Dinosauria

Musango is a basal sauropodomorph dinosaur that lived during the Late Triassic period in what is now Zimbabwe. Typical of early sauropodomorphs, or "prosauropods," it was an obligate biped with a long neck, and a long tail for counterbalance. Musango grew to approximately 5 m in total body length.

Uragasaurus is a sauropod dinosaur, and the first mamenchisaurid known from Thailand. Mamenchisaurids exhibit the basic sauropod body plan, processing their herbivorous diet in their large gut. Uniquely, mamenchisaurid necks, like that of Uragasaurus, are proportionately long, even by sauropod standards.

Restored profile of the oviraptorid dinosaur Heyuannia yanshini by Matt Martyniuk.

Vitosaura is an abelisaurid theropod dinosaur that lived in what is now Argentina. It was a medium sized bipedal carnivore reaching around 6 m in total body length. Though only known from the pelvic girdle, Vitosaura likely had a blunt rugose snout, and extremely short arms, as these are typical traits of abelisaurs.

Isasicursor santacrucensis, an elasmarian ornithopod dinosaur.

Graph of relative Dinosaur fossil populations from each period of geologic time in the Mesozoic, ordered by major clade

Holotype skull of the centrosaurine ceratopsian dinosaur Diabloceratops eatoni from the Late Cretaceous (Campanian) of the Wahweap Formation, Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, Utah. Photograph by Nick Longrich, 2023.

Diuqin is an unenlagiine dinosaur from the Late Cretaceous of what is now Argentina. Unenlagiines, known exclusively from South America, are usually classified as dromaeosaurs though this is sometimes debated. Like dromaeosaurs, they were covered in feathers, carnivorous, and had the large sickle-like claw on the inner toe of each foot. Unique to unenlagiines is their elongated snout, suggesting a piscivorous diet. Diuqin was a medium-sized unenlagiine, at about 4 m in length.

Figure 1. Evolution of macroecological traits in Dinosauria. Large scale event in dinosaur evolution (a); the origin of dinosaurs (star), hyperthermals (volcano), the earliest fossil Avialae (bird), the earliest fossil angiosperm (flower), the Cretaceous/Palaeogene mass extinction (asteroid). Phylogeny of dinosaurs (b) redrawn from Sereno and adapted to the current consensus and upon which an ancestral state reconstruction of temperature niche (mean annual temperature) after Chiarenza et al. is plotted; Mesozoic palaeogeographies (c) for Triassic (T), Jurassic (J) and Cretaceous (K). Silhouette colours symbolize body mass for each of the taxa represented; information on dietary habits are plotted after Barrett and Zanno & Makovicky; numbers represent clades discussed through this study: 1, Ornithischia; 2, Thyreophora; 3, Ornithopoda; 4, Hadrosauroidea; 5, Marginocephalia; 6, Ceratopsia; 7, Saurischia; 8, Sauropodomorpha; 9, Sauropoda; 10, Theropoda; 11, Ceratosauria; 12, Tetanurae; 13, Coelurosauria; 14, Maniraptoriformes; 15, Maniraptora; 16, Deinonychosauria; 17, Avialae; 18, Ornithothoraces. Palaeogeographies modified from original plots via R package ‘mapast’ using plate models by Scotese.

Diagram illustrating the "Temporal paradox" in paleontology. First given it's nickname by Alan Feduccia, the paradox is made up by the fact that almost all feathered dinosaurs are dated to have lived millions of years after Archaeopteryx, the oldest bird (late Jurassic, believed to have existed about 150 million years ago). Only a few of the feathered dinosaurs/birdlike dinosaurs are given an older date than Archaeopteryx.

Montage of eight different representatives of coelurosaurian dinosaurs: (Clockwise from upper left) GIN 100/42 which may represent Citipati or a different oviraptorosaur, Sinosauropteryx prima, Nothronychus mckinleyi, Tyrannosaurus rex, Bambiraptor feinbergi, Passer domesticus, Struthiomimus altus, Microraptor gui. This is a collection of eight different works already found in Wikimedia Commons (see source field below).

Simplified cladogram of Dinosauria with the distribution of feathers according to the fossil record. Despite its more ancient origin, it was only in maniraptoriformes that modern-type feathers (pennaceous feathers) have arisen (Based in Xu & Guo, 2009; Clarke, 2013; Godefroit et al., 2013; Han et al., 2014; Koshchowitz et al., 2014).

Ареал карнозавров

Reconstruction of the theropod dinosaur Tachiraptor admirabilis. Artwork created with graphite and colored pencils. Author: Edwin Chávez "Disfrasaurio".

Ceratosaurus nasicornis reconstruction. Matches proportions shown in Gregory S. Paul (The Princeton Field Guide to Dinosaurs, 2010, p. 84)

Sketch-drawing of the vertebrate faunal assemblage of the Lisowice site (modified from Niedźwiedzki)10. (a) Large, theropod-like predatory archosaur (Smok wawelski); (b) large temnospondyl amphibian (Cyclotosaurus sp.); (c) small predatory dinosaurs (Neotheropoda indet.); (d) temnospondyl amphibian (Gerrothorax sp.); (e) small basal crocodylomorph (Crocodylomorpha indet.); (f) small diapsid (Choristodere-like animal); (g) hybodont sharks (Polyacrodus and Hybodus); (h) coelacanth fish; (i) dipnoan fish (Ptychoceratodus sp.); (j) actinopterygian fish; (k) gigantic dicynodont; (l) dinosauriforms or early dinosaurs (Dinosauriformes indet. or Dinosauria indet.); (m) small lepidosauromorphs (Sphenodontia indet.); (n) pterosaurs (Pterosauria indet.); (o) early mammaliaform (Hallautherium sp.).