Talk:Theropoda

Difficulty in locating Tyrannosauroidea, Compsognathidae, and Coeluridae
On the box on the right of the Theropoda page marked Infraorders, there is no link that will take you to the Tyrannosauroidea, Compsognathidae, or Coeluridae. This should be changed so that they can be easily seen and located. Either put a link to the two families and superfamily there, make an informal grouping for ease (that is why classification was originally made after all) such as "Tyrannosauriformes" or something of the sort, or change the heading of Infraorders to something else. Any thoughts? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.97.34.130 (talk) 22:27, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

Burd BullSh*!*T: Remove or edit
Why does it not say "Birds are theorized to be members of theropoda" instead of "Birds are"? Its still a controversial subject, and saying this is making wikipedia take sides. —Preceding unsigned comment added by PopiethePopester (talk • contribs) 21:38, 13 May 2009 (UTC)
 * There really is no controversey over the origin of birds; while I could spend half an hour explaining why, I will simply direct you over to the wikipedia page for Microraptor and assume your intellect has the strength to take over from there Forescore68 (talk) 01:35, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

•• Microraptor is a fake. you misspelled controversy. --PopiethePopester (talk) 23:23, 15 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I stand corected. Microraptor is either not fake or at the very least has not been found to be fake yet. I apologize; i was thinking of archaeoraptor. But my posistion still stands --PopiethePopester (talk) 23:38, 15 May 2009 (UTC)
 * yawn...I believe it was Einstein who said that he didn't know if the universe was infinite or not, but that he was convinced human stupidity was. If delusion has you wearing a size 7 collar, why are you even editing science articles? You know you will find no sympathy here. As far as I'm concerned, this is Wiki trolling and thus you will get no more of my attention.Forescore68 (talk) 21:48, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

spinosaur vs t.rex
The Spinosaur was not bigger than the t.rex it was taller from tail to snout, but it didn't weighted as much as the tyranosaurus. It had a crocodilic mouth, off course it is taller but it dosen't weight as much as a t.rex. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Special:Contributions/ (talk)
 * Take a look at Dinosaur size. Most of the relevent size estimates are sourced, with the full range of upper estimates. No scientists have suggested T. rex weighed over 8 tons, and most now think that's too high. The highest estimates for Spinosaurus are in the 20-ton range, more than twice as heavy as T. rex'', though more realistically, 9 tons is generally accepted, a bit bigger than the highest estimates for rex. Dinoguy2 11:28, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

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)

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)

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)

Why The Theropods Got So Big
There is evidence that when the oxygen levels got very high, the dinosaurs got bigger. This may have been why the nonavian dinosaurs died out, also (the oxygen levels dropped rapidly). Benosaurus 03:20, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Except for the fact that there were many dinosaurs that were quite small... And that some dinosaurs weren't much bigger than large mammals. To be honest, your argument sounds a bit hollow right now.--137.146.175.197 (talk) 13:47, 18 September 2011 (UTC)

Source of classification
I think there should be an explicit mention of the source of the classification used. Is it based on The Dinosauria, for example? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 148.197.5.19 (talk) 08:33, 10 May 2007 (UTC).

Carnivorous Dinosaurs
According to my non-expert knowledge, Theropod dinosaurs were/are primarily carnivorous with a few individual species evolving omnivorous or herbivorous lifestyles, but there were no non-Theropod dinosaurs that developed carnivory. Obviously, animals with quadrupedal, non-Theropod bodyplans can be highly effective predators, as evidenced by all modern mammalian carnivores. In fact, humans and chimpanzees are the only mammals immediately occurring to me that are both predators and not "true" quadrupeds. So, why did no non-Theropod, carnivorous dinosaurs ever develop? Are the Theropods and early (quadrupedal) mammals theorized to simply have had a lockdown on all available niches for a terrestrial carnivore? --Raphite 01:11, 15 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Don't forget crocodilians, which were much more diverse and had both quadrupedal and bipedal terrestrial offshoots in the Mesozoic. It might be a speed thing.  When a dinosaur lineage went quadrupedal, it also went slow; there are no ungulate-like quadrupedal dinosaurs. This probably has to do with skeletal anatomy somewhere (i.e. for whatever reason, maybe arm and shoulder build, a quadrupedal dinosaur can do power but not speed). However, there's nothing saying that the more beak-endowed sorts, like horned dinosaurs, could not have been omnivorous: see here and here for discussions.  Probably the theropods and other full-time carnivores were just too good at what they did for other groups using the dinosaur body plan to break through, although maybe on islands or other isolated landmasses other dinosaurs could take that niche. J. Spencer 02:01, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

Averostra
I notice there is no Wiki entry for the new "Averostra" (grouping Ceratosaurs and Tetanurae together as sister clades of derived theropods...something that's been a long time in the making apparently ever since Ceratosaurs were divorced from Coelophysids)...there's enough evidence and backing to at least mention it somewhere, and from the Paleontologists I've talked to it seems like it's pretty solid.

