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| Sauropoda Temporal range: Upper Triassic – Upper Cretaceous | |
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| Mounted skeleton of Apatosaurus Carnegie Museum | |
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| Infraorder: | Sauropoda Marsh, 1878 |
Sauropoda are an infraorder of saurischian ("lizard-hipped") dinosaurs. They had very long necks, long tails, small heads (in comparison to the rest of their body), and thick, pillar-like legs and peg-like teeth.
They are notable for the enormous size of some species. The group includes the largest animals ever to have lived on land. Well-known genera include Brachiosaurus, Diplodocus, Apatosaurus and Brontosaurus.
Sauropods first appeared in the Upper Triassic period. Their probable ancestral group was the Prosauropoda.
By the Upper Jurassic (150 million years ago), sauropods had become widespread (especially the diplodocids and brachiosaurids).
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