Carnosauria

Not to be confused with Carnotaurus.

"Carnosaur" redirects here. For the 1984 horror novel, see Carnosaur (novel). For the 1993 film adaptation, see Carnosaur (film). For the film series, see Carnosaur (series).

Carnosauria is an extinct group of carnivorous theropod dinosaurs that lived during the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods.

Carnosaurs Temporal range: Middle Jurassic – Late Cretaceous, Possible Late Toarcian and Late Maastrichtian records.
Replica of a Giganotosaurus carolinii skeleton
Scientific classification
Domain:	Eukaryota
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Clade:	Dinosauria
Clade:	Saurischia
Clade:	Theropoda
Clade:	Avetheropoda
Clade:	†Carnosauria von Huene, 1920
Subgroups
†Altispinax †Monolophosaurus? †Gasosaurus? †Unquillosaurus? †Piatnitzkysauridae? †Allosauroidea †Megaraptora? †Megalosauroidea (paraphyletic)? †Streptospondylus †Megalosauridae †Spinosauridae

While Carnosauria was historically considered largely synonymous with Allosauroidea, some recent studies have revived Carnosauria as clade including both Allosauroidea and Megalosauroidea (which is sometimes recovered as paraphyletic with respect to Allosauroidea), and thus including the majority of non-coleurosaurian members of theropod clade Tetanurae. The existence of Carnosauria is contested, as other researchers have found Allosauroidea and Megalosauroidea to be unrelated groups.

Distinctive characteristics of carnosaurs include large eye sockets, a long narrow skull and modifications of the legs and pelvis such as the thigh (femur) being longer than the shin (tibia).

Carnosaurs first appeared in the Middle Jurassic, around 176 mya. The last definite known carnosaurs, the carcharodontosaurs, became extinct in the Turonian epoch of the Cretaceous, roughly 90 mya; reportedly later remains of carcharodontosaurids, from the late Maastrichtian (70–66 Ma ago) Bauru Group in Brazil, were later interpreted as those of abelisaurids. The phylogenetically problematic megaraptorans, which may or may not be carnosaurs, became extinct around 66 mya. Unquillosaurus is another possible Carnosaurian Theropod that has an extended range, hailing from rocks dated to the Campanian, around 75-70 mya.

Systematics

Modern cladistic analysis defines Carnosauria as those tetanurans sharing a more recent common ancestor with Allosaurus than with modern birds.

Taxonomy

Carnosauria has traditionally been used as a dumping ground for all large theropods. Even non-dinosaurs, such as the rauisuchian Teratosaurus, were once considered carnosaurs. However, analysis in the 1980s and 1990s revealed that other than size, the group shared very few characteristics, making it polyphyletic. Most former carnosaurs (such as the megalosaurids, the spinosaurids, and the ceratosaurs) were reclassified as more primitive theropods. Others (such as the tyrannosaurids) that were more closely related to birds were placed in Coelurosauria.

Phylogeny

The clade Allosauroidea was originally proposed by Phil Currie and Zhao (1993; p. 2079), and later used as an undefined stem-based taxon by Paul Sereno (1997). Sereno (1998; p. 64) was the first to provide a stem-based definition for the Allosauroidea, defining the clade as "All neotetanurans closer to Allosaurus than to Neornithes." Kevin Padian (2007) used a node-based definition, defined the Allosauroidea as Allosaurus, Sinraptor, their most recent common ancestor, and all of its descendants. Thomas R. Holtz and colleagues (2004; p. 100) and Phil Currie and Ken Carpenter (2000), among others, have followed this node-based definition. However, in some analyses (such as Currie & Carpenter, 2000), the placement of the carcharodontosaurids relative to the allosaurids and sinraptorids is uncertain, and therefore it is uncertain whether or not they are allosauroids (Currie & Carpenter, 2000).

The cladogram presented here follows the 2010 analysis by Benson, Carrano and Brusatte.

Allosauroidea	Metriacanthosauridae Allosaurus Carcharodontosauria Carcharodontosauridae Neovenatoridae

In 2019, Rauhut and Pol described Asfaltovenator vialidadi, a basal allosauroid displaying a mosaic of primitive and derived features seen within Tetanurae. Their phylogenetic analysis found traditional Megalosauroidea to represent a basal grade of carnosaurs, paraphyletic with respect to Allosauroidea.

Carnosauria	Monolophosaurus Spinosauridae Megalosauridae Allosauroidea Xuanhanosaurus Piatnitzkysauridae Asfaltovenator Metriacanthosauridae Allosaurus Carcharodontosauria

"Carnosaurus"

Not to be confused with Carnotaurus.

"Carnosaurus" is an informal generic name, attributed to Friedrich von Huene, ca. 1929. It is the result of a typographical error created by the translation of the von Huene monograph from German to Spanish. Von Huene himself intended to assign indeterminate remains to Carnosauria incertae sedis.

See also

• Avetheropoda, proposed grouping of Allosauroidea with Coelurosauria

Sources

• George Olshevsky. "Re: What are these dinosaurs". Archived from the original on 2007-12-09. Retrieved 2007-01-29. (on "Carnosaurus")
• Currie, P. J.; Zhao, X. (1993). "A new carnosaur (Dinosauria, Theropoda) from the Upper Jurassic of Xinjiang, People's Republic of China" (PDF). Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences. 30 (10): 2037–2081. Bibcode:1993CaJES..30.2037C. doi:10.1139/e93-179.
• Holtz, T. R., Jr. and Osmólska H. 2004. Saurischia; pp. 21–24 in D. B. Weishampel, P. Dodson, and H. Osmólska (eds.), The Dinosauria (2nd ed.), University of California Press, Berkeley.
• Sereno, P. C. (1997). "The origin and evolution of dinosaurs" (PDF). Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences. 25: 435–489. Bibcode:1997AREPS..25..435S. doi:10.1146/annurev.earth.25.1.435.
• Sereno, P. C. (1998). "A rationale for phylogenetic definitions, with application to the higher-level taxonomy of Dinosauria". Neues Jahrbuch für Geologie und Paläontologie, Abhandlungen. 210: 41–83. doi:10.1127/njgpa/210/1998/41.

External links

• Media related to Carnosauria at Wikimedia Commons