Maniraptora
Maniraptora | ||||||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Reconstructed hand bones of Dromaeosaurus in the Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle in Paris |
||||||||||||
Temporal occurrence | ||||||||||||
Bathonian ( Middle Jurassic ) to Maastrichtian ( Upper Cretaceous ) (birds up to now ) |
||||||||||||
168.3 to 66 (or until today) million years | ||||||||||||
Locations | ||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||
Systematics | ||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||
Scientific name | ||||||||||||
Maniraptora | ||||||||||||
Gauthier , 1986 |
The Maniraptora (= "hand robbers") are a group of dinosaurs that includes advanced coelurosaurs and birds (Aves). They are characterized by a special, crescent-shaped bone in the wrist . As a result, a greater mobility of the hand was achieved, which was an important step towards the mobility necessary for bird flight . The feather also developed further within the Maniraptora.
The Maniraptora of the Mesozoic Ages were small and medium-sized animals that had the largest brains compared to body size within the dinosaurs. It is believed that they were intelligent and agile predators.
Internal system
A model of the internal systematics of the Maniraptora according to a recent study gives the following cladogram :
Maniraptora |
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
See also
literature
- David E. Fastovsky , David B. Weishampel : The Evolution and Extinction of the Dinosaurs. 2nd Edition. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2005, ISBN 0-521-81172-4 .
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 .