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Oviraptorosaur facts for kids

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Oviraptorosaurs
Temporal range: Cretaceous, 130–66Ma
Caudipteryx zoui - Untere Kreide - Liaoning-China.jpg
Replica of a Caudipteryx zoui skeleton
Scientific classification e
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Clade: Dinosauria
Clade: Saurischia
Clade: Theropoda
Clade: Pennaraptora
Clade: Oviraptorosauria
Barsbold, 1976
Subgroups
Synonyms

Caenagnathiformes Sternberg, 1940
Avimimiformes Chatterjee, 1991

Oviraptor philoceratops
Oviraptor philoceratops: notice the highly derived skull shape.

Oviraptorosaurs are a group of feathered maniraptoran dinosaurs from the Cretaceous period of what are now Asia and North America. They have short, beaked, parrot-like skulls, with or without bony head crests. They ranged in size from Caudipteryx, which was the size of a turkey, to the 8 meter long, 1.4 ton Gigantoraptor. The most complete oviraptorosaur specimens have been found in Asia. The North American oviraptorosaur record is sparse.

The group (and all maniraptoran dinosaurs) is close to the ancestry of birds. Oviraptorosaurs might be primitive flightless birds. On the other hand, they might just be close relatives of the birds.

The earliest and most basal ("primitive") known oviraptorosaurs are Protarchaeopteryx robusta and Incisivosaurus gauthieri, both from the lower Yixian Formation of China, dating to about 125 million years ago in the Lower Cretaceous. Some fragmentary species, such as Calamospondylus oweni and Thecocoelurus daviesi, may have been even earlier members of the Oviraptorosauria. A tiny neck vertebra from England shares some features in common with oviraptorosaurs. It may represent an earlier occurrence of this group, at about 140 million years ago.

Typical genera

Images for kids

See also

Kids robot.svg In Spanish: Oviraptorosauria para niños

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