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.
UtahraptorUtahraptor (meaning "Utah's predator") is a genus of large dromaeosaurid (a group of feathered carnivorous theropods) dinosaur that lived during the Early Cretaceous period from around 135 to 130 million years ago in what is now the United States. The genus was described in 1993 by American paleontologist James Kirkland and colleagues with the type species Utahraptor ostrommaysi, based on fossils that had been unearthed earlier from the Cedar Mountain Formation of Utah.
Balaur bondocBalaur is a genus of theropod dinosaur from the late Cretaceous period, in what is now Romania. It is the type species of the monotypic genus Balaur, after the balaur (baˈla.ur), a dragon of Romanian folklore. The specific name bondoc (bonˈdok) means "stocky", so Balaur bondoc means "stocky dragon" in Romanian. This name refers to the greater musculature that Balaur had compared to its relatives. The genus, which was first described by scientists in August 2010, is known from two partial skeletons (including the type specimen).
VelociraptorVelociraptor (vəˌlɒsɪˈræptər,_vəˈlɒsɪræptər; swift thief) is a genus of small dromaeosaurid dinosaur that lived in Asia during the Late Cretaceous epoch, about 75 million to 71 million years ago. Two species are currently recognized, although others have been assigned in the past. The type species is V. mongoliensis; fossils of this species have been discovered in the Djadochta Formation, Mongolia. A second species, V. osmolskae, was named in 2008 for skull material from the Bayan Mandahu Formation, China.
DeinonychusDeinonychus (daɪˈnɒnɪkəs ; ) is a genus of dromaeosaurid theropod dinosaur with one described species, Deinonychus antirrhopus. This species, which could grow up to long, lived during the early Cretaceous Period, about 115–108 million years ago (from the mid-Aptian to early Albian stages). Fossils have been recovered from the U.S. states of Montana, Utah, Wyoming, and Oklahoma, in rocks of the Cloverly Formation and Antlers Formation, though teeth that may belong to Deinonychus have been found much farther east in Maryland.
ProtoceratopsProtoceratops (ˌprəʊtoʊˈsɛrətɒps; first horned face) is a genus of small protoceratopsid dinosaurs that lived in Asia during the Late Cretaceous, around 75 to 71 million years ago. The genus Protoceratops includes two species: P. andrewsi and the larger P. hellenikorhinus. The former was described in 1923 with fossils from the Mongolian Djadokhta Formation, and the latter in 2001 with fossils from the Chinese Bayan Mandahu Formation.
