three sacrals. The tail vertebra bodies already showed an incipient excavation of their lateral sides, saving weight and giving them a waisted appearance when viewed from below. In later sauropods, this excavations were enlarged to form extensive perforated pockets called pleurocoels. Contrasting the many sauropod-like features of the skeleton, the pelvis was relatively primitive, reminiscent of its "prosauropod" ancestors. One such feature is that the brevis shelf of the ilium has a fossa, which is not found in any more derived sauropods. The hallux (the first toe of the foot) showed a large claw that was flattened laterally, as seen in "prosauropods". However, the claws of the second and third toe were unusual in being nail-like and broader than deep. This feature was also found in the probably closely related Tazoudasaurus, but is absent in all other sauropods. The feet of Vulcanodon were semiplantigrade as in later sauropods (where both the digits and part of the metatarsals contact the ground), a derived feature not found in more basal sauropods like Isanosaurus. However, they also retained primitive features, like the fact that the phalanges were not reduced. Many of the features found in sauropods that basal sauropodomorphs lack are related to the change in body size. The greatest regions affected by this are the hind limbs and pelvis. For example, an elongating of the ilium, size reduction of the lesser trochanter shelf, and semiplantigrade posture are some features that indicate the amount and positioning of leg muscles being modified. Vulcanodon possessed these features, the latter of which is seen earliest in it. However, Vulcanodon does not have reduced distal phalanges, which are seen in Shunosaurus and all more derived sauropods. This means that while the muscle positioning of its legs were changing, they had not yet reduced in the distal region of the limb. Discovery Vulcanodon is known only from a single locality on an island in Lake Kariba, the largest artificial lake in the world, in northern Zimbabwe (formerly Rhodesia). The island, located west of Bumi Hills, is called "Island 126/127", after early, unpublished lake charts, but has no formal name. The first bone was found by B. A. Gibson of the town of Kariba in July 1969, and an excavation team collected the specimen in October 1969, March 1970 and May 1970. In the later half of 1970, the new find was presented at a scientific symposium in Cape