Rebbachisaurids Temporal range:Late Jurassic toLate Cretaceous,150–90 Ma PreꞒ Ꞓ O S D C P T J K Pg N
Limaysaurus tessonei skeleton restoration
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Reptilia
Clade:	Dinosauria
Clade:	Saurischia
Clade:	†Sauropodomorpha
Clade:	†Sauropoda
Superfamily:	†Diplodocoidea
Clade:	†Diplodocimorpha
Family:	†Rebbachisauridae Bonaparte, 1997
Subgroups
†Agustinia †Amazonsaurus †Astigmasaura †Campananeyen †Cienciargentina †Comahuesaurus †Histriasaurus †Lavocatisaurus †Maraapunisaurus? †Nopcsaspondylus †Sidersaura †Xenoposeidon? †Zapalasaurus †Khebbashia †Limaysaurinae †Cathartesaura †Katepensaurus †Limaysaurus †Rayososaurus †Rebbachisaurinae †Demandasaurus †Itapeuasaurus †Katepensaurus? †Nigersaurus †Rebbachisaurus †Tataouinea

Rebbachisauridae is afamily ofsauropoddinosaurs known from fragmentaryfossil remains from theCretaceous ofSouth America,Africa,North America,Europe and possiblyCentral Asia.

In 1990 sauropod specialist Jack McIntosh included the first known rebbachisaurid genus, the giant North African sauropodRebbachisaurus, in the familyDiplodocidae, subfamilyDicraeosaurinae, on the basis of skeletal details. With the discovery in subsequent years of a number of additional genera, it was realised thatRebbachisaurus and its relatives constituted a distinct group of dinosaurs. In 1997 the Argentine paleontologistJosé Bonaparte described the family Rebbachisauridae, and in 2011 Whitlock defined two new subfamilies within the group: Nigersaurinae and Limaysaurinae.^[1]

Khebbashia is a clade within Rebbachisauridae.^[2] Members of Khebbashia were medium-sized sauropods from the early Cretaceous period of South America, Africa and Europe.

The name "Khebbashia" is derived from "Khebbash" or "Khebbache", a Moroccan tribe that inhabited the region where the first rebbachisaurid specimen was found in North Africa.^[3] Khebbashia is defined as the least inclusive clade includingLimaysaurus tessonei,Nigersaurus taqueti, andRebbachisaurus garasbae. It therefore includes the rebbachisaurid subfamiliesRebbachisaurinae andLimaysaurinae, to the exclusion of more basal forms.^[3]

Rebbachisaurinae is asubfamily which is within both Rebbachisauridae and Khebbashia, defined to includeRebbachisaurus garasbae and excludeLimaysaurus tessonei, which belongs to its own subfamily,Limaysaurinae. It was first proposed as a rank byJose Bonaparte in 1995, to includeRebbachisaurus.^[4] Some phylogenies however, includeRebbachisaurus in a clade withLimaysaurus, and thus the subfamily was not used.^[5] In 2015, a phylogenetic analysis was conducted, and it foundRebbachisaurus instead to be closer toNigersaurus and related genera thanLimaysaurus, and thus was used to replace Nigersaurinae as Rebbachisaurinae is the older term and is named after the genus used for the formation of the family Rebbachisauridae. The 2015 cladogram of Fanti et al. is shown below.^[4][5]

Although all authorities agree that the rebbachisaurids are members of the superfamilyDiplodocoidea, they lack the bifid (divided)cervicalneural spines that characterise thediplodocids anddicraeosaurids, and for this reason are considered more primitive than the latter two groups. It is not yet known whether they share the distinctive whip-tail of the latter two taxa.

Rebbachisaurids are distinguished from other sauropods by their distinctive teeth, which have low angle, internalwear facets and asymmetricalenamel.

Unique among sauropods, at least some rebbachisaurids (such asNigersaurus) are characterised by the presence of tooth batteries, similar to those ofhadrosaur andceratopsian dinosaurs. Such a feeding adaptation has thus developed independently three times among the dinosaurs.

So far, rebbachisaurids are known only from the middle and early part of the Late Cretaceous. They constitute the last known representatives of the diplodocoids, and lived alongside thetitanosaurs until fairly late in the Cretaceous.

• Bonaparte J.F. (1997). "Rayososaurus agrioensis Bonaparte 1995".Ameghiniana.34 (1): 116.
• McIntosh, J. S., 1990, "Sauropoda" inThe Dinosauria, Edited byDavid B. Weishampel,Peter Dodson, andHalszka Osmólska.University of California Press, pp. 345–401.
• Upchurch, P.,Barrett, P.M. and Dodson, P. 2004. "Sauropoda". InThe Dinosauria, 2nd edition. Weishampel, Dodson, and Osmólska (eds.). University of California Press, Berkeley. pp. 259–322.
• Wilson J.A. (2002)."Sauropod dinosaur phylogeny: critique and cladistic analysis"(PDF).Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society.136 (2):215–275.doi:10.1046/j.1096-3642.2002.00029.x.
• ------ (2005) "Overview of Sauropod Phylogeny and Evolution", inThe Sauropods: Evolution and Paleobiology
• Wilson, J. A. andSereno, P.C. (2005) "Structure and Evolution of a Sauropod Tooth Battery" inThe Sauropods: Evolution and Paleobiology inCurry Rogers and Wilson, eds, 2005,The Sauropods: Evolution and Paleobiology,University of California Press, Berkeley,ISBN 0-520-24623-3

• Rebbachisauridae
• Dinosaur families

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