Megalosauroidea

Megalosauroids
Temporal range: Middle Jurassic – Late 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

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.

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

Tetanurae

References

  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.