Dinosauromorpha

Dinosauromorpha is a clade of avemetatarsalian archosaurs (reptiles closer to birds than to crocodilians) that includes the Dinosauria (dinosaurs) and some of their close relatives. It was originally defined to include dinosauriforms and lagerpetids, with later formulations specifically excluding pterosaurs from the group. Birds are the only dinosauromorphs which survive to the present day. The name "Dinosauromorpha" was briefly coined by Michael J. Benton in 1985. It was considered an alternative name for the group "Ornithosuchia", which was named by Jacques Gauthier to correspond to archosaurs closer to dinosaurs than to crocodilians. Although "Ornithosuchia" was later recognized as a misnomer (since ornithosuchids are now considered closer to crocodilians than to dinosaurs), it was still a more popular term than Dinosauromorpha in the 1980s. The group encompassed by Gauthier's "Ornithosuchia" and Benton's "Dinosauromorpha" is now given the name Avemetatarsalia. In 1991, Paul Sereno redefined Dinosauromorpha as a node-based clade, defined by a last common ancestor and its descendants. In his definition, Dinosauromorpha included the last common ancestor of Lagerpeton (a lagerpetid), Marasuchus (a possible junior synonym of Lagosuchus), Pseudolagosuchus (now considered a synonym of the silesaurid Lewisuchus), Dinosauria (including Aves), and all its descendants. This definition was intended to correspond to a clade including lagerpetids and crownward bird-line archosaurs, but not pterosaurs or other archosaurs. In 2011, Dinosauromorpha was redefined by Sterling Nesbitt to be a branch-based clade, defined by including reptiles closer to one group than to another. Under this definition, Dinosauromorpha included all reptiles closer to dinosaurs (represented by Passer domesticus, the house sparrow), rather than pterosaurs (represented by Pterodactylus), ornithosuchids (represented by Ornithosuchus), or other pseudosuchians (represented by Crocodylus niloticus, the Nile crocodile).

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Related concepts (9)

Herrerasaurus

Herrerasaurus 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.

Pisanosaurus

Pisanosaurus (pIsæn@'sɔːr@s) is an extinct genus of early dinosauriform, likely an ornithischian or silesaurid, from the Late Triassic of Argentina. It was a small, lightly built, ground-dwelling herbivore, that could grow up to an estimated long. Only one species, the type, Pisanosaurus mertii, is known, based on a single partial skeleton discovered in the Ischigualasto Formation of the Ischigualasto-Villa Unión Basin in northwestern Argentina. This part of the formation has been dated to the late Carnian, approximately 229 million years ago.

Saurischia

Saurischia (sɔːˈrɪskiə , meaning "reptile-hipped" from the Greek (σαῦρος) meaning 'lizard' and (ἴσχιον) meaning 'hip joint') is one of the two basic divisions of dinosaurs (the other being Ornithischia), classified by their hip structure. Saurischia and Ornithischia were originally called orders by Harry Seeley in 1888 though today most paleontologists classify Saurischia as an unranked clade rather than an order.