relationships between titanosaur species are still not well-understood.
context_section_description: In 2005, Curry-Rogers proposed a new phylogenetic analysis that focused on the inter-relationships of Titanosauria and included the most expansive character and taxon list of any study before it. 364 characters were selected from all previous phylogenetic analyses and scored across 29 probable titanosaurs, ranging from the Late Jurassic African Janenschia to the large variety of Late Cretaceous global genera. Proposing her analysis as the basis for a new phylogenetic framework of Titanosauria, Curry-Rogers recommended only using named for clades that were very strongly supported. For the strict consensus, every taxon more derived than Brachiosaurus was in an unresolved polytomy except for a clade of Rapetosaurus and Nemegtosaurus, and one of Saltasaurinae. Within the recommended results, she only named Titanosauria, Lithostrotia, Saltasauridae, Saltasaurinae and Opisthocoelicaudiinae, because of the weakness of support (below and left).
  
  
   
  Curry-Rogers (2005)
   
  Carballido et al. (2017)
   
  Another form of composite matrix was created by Calvo, González-Riga and Juan Porfiri in 2007, based upon multiple previous studies between 1997 and 2003. The final analysis included 15 titanosaurs and 65 characters, and the typical titanosaur subclades were resolved, Titanosauridae being used over Lithostrotia following Salgado (2003), and the new clade Rinconsauria for the clade of Rinconsaurus and Muyelensaurus. The new clade (defined as Rinconsaurus and Muyelensaurus) was placed as the sister taxon of Aeolosaurini, which together grouped with Rapetosaurus as sister to Saltasauridae. In the same year, Calvo et al. published another paper, describing the basal titanosaur Futalognkosaurus. The only difference in the resulting phylogeny, based on the matrix of the Calvo, González-Riga & Porfiri (2007), was the addition of Futalognkosaurus as the sister taxon to Mendozasaurus in a clade Calvo et al. named Lognkosauria, defined by the two genera classified within it. A very similar result was also recovered by González-Riga et al. in 2009 in a phylogenetic analysis based partially on that of Calvo et al. (2007), although Epachthosaurus was nested with Rapetosaurus outside the clades of aeolosaurines. Further updates and modifications were then made by Palbo Gallina & Apesteguía in 2011, with the additions of Ligabuesaurus, Antarctosaurus, Nemegtosaurus and Bonitasaura and character updates to match, bringing the total to 77 characters and 22 taxa. Significantly contrasting the earlier results, internal relationships of Titanosauria were rearranged. Malawisaurus nested with Andesaurus in a clade of the basalmost titanosaurs outside Titanosauroidea, where Lirainosaurus, instead of being the basal member of the saltasaur-branch was instead basalmost titanosauroid. Lognkosauria moved to be within rinconsaurs, while Nemegtosauridae was resolved as the sister of Aeolosaurus and Gondwanatitan, and the rinconsaur-lognkosaur branch. Antarctosaurus was unstable, but placed in a polytomy with the lognkosaurs and rinconsaurs before being excluded. Saltasaurinae and its relationship with Opisthocoelicaudia remained the same.
  Nemegtosauridae was additionally revised by Hussam Zaher et al. (2011) with the description of Tapuiasaurus, which nested closer to Rapetosaurus than Nemegtosaurus, with all three forming a clade of derived lithostrotians. Using the matrix of Wilson (2002), following the additions of a few cranial characters and Diamantinasaurus, Tangvayosaurus and Phuwiangosaurus, remained the same as originally found by Wilson but with Diamantinasaurus sister to Saltasauridae and the other two genera as basal titanosaurs outside Lithostrotia, since Titanosauria, while undefined, was labelled to include all taxa closer to Saltasaurus than Euhelopus. Following a revision of the skull of Tapuiasaurus, Wilson et al. (2016) rescored the analysis of Zaher et al. and recovered similar results for everything but Nemegtosauridae, where the family dissolved into a more basal Tapuiasaurus outside Lithostrota and Nemegtosaurus outside Saltasauridae. While n
caption: Mounted skeleton of Futalognkosaurus dukei
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