Bee hummingbird
Not an expert on the subject, but the mention of the bee hummingbird as the smallest theropod seems a bit out of whack. Birds = Class Aves. Theropods = Class Sauropsida. It doesn't make sense a hummingbird and T-rex would share the same sub-order.68.88.66.217 (talk) 19:17, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

I agree with you completely, unless theropoda is a clade. 122.109.250.74 (talk) 08:22, 14 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Cladistically T-rex is more closely related to the bee-hummingbird, being both coelurosaurs, that it is related to Allosaurus. By anatomic comparison and genetic distance propably T-rex would be more closely related to Allosaurus (since there are less tens of millions of years of evolutional divergence between them than between T-rex and the hummingbirds) but certain traits shared by both T-rex and Big-Al are mostly products of convergent evolution (such as size and heavy "carnosaur" figure). Those traits evolved independently due to common lifestyle because of the gradual replacement of Allosauroidea by Tyrannosauroidea in their ecological role. So size of the hummingbird is not irelevant, cladistically using other small coelurosaurs such as compsoganthus (if it sounds better) or archaeopteryx, that are still smaller than any non-avian dinosaur, would be the same think for this comparisson. And Theropoda IS a clade.--Draco ignoramus sophomoricus (talk) 12:01, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

It depends on what form of classification you are using, and the box in the upper right corner does not use cladistics. 122.105.221.214 (talk) 11:52, 7 September 2008 (UTC)
 * But the article discusses both, and it's qualified in the text. Dinoguy2 (talk) 23:36, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

What makes a Theropod?
The article states that they had hollow bones, wishbones, and three toes, and weren't they all bipedal? This should be added to the article, but in a "What makes a Theropod?" section. Comments? 122.109.250.74 (talk) 08:03, 5 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Descent makes a theropod, not some combination of traits.--MWAK (talk) 04:53, 16 June 2014 (UTC)

Plantigrade walking?
In Predatory Dinosaurs of The World, Gregory S. Paul writes that several theropod tracks have been found which indicate that theropods would occasionally walk as plantigrades. Sounds rather unusual, and would be interesting to add to the article, but maybe it has been disproved or something since 1988? Anyone know? FunkMonk (talk) 17:20, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
 * As far as I know that claim still holds.Abyssal (talk) 18:56, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
 * I believe that they found out that they were looking at a 3-dimensional track way. I think it turned out that the track was the act of a theropod simply stepping through mud. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.184.179.86 (talk) 00:13, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

Bye bye pronated hands ...
Now there is a direct proof that theropods could not have their palms facing down. Here is the reference:

http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0004591

And the press release: http://www.sltrib.com/ci_11828632

Cheers, ArthurWeasley (talk) 19:34, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

air filled bones
Could someone add more information on the air filled bones (supposedly one of the defining features of theropods and birds)? Does this mean actual lung tissue intermingles with the skeleton (and if so, which parts and to what extent)? Is there any explanation for why (in particular, lighter bones make intuitive sense for avian species but not for giant land theropods)? Cesiumfrog (talk) 01:25, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Most of the papers I have for this deal with sauropods, but I'll see if I can put something together. Yes, it's actual extensions of the lungs that poke their way into the bones to various degrees. As to why this is, nobody really knows, but there's a very good post summing up the different ideas on the SV-POW blog: The problem is, it does make intuitive sense that it would make animals lighter, such as bird, except it's not only in the bones, but throughout the whole body. Even in modern birds, nobody knows what this is for. Dinoguy2 (talk) 17:24, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Page Contradiction
The article's body text shows Coelophysians as ancesteral (sp?) to both Tetanurae and Ceratosaurs, with the former pair sharing a common ancestor...this is the most widely accepted interpretation as far as I know nowadays.

Both diagrams, however, still shows Coelophysia as Ceratosaurs and not basal to Tetanurae. This needs a fixing (obviously). Forescore68 (talk) 22:26, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

Meaning of Theropoda
Is there a source that says O.C. Marsh intended "Theropoda" to mean "beast feet"? If yes, it should be noted that this is a false formulation. If no, the correct meaning ("hunt/hunter feet") should be given. Causantin (talk) 08:12, 28 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Ther- is used to mean 'beast' throughout biology. Note the widespread use in synapsids. "Theria", "Therapsida", etc. What source uses it to mean hunter? Dinoguy2 (talk) 15:54, 28 October 2009 (UTC)
 * And yes, just checked this and cited it. Marsh 1881, p. 423 lists "Suborder Theropoda (Beast foot.)". The paper is available online here: If the formulation is wrong, we'd need to cite somebody saying it is in print, otherwise it's OR. Dinoguy2 (talk) 16:02, 28 October 2009 (UTC)
 * θηρίον (therion), Ancient Greek for "beast." Cf. Therion. Is is Is (talk) 10:18, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

