Avetheropoda

Avetheropods Temporal range: Middle Jurassic–Present, Possible Early Jurassic record
Mounted Allosaurus fragilis skeleton cast, San Diego Natural History Museum
Kiwi with its egg (1913)
Scientific classification
Domain:	Eukaryota
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Clade:	Dinosauria
Clade:	Saurischia
Clade:	Theropoda
Clade:	Orionides
Clade:	Avetheropoda Paul, 1988
Subgroups
†Gasosaurus †Carnosauria Coelurosauria Incertae sedis †Chilantaisaurus †Gualicho †Siats †Unquillosaurus †Megaraptora
Synonyms
Neotetanurae Sereno et al., 1994 Orionides? Carrano, Benson & Sampson, 2012

Avetheropoda, or "bird theropods", is a clade that includes Carnosaurs and coelurosaurs to the exclusion of other Dinosaurs.

Definition

Avetheropoda was named by Gregory S. Paul in 1988, and was first defined as a clade by Currie and Padian in 1997, to include Allosaurus, modern birds, and other animals descended from their most recent ancestor. In 1999, Paul Sereno named another group, Neotetanurae, for the clade containing Allosauroidea and Coelurosauria, and excluding other tetanurans such as megalosauroids, but this definition was published slightly later. A monophyletic Avetheropoda is recovered in many papers; however, recent findings suggest a monophyletic Carnosauria model with allosauroids and megalosauroids as each other's closest relatives instead of Allosauroids and Coelurosaurs.

Classification

The cladogram presented below follows a phylogenetic analysis published by Zanno and Makovicky in 2013.

Orionides	†Megalosauroidea †Piatnitzkysauridae †Megalosauria †Spinosauridae †Megalosauridae Avetheropoda Coelurosauria †Allosauroidea †Metriacanthosauridae †Allosauria †Allosauridae †Carcharodontosauria †Neovenatoridae †Carcharodontosauridae