Sanpasaurus ("Sanpa lizard") is a poorly known sauropod dinosaur from the Early Jurassic of Sichuan, China. The type species, S. yaoi, was described by Chung Chien Young, in 1944. The type remains, IVPP V.156, consists of 20 vertebrae, scapulae, forelimbs, and some hindlimb bones.C.-C. Young. 1944. On the reptilian remains from Weiyuan, Szechuan, China. Bulletin of the Geological Society of China 24(3–4):187-205. Initially reported by Young as an ornithopod ornithischian, this specimen was unambiguously referred to SauropodaA mention buried at the bottom of a long discussion of Asian sauropods, on the Dinosaur Mailing List.Upchurch, P. 1995. The evolutionary history of sauropod dinosaurs. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, B, 349:365-390. in 2016 by McPhee et al.,McPhee BW, Upchurch P, Mannion PD, Sullivan C, Butler RJ, Barrett PM. (2016) A revision of Sanpasaurus yaoi Young, 1944 from the Early Jurassic of China, and its relevance to the early evolution of Sauropoda (Dinosauria) PeerJ 4:e2578 https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.2578 later refined to a basal gravisaurian position by Pol et al. in 2020 and 2022, closely related to Vulcanodon and Tazoudasaurus. Sanpasaurus is known from remains recovered from the Maanshan Member of the Ziliujing Formation.
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