Talk:Theropoda

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[edit] Coelophysoids and Ceratosauroids

It is my understanding that the paraphylitic Ceratosauria hypothesis is only a minority opinion, but the article makes it sound like it has been widely accepted.

Well, the clade Ceratosauria is not paraphyletic of course. What species are part of it, can only be decided by cladistic analysis. Some analyses will have the outcome that some species traditionally included are if fact more basal. Whether individual scientists are personally convinced of the one or the other, is not very relevant and in itself extremely difficult to measure :o).--MWAK 09:35, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] non-biped theropods

Are there any theropods that walked on all four legs?

No, though some older depictions of spinosaurs and segnosaurs erroneously show this. Theropod hands were built like a chicken wing--it was impossible to make the palm face towards the ground without completely splaying out/raising the upper arm, so using the hands to walk would have required a ton of anatomical changes.Dinoguy2 00:11, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Status of the Herrarasauria

The herrerasaurs are actually not theropods, but instead saurischians ancestral to the Eusaurischia (theropods and sauropodomorphs). This is based on research done by Paul Sereno at the Chicago University in the 1990s.

This is a contentious point, as some researchers still consider Herrerasaurs and even Eoraptor to fall within Theropoda. This is why they are included, but marked with "?". Note that other researchers don't think either of these groups even fall within Dinosauria.Dinoguy2 17:25, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Now that I'm looking, I can't find any recent sources that place the herrerasaurians within theropoda. I'm going to go ahead and remove them from the lists but leave the discussion portion in the text.Dinoguy2 17:37, 21 August 2006 (UTC)