Unranked clade
Valid Extinct

Megalosauria

(Bonaparte 1850)

Megalosauroidea is a superfamily of tetanuran theropod dinosaurs that lived from the Middle Jurassic to the Late Cretaceous period. The group is defined as Megalosaurus bucklandii and all taxa sharing a more recent common ancestor with it than with Allosaurus fragilis or Passer domesticus. Members of the group include Spinosaurus, Megalosaurus, and Torvosaurus. They are possibly paraphyletic in nature with respect to Allosauroidea, which is to say some members of this superfamily might be closer to Allosauroids than to each other, which is undesirable in cladistics.

Temporal range
Triassic
Jurassic
Cretaceous
Paleogene
Neogene
252 201 145 66 0 Ma
PBDB occurrences
5
Group
Dinosaures
Carnivore Ground dwelling, solitary Terrestrial
Megalosauria
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Wikimedia
PBDB Wikipedia
Classification
Dinosauria Unranked clade
Theropoda Unranked clade
Neotheropoda Unranked clade
Averostra Unranked clade
Tetanurae Unranked clade
Megalosauroidea Superfamily
Megalosauria Unranked clade
Fossil sites 5 geolocated sites
Distribution
Top countries
🇬🇧 United Kingdom
3
🇫🇷 France
1
🇱🇾 Libya
1
Geological formations
Cabao
1
Temporal distribution
Hauterivian (132.6–125.77 Ma)
1
Berriasian (143.1–137.05 Ma)
3
Oxfordian (161.5–154.8 Ma)
1
Images 8
Bibliography
Original description
C.-L. Bonaparte. 1850. Conspectus Systematum Herpetologiae et Amphibiologiae. Editio Altera Reformata. DOI ↗
Bibliography (3)
M. T. Carrano, R. B. J. Benson, and S. D. Sampson. 2012. The phylogeny of Tetanurae (Dinosauria: Theropoda). Journal of Systematic Palaeontology 10(2):211-300 DOI ↗
J. B. Delair and A. B. Lander. 1973. A short history of the discovery of reptilian footprints in the Purbeck Beds of Dorset, with notes on their stratigraphical distribution. Proceedings of the Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Society 94:17-20
H. v. Meyer. 1832. Palaeologica zur Geschichte der Erde und ihrer Geschöpfe; Verlag von Siegmund Schmerber, Franfurt am Main