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Megalosauroidea

From Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Megalosauroids
Temporal range: Middle JurassicLate Cretaceous, 170–93 Ma
Torvosaurus skeletal mount, Museum of Ancient Life
Spinosaurus skeletal mount, National Geographic Museum
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Clade: Dinosauria
Clade: Saurischia
Clade: Theropoda
Clade: Orionides
Superfamily: Megalosauroidea
Huxley, 1889
Type species
Megalosaurus bucklandii
Mantell, 1827
Subgroups
Synonyms
  • Spinosauroidea Stromer, 1915
  • Torvosauroidea Nopcsa, 1915
  • Spinosauria Olshevsky, 1991

Megalosauroidea is a group of carnivorous theropod dinosaurs. They lived from the Middle Jurassic to the Late Cretaceous period. Members of the group include Spinosaurus, Megalosaurus, and Torvosaurus.

Classification

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The definition of the clade Megalosauroidea includes Megalosaurus bucklandii and all taxa that share a more recent common ancestor with it than they do with Allosaurus fragilis or the House Sparrow.[1]

Below is a cladogram showing the relationships between different members of Megalosauroidea. It is based on a study by Carrano, Benson & Sampson (2012).[2]

Tetanurae

References

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  1. Benson, R.B.J. (2010). "A description of Megalosaurus bucklandii (Dinosauria: Theropoda) from the Bathonian of the UK and the relationships of Middle Jurassic theropods". Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society. 158 (4): 882–935. doi:10.1111/j.1096-3642.2009.00569.x. S2CID 84266680.
  2. Carrano, M. T.; Benson, R. B. J.; Sampson, S. D. (2012). "The phylogeny of Tetanurae (Dinosauria: Theropoda)". Journal of Systematic Palaeontology. 10 (2): 211–300. doi:10.1080/14772019.2011.630927. S2CID 85354215.