Coelurosauria

Coelurosauria
	Fossil of Sinosauropteryx from the early Cretaceous of East Asia with preservation of springs
Temporal occurrence
	Norium ( Upper Triassic ) to Maastrichtian ( Upper Cretaceous ) ; (birds up to now )
	228 to 66 (or until today) million years
Locations
	Worldwide;
Systematics
	Ornithodira
	Dinosaur (dinosauria)
	Lizard dinosaur (Saurischia)
	Theropoda
	Tetanurae
	Coelurosauria
Scientific name
	Coelurosauria
	Huene , 1914

Coelurosauria ( lat ./ gr . Hollow-tailed lizards) refers to a taxon of theropods within the dinosaur classification . Birds are also considered coelurosaurs ; their affiliation is only questioned by a few researchers.

features

The main characteristic of all Coelurosauria were thin-walled bones, to which their name also refers, and thus a light physique. Most of their representatives walked on sturdy hind legs and had arms with claws on them that were good for grabbing prey. The Coelurosauria were among the very first dinosaurs and lived from the Upper Triassic to the end of the Cretaceous , where they - apart from the birds - perished with the other " non-bird dinosaurs " during the mass extinction at the turn of the Paleogene (formerly "Tertiary").

In the summer of 1998 near Schamhaupten in the Altmühltal nature park, the 150 million year old skeleton of a young animal from Juravenator starki ("Jurassic hunter") was recovered from silicified Upper Jurassic limestone . The significance of the find results from the rarity of small theropods generally from this period in the fossil record , especially the European representatives are poorly documented.

Internal system

Today the Deinonychosauria and individual representatives, which formerly belonged to the Carnosauria , are counted among the Coelurosaurs. Including the family Tyrannosauridae , which was counted to the Carnosauria for a long time, but is now listed under the Coelurosauria due to its light physique. It has not yet been fully clarified whether the Ornithomimidae family, which belongs to the Coelurosauria, also forms its own taxon " Ornithomimosauria ".

A model of the internal systematics of the Coelurosauria according to a recent study gives the following cladogram :

Coelurosauria

	Coeluridae

	Tyrannosauroidea

Maniraptoriformes

Maniraptora

Paraves

Deinonychosauria

	Troodontidae

	Dromaeosauridae

Avialae (birds)

Compilation of various coelosaurs
Assumed location of the innards

Individual evidence

^ Phil Senter: A new look at the phylogeny of Coelurosauria (Dinosauria, Theropoda). In: Journal of Systematic Palaeontology. Vol. 5, No. 4, 2007, ISSN 1477-2019 , pp. 429-463, doi: 10.1017 / S1477201907002143 .

Web links

Commons : Coelurosauria - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Kladogram in Mikko's Phylogeny Archive (English)

[1] Phil Senter: A new look at the phylogeny of Coelurosauria (Dinosauria, Theropoda). In: Journal of Systematic Palaeontology. Vol. 5, No. 4, 2007, ISSN 1477-2019 , pp. 429-463, doi: 10.1017 / S1477201907002143 .