Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
Dromaeosaurids are so bird-like that they have led some researchers to argue that they would be better classified as birds. First, since they had feathers, dromaeosaurids (along with many other coelurosaurian theropod dinosaurs) are "birds" under traditional definitions of the word "bird", or "Aves", that are based on the possession of feathers.
In the modern fauna, theropods are represented by over 11,000 species of birds, which are a group of maniraptoran theropods within the clade Avialae.. Theropoda (/ θ ɪəˈr ɒ p ə d ə /; [2] from ancient Greek θηρίο-ποδός [θηρίον, (therion) "wild beast"; πούς, ποδός (pous, podos) "foot"]), commonly known as theropods, is an extant dinosaur clade that is ...
Pennaraptora (Latin penna "bird feather" + raptor "thief", from rapere "snatch"; a feathered bird-like predator) is a clade within Maniraptora, defined as the most recent common ancestor of Oviraptor philoceratops, Deinonychus antirrhopus, and Passer domesticus (the house sparrow), and all descendants thereof, by Foth et al., 2014. [13]
That includes all species of birds, and in recent decades evidence has accumulated that many non-avian dinosaur species also possessed feathers in some shape or form. The extent to which feathers or feather-like structures were present in dinosaurs as a whole is a subject of ongoing debate and research.
In the 1970s, John Ostrom, following Thomas Henry Huxley's lead in 1868, argued that birds evolved within theropod dinosaurs and Archaeopteryx was a critical piece of evidence for this argument; it had several avian features, such as a wishbone, flight feathers, wings, and a partially reversed first toe along with dinosaur and theropod features.
Coelurosauria is a subgroup of theropod dinosaurs that includes compsognathids, tyrannosaurs, ornithomimosaurs, and maniraptorans; Maniraptora includes birds, the only known dinosaur group alive today.
The mounted skeleton of a Velociraptor, showing the very bird-like quality of the smaller theropod dinosaurs. Discoveries in northeast China (Liaoning Province) demonstrate that many small theropod dinosaurs did indeed have feathers, among them the compsognathid Sinosauropteryx and the microraptorian dromaeosaurid Sinornithosaurus.
Neobohaiornis is an extinct genus of bohaiornithid enantiornithean birds from the Early Cretaceous (Aptian-aged) Jiufotang Formation of Liaoning Province, China. The genus contains a single species, N. lamadongensis, known from a well-preserved skeleton with feather impressions.