FurculaThe furcula (Latin for "little fork") or wishbone is a forked bone found in most birds and some species of non-avian dinosaurs, and is formed by the fusion of the two clavicles. In birds, its primary function is in the strengthening of the thoracic skeleton to withstand the rigors of flight. The furcula works as a strut between a bird's shoulders, and articulates to each of the bird's scapulae. In conjunction with the coracoid and the scapula, it forms a unique structure called the triosseal canal, which houses a strong tendon that connects the supracoracoideus muscles to the humerus.
DeinonychosauriaDeinonychosauria is a clade of paravian dinosaurs which lived from the Late Jurassic to the Late Cretaceous periods. Fossils have been found across the globe in North America, Europe, Africa, Asia, South America, and Antarctica, with fossilized teeth giving credence to the possibility that they inhabited Australia as well. This group of dinosaurs are known for their sickle-shaped toe claws and features in the shoulder bones.
TroodonTroodon (ˈtroʊ.ədɒn ; Troödon in older sources) is a former wastebasket taxon and a potentially dubious genus of relatively small, bird-like theropod dinosaurs definitively known from the Campanian age of the Late Cretaceous period (about 77 mya). It includes at least one species, Troodon formosus, known from Montana. Discovered in October 1855, T. formosus was among the first dinosaurs found in North America, although it was thought to be a lizard until 1877.
CoelophysisCoelophysis (sɛˈlɒfɪsɪs traditionally; ˌsɛloʊˈfaɪsᵻs or ˌsiːloʊˈfaɪsᵻs , as heard more commonly in recent decades) is a genus of coelophysid theropod dinosaur that lived approximately 228 to 201.3 million years ago during the Late Triassic period from the Carnian to Rhaetian ages in what is now the southwestern United States. Megapnosaurus was once considered to be a species within this genus, but this interpretation has been challenged since 2017 and the genus Megapnosaurus is now considered valid.
HerrerasaurusHerrerasaurus is likely a genus of saurischian dinosaur from the Late Triassic period. This genus was one of the earliest dinosaurs from the fossil record. Its name means "Herrera's lizard", after the rancher who discovered the first specimen in 1958 in South America. All known fossils of this carnivore have been discovered in the Ischigualasto Formation of Carnian age (late Triassic according to the ICS, dated to 231.4 million years ago) in northwestern Argentina.
MapusaurusMapusaurus (Earth lizard) was a giant carcharodontosaurid carnosaurian dinosaur from the early Late Cretaceous (early Turonian stage), approximately 93.9 to 89.6 million years ago, of what is now Argentina. Mapusaurus was excavated between 1997 and 2001, by the Argentinian-Canadian Dinosaur Project, from an exposure of the Huincul Formation (Rio Limay Subgroup, Cenomanian) at Cañadón del Gato. It was described and named by paleontologists Rodolfo Coria and Phil Currie in 2006.
PlateosaurusPlateosaurus (probably meaning "broad lizard", often mistranslated as "flat lizard") is a genus of plateosaurid dinosaur that lived during the Late Triassic period, around 214 to 204 million years ago, in what is now Central and Northern Europe. Plateosaurus is a basal (early) sauropodomorph dinosaur, a so-called "prosauropod". The type species is Plateosaurus trossingensis; before 2019, that honor was given to Plateosaurus engelhardti, but it was ruled as undiagnostic (i.e. indistinguishable from other dinosaurs) by the ICZN.
Friedrich von HueneFriedrich von Huene, born Friedrich Richard von Hoinigen, (March 22, 1875 – April 4, 1969) was a German paleontologist who renamed more dinosaurs in the early 20th century than anyone else in Europe. He also made key contributions about various Permo-Carboniferous limbed vertebrates. Huene was born in Tübingen, Kingdom of Württemberg. His discoveries include the skeletons of more than 35 individuals of Plateosaurus in the famous Trossingen quarry, the early proto-dinosaur Saltopus in 1910, Proceratosaurus in 1926, the giant Antarctosaurus in 1929, and numerous other dinosaurs and fossilized animals like pterosaurs.
OrnithoscelidaOrnithoscelida (ˌɔːrnɪθəˈsɛlɪdə) is a proposed clade that includes various major groupings of dinosaurs. An order Ornithoscelida was originally proposed by Thomas Henry Huxley but later abandoned in favor of Harry Govier Seeley's division of Dinosauria into Saurischia and Ornithischia. The term was revived in 2017 after a new cladistic analysis by Baron et al. Thomas Henry Huxley originally defined the term in an 1869 lecture as a group comprising two subgroups: the large and heavy-set Dinosauria and the newly discovered Compsognathus, which he placed in a new grouping Compsognatha.
Origin of birdsThe scientific question of within which larger group of animals birds evolved has traditionally been called the "origin of birds". The present scientific consensus is that birds are a group of maniraptoran theropod dinosaurs that originated during the Mesozoic Era. A close relationship between birds and dinosaurs was first proposed in the nineteenth century after the discovery of the primitive bird Archaeopteryx in Germany. Birds and extinct non-avian dinosaurs share many unique skeletal traits.