Birds
Yes, yes, I know. It does mention that modern birds are Theropods. But you're lying, Wikipedia. The birds are parenthetical. The rest of the article is treated as though all the Theropods are dead. There should be a great big ostrich or pigeon or whatever next to the skeleton you've got as the main image. Maybe a dodo, if you're married to the 'they are dead' theme. Do you see the article on Suborder Caniformia talking about the dead ancestors of modern bears? No, it's about bears. And cripes, you're still on Linnaeus? Just because you are forming a Compendium of All Human Knowledge does not mean that you have to act like it's 1950. I suppose it is convenient so I won't dispute that. But put up a photo of a bird. Or two. Or most.

I'm sure some Serious Wikipedians will come up with some reasons why you have decided that This Is Not Relevant To An Encyclopedia but history has already vindicated the ones who loudly proclaimed birds dinosaurs, and that certainly includes the group birds are included within. Did I just devote fifteen minutes of my life to arguing with this plutocratic glacier? Yes I did. Please fix the article. Thanks for all you do. This has been a personal appeal from 144.89.178.89 (talk) 08:48, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Genetics
Can I make a section about the genetics of Theropoda? Research by Organ et al. 2009 has shown that Theropoda had very small genomes (comparable to birds), only Ovriraptor is an exception. They also predicted the amount of repetitive DNA elements for theropod species. Bastion Monk (talk) 10:38, 28 November 2012 (UTC)
 * I wonder where they got the DNA from, I would like to read the paper. Please post a link of more complete details. Thanks. Enlil Ninlil (talk) 11:25, 28 November 2012 (UTC)
 * I presume this is it! http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/276/1677/4303.full.pdf Enlil Ninlil (talk) 11:38, 28 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Almost right. That one is about Sauropods. This one discusses dinosaurs: Origin of avian genome size and structure in non-avian dinosaurs Nature 446, 180-184 (8 March 2007) | doi:10.1038/nature05621, Chris L. Organ, Andrew M. Shedlock, Andrew Meade, Mark Pagel and Scott V. Edwards. Bastion Monk (talk) 20:34, 2 December 2012 (UTC)

Who would be interested in edditing texts on theropods?
Hi everyone,

I'm currently writing my PhD thesis on the evolution of teeth and some cranial bones in non-avian theropods. I have, in the introduction section, chapters on the history of the discovery of theropods, as well as the history of the classification, and the current classification of non-avian theropods. These chapters are quite long and, according to me, much more exhaustive than those I read in the theropod article on Wikipedia. I would love adding them to this article but I don't have time to edit the text to fit to the Wikipedia style, especially the references. Would you be interested in editing my text with the reference I will provide so that these sections can appear in the article on Theropoda? You would also need to correct my English as this is not my mother tong unfortunately. Anyone interested by this task? Many thanks in advance for your consideration,--Christophe Hendrickx (talk) 09:35, 11 July 2014 (UTC)


 * I noticed this message only yesterday. The publication of your research in PalArch inspired me to start expanding the Dutch article on theropods. I might insert the same information into the English article, obviously taking advantage of the many citations you provided in your work. Alternatively, you might want to write these additions yourself. I, and no doubt others, will then copy-edit the text, adding the sources.--MWAK (talk) 07:52, 28 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Also just saw this, three years later, so I will ping to see if he's still around... FunkMonk (talk) 23:03, 26 September 2017 (UTC)

Comments about the current taxobox image
While the taxobox collage by is a certainly a good effort in helping to illustrate the diversity in theropods, I think it's also rather cluttered, with the individual images being hard to make out from thumbnail view, and their composition being very uneven. I propose rearranging or lessening the amount of images in a way that they are closer in size to one another or more easily recognisable (the collages at mammals, dinosaurs, arthropods, and birds should provide some good examples). The inclusion of a taxon for which we have very little fossil material for (Nanuqsaurus) is also a bit problematic, so I suggest replacing it with one of the more complete tyrannosaurs. Last I remember we weren't supposed to have life restorations in the taxobox either (at least if there are skeletal mounts or fossil images avaliable), since they're usually hypothetical in some or many regards and thus cannot represent an objective view of the animal for the lead of the article. ▼PσlєοGєєк ƧɊƲΔƦΣƉ▼  13:32, 12 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Definitely agree, the current one is atrocious. A collage of a smaller number of skeletal-mounts/fossils and maybe a live bird would be much better. If that is not available, just an image of a singular mount is already a big step up.  Luso titan  (Talk | Contributions) 20:18, 12 April 2020 (UTC)
 * That's how it was before: just a Coelophysis. Lythronaxargestes (talk &#124; contribs) 04:39, 13 April 2020 (UTC)

