and Lapparentosaurus in a phylogenetic analysis, and recovered them as basal eusauropods, more derived than Shunosaurus but more basal than Barapasaurus, with Volkheimeria more basal than Lapparentosaurus. In 2017, Cerda et al. found Volkheimeria to be a non-eusauropod sauropod closely related to Tazoudasaurus. In 2018, Holwerda and Pol found Volkheimeria to be a non-eusauropod sauropod, as the sister taxon of Spinophorosaurus. EvolutionVolkheimeria lived during the Toarcian age of the Early Jurassic, 178-179 million years ago. The beginning of the Toarcian was a time of significant faunal turnover for sauropodomorphs, as all sauropodomorph lineages except for sauropods died out and eusauropods, which became the dominant sauropod group in the Middle Jurassic, began to diversify. Volkheimeria was not a member of the eusauropod radiation, and was probably a representative of a lineage that diverged from other sauropods in the earliest Jurassic or even the Triassic. Paleoecology The ecosystem represented by the Cañadón Asfalto Formation included at least four sauropods other than Volkheimeria chubutensis, all of them eusauropods: Bagualia alba, Patagosaurus fariasi'', an unnamed basal eusauropod, and a possible neosauropod. References Dinosaur genera Middle Jurassic dinosaurs of South America Jurassic Argentina Fossils of Argentina Cañadón Asfalto Formation Fossil taxa described in 1979 Taxa named by José Bonaparte