Avialae

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.

Aurornis xui, a basal member of Avialae from northern China, which lived 160 mya