extinction.
on this page 2 of the sub groups have a question mark next to them but none of this confusion/controversy is mentioned on the subgroups respective pages. please either fix or tell me the reason. 2001:8003:6E14:5900:9118:E318:DB7:3BE6 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 00:54, 30 April 2020 (UTC)
 * The taxa that have question marks (?) have question marks because either whether or not their being theropods is controversial, or researchers still don't understand where their placement within Theropoda should be.--Mr Fink (talk) 01:03, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

oh. thank you for the answer! 2001:8003:6E14:5900:9118:E318:DB7:3BE6 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 01:05, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

citation needed
the last sentence on the page still needs a citation? can i remove? or should i search for a citation? Clone commando sev (talk) 02:47, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

the image.
why was the collage removed? was there a consensus or did the editor just not like it? (not meaning to insult you). if it needs to be a mount why not something more famous/recognisable/important. like t.rex, a neoceratosaurus, an early theropod, carnotaurus. etc. why ceolophysis specifically? Clone commando sev (talk) 00:02, 4 August 2020 (UTC)

Main pic
The main pic is just showing theropods hunting, why do we want to show theropods as violent blood thirsty monsters?--Bubblesorg (talk) 22:09, 29 October 2020 (UTC)

Sole Large Terrestrial Carnivores
The claim that theropods "included the sole large terrestrial carnivores from the Early Jurassic until at least the close of the Cretaceous" implies that a multi-ton predator like e.g. Sarcosuchus was not "large". I'm not a professional in this area but that seems ridiculous. David Bofinger (talk) 03:43, 13 May 2021 (UTC)

Sarcosuchus was primarily aquatic, like modern crocodilians they only came onto land to bask and lay their eggs, Theropods were the only truly massive land predators, there were some terrestrial crocodilians but they were generally small. Dinomike123 (talk) 10:03, 13 May 2021 (UTC)

Owl beheading duck
Hi can we please change the picture of the owl literally beheading a duck on a beach? There's a difference between portraying hunting and a decapitation, and I'm not sure why we would ever have the latter in an article not actually about decapitation.

98.218.148.77 (talk) 04:43, 18 June 2022 (UTC)

Correction
The intro says that the theropods "included all the large terrestrial carnivores from the Early Jurassic until at least the close of the Cretaceous". That's not entirely correct. You had relatives of our crocodiles that were both terrestrial and large carnivores, like Razanandrongobe from the Jurassic. If there were other large terrestrial crocodiles like that I can't say for now, but it shows the claim about all large Jurassic and Cretaceous predators being theropods is not entirely true. Unless "large" refers to a specific size that exceeds that of all known terrestrial crocodiles from these eras. Rhynchosaur (talk) 17:25, 7 May 2023 (UTC)

Merge Proposals for Neotheropoda and Averostra
Support: Per the discussion at WT:DINO, these node-based clades are largely superfluous and only serve as pages for cladograms to sit and collect dust. Theropoda is the fundamental taxonomic unit used by researchers for this group. "Theropoda" has over 11,000 results on google scholar compared with 521 for "Neotheropoda" and a paltry 201 for "Averostra", even though the vast majority of species are shared between all three clades. If groups of theropods are considered in the literature, it is either at the level of a lower clade (i.e. tyrannosauroidea, spinosauridae, maniraptora, etc.) or of theropods as a whole. For the above reasons and per WP:REDUNDANT and WP:N, these articles should be merged into Theropoda.

I have a mock-up of the expanded taxobox (including all the non-averostran neotheropods) in my sandbox here. I don't think overly lengthy, even when fully extended, and so the formatting of this article (Theropoda) wouldn't have to change very much. A Cynical Idealist (talk) 05:38, 5 May 2024 (UTC)

Splitting of averostra
It's a significant clade and I don't think it should be lumped into theropoda. DNB XD (talk) 10:48, 26 May 2024 (UTC)


 * Averostra is a node-based clade, so every single one of its members is either a member of Ceratosauria or Tetanurae, which both have their own pages. Therefore, there's no independent content that could conceivably be used to make such a page, so it would necessarily be a stub (WP:N, WP:REDUNDANT).  The "significance" of a clade must be measurable in some way in order to justify the construction of a whole article around it.  If you have views against such mergers in the future, I strongly suggest participating in the discussion over at WT:DINO so you can have your voice heard before such decisions are made. A Cynical Idealist (talk) 03:49, 25 June 2024 (UTC)