Superfamily
Valid Extinct

Spinosauroidea

Olshevsky 1995

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
2
Group
Dinosaures
Carnivore Ground dwelling, solitary Terrestrial
Spinosauroidea
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Wikimedia
PBDB Wikipedia
Classification
Dinosauria Unranked clade
Theropoda Unranked clade
Neotheropoda Unranked clade
Averostra Unranked clade
Tetanurae Unranked clade
Spinosauroidea Superfamily
Fossil sites 2 geolocated sites
Distribution
Top countries
🇪🇸 Spain
1
🇧🇷 Brazil
1
Geological formations
Açu
1
Temporal distribution
Albian (113.2–100.5 Ma)
1
Barremian (125.77–121.4 Ma)
1
Images 1
Bibliography
Original description
G. Olshevsky. 1995. African dinosaur discoveries. Science 267:1750 DOI ↗
Bibliography (2)
P.V.L.G.C. Pereira, T. B. Ribeiro, and S. L. Brusatte, C. R. d. A. Candeiro, T. d. S. Marinho, L. P. Bergqvist. 2020. Theropod (Dinosauria) diversity from the Açu Formation (mid-Cretaceous), Potiguar Basin, northeast Brazil. Cretaceous Research 114:104517:1-11 DOI ↗
D. Gómez-Fernández, J. I. Canudo, and V. Cano-Llop. 2007. Cintura pelviana de un nuevo dinosaurio terópodo de la Formación Morella (Aptiense inferior) en Vallibona (Castellón) [Pelvic girdle of a new theropod dinosaur from the Morella Formation (lower Aptian) in Vallibona (Castellón)]. In: J. C. Braga, A. Checa, & M. Company (eds.), XXIII Jornadas de la Sociedad Española de Paleontología, Libro de resúmenes. Instituto Geológico y Minero de España y Universidad de Granada