Chapter objectives

• Introduce Theropoda

• Develop familiarity with current thinking about lifestyles and behaviors of theropods

• Develop an understanding of theropod evolution using cladograms, and an understanding of the place of Theropoda within Dinosauria

Theropoda

Eating meat the theropod way

When dinosaurs got around to carnivory, they did it the theropod way: with steak-knife teeth, sinewy haunches, and grasping hands and feet tipped with scimitar claws (Figure 9.1 see p. 185). The combination was at once formidable and successful, and produced a rainbow palette of different types, among them coelophysoids, neoceratosaurs, carnosaurs, therizinosauroids, ornithomimosaurs, oviraptorosaurs, troodontids, dromaeosaurids, tyrannosauroids … and birds.

Grouped together as Theropoda (thero – wild beast; pod – foot), these dinosaurs have had a long evolutionary history extending back from the Late Triassic right up until the end, 65.5 Ma. Past that “end,” really, since birds are still very much with us. But in this chapter, we'll concentrate on non-avian (that is, non-bird) theropods, holding off on the avian side of the story until Chapter 10. Non-avian theropods (for simplicity, “theropods”) have been found on every continent including Antarctica (Figures 9.2 and 9.3).

Who are theropods?

Theropoda is a well-diagnosed, monophyletic group with abundant characters (Figure 9.4) within Saurischia (see introduction to Part III: Saurischia): theropods share their closest relationship with Sauropodomorpha and together form a monophyletic Saurischia.