Galvesaurus herreroi

D, Michael D. & Emic, 2012, The early evolution of titanosauriform sauropod dinosaurs, Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society 166 (3), pp. 624-671 : 648

GALVESAURUS HERREROI (BARCO ET AL., 2005)

Galvesaurus herreroi was named by Barco et al. (2005) on the basis of a holotypic middle dorsal vertebra and several referred bones from the Villar del Arzobispo Formation of Spain. These bones are thought to belong to a single individual based on their close association ( Sánchez-Hernández, 2005), but the supposed left and right humeri are too disparate in size and shape to belong to a single animal or even species (see Barco et al., 2005: fig. 4). Explaining these differences taphonomically is not feasible, because the longer humerus is shorter transversely, unlike what would be expected with flattening or shearing. Further discoveries in the Villar del Arzobispo Formation would corroborate or refute referrals to Galvesaurus . Provisionally considering this material to represent a single genus, Galvesaurus was recently suggested to be a laurasiform macronarian outside of Titanosauriformes ( Barco, 2009). Barco (2009) refuted earlier suggestions that Galvesaurus represented a diplodocoid ( Barco et al., 2005) or nonneosauropod ( Royo-Torres et al., 2006).

The lower-level phylogenetic relationships of Galvesaurus were sensitive to taxon sampling in the cladistic analyses of Barco (2009). The constituency and a consensus on the phylogenetic affinities of Galvesaurus await further discoveries, but the material from Villar del Arzobispo appears to pertain to Titanosauriformes based on a few features such as elongate cervical vertebrae and middle caudal vertebrae with anteriorly set neural arches (Appendix 3). The gracility and rounded proximolateral corner of the humeri suggest possible brachiosaurid affinities for those bones.