Carnosauria

"Carnosaur" redirects here. For the movie, see Carnosaur (film).

iCarnosaurs Fossil range: Jurassic – Cretaceous
A replica Allosaurus skeleton at a New Zealand museum.
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia Phylum: Chordata Class: Sauropsida Superorder: Dinosaur Order: Saurischia Suborder: Theropoda Infraorder: Carnosauria von Huene, 1920
Families
Allosauridae Sinraptoridae Carcharodontosauridae

Carnosaurs were large predatory dinosaurs that lived during the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods. The best known dinosaur in this group is Allosaurus. Recently, scientists have discovered some very large carnosaurians in the carcharodontosaurid group such as Giganotosaurus and Tyrannotitan which may have grown to larger sizes than the famous coelurosaur Tyrannosaurus.

Their defining characterisitics include large eyes, a long narrow skull and modifications of the legs and pelvis such as the thigh (femur) being longer than the shin (tibia).

Traditional "Carnosaurs"

Carnosauria has traditionally been used as a dumping ground for all large theropods, but analysis in the 1980s and 1990s revealed that other than size, the group shared very few characteristics. Most former carnosaurs were reclassified as more primitive theropods; or were placed in Coelurosauria if they were more closely related to birds, like the tyrannosaurids. Other former "carnosaurs" include the megalosaurids, the spinosaurids, and the ceratosaurs. Even non-dinosaurs have been considered carnosaurs, such as the rauisuchian Teratosaurus.

Modern cladistic analysis defines Carnosauria as those dinosaurs sharing a more recent common ancestor with Allosaurus than with modern birds [1].

Carnosaur Species

• Tetanurae
  • Coelurosauria
  • Carnosauria
    • ?Gasosaurus
    • ?Lourinhanosaurus
    • Erectopus
    • Monolophosaurus
    • Fukuiraptor
    • Siamotyrannus
    • Superfamily Allosauroidea
      • Becklespinax
      • Megaraptor
      • Family Sinraptoridae
        • Metriacanthosaurus
        • Yangchuanosaurus
        • Sinraptor
      • Family Allosauridae
        • Allosaurus
        • Epanterias
        • Antrodemus
        • Saurophaganax
        • "Madsenius"
        • "Wyomingraptor"
      • Family Carcharodontosauridae
        • Neovenator
        • Acrocanthosaurus
        • Tyrannotitan
        • Carcharodontosaurus
        • Mapusaurus
        • Giganotosaurus

This page uses content from Wikipedia. The original article was at Carnosauria. The list of authors can be seen in the page history. As with Paleontology Wiki, the text of Wikipedia is available under the GNU Free Documentation License.