Talk:Tyrannosauroidea

Untitled
I understand that in the original version it was tried to give a cladogram by use of indentation; but this only works when there are clade names to be subdivided by each indentation. These simply don't exist (yet).--MWAK 11:37, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

great job!
Good work Sheepy. I could only find one typo. Otherwise great writing. If Circeus gives it a once over I'd say send it to FAC. cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 03:17, 15 December 2007 (UTC)
 * I want to add a paleobiology section and a cladogram before sending it to FAC, if we do that. Having Circeus look it over sounds like a great idea too... what about user:Unimaginative Username who copyedited a couple of other articles recently? Sheep81 (talk) 03:21, 15 December 2007 (UTC)


 * All good suggestions. Good to spread the work around...cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 04:00, 15 December 2007 (UTC)
 * I'll run through this, but of course it looks awesome, Sheep. UI is a very thorough copyeditor who doesn't know a great deal about dinosaurs (which is what we need). He asks a lot of questions and he's very patient with us (we? whatever...) grubby mud-English users. He picks articles apart and can spot a split infinitive at fifty paces. I highly recommend him, if he's up to working with us again. Firsfron of Ronchester  04:34, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

.......I wonder if Debivort would do a diagram like the cool one for Hadrosaurs...thought it may be good for highlighting the feathery ones...cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 11:09, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

GA Review

 * GA review (see here for criteria)


 * 1) It is reasonably well written.
 * a (prose): b (MoS):
 * 1) It is factually accurate and verifiable.
 * a (references): b (citations to reliable sources):  c (OR):
 * 1) It is broad in its coverage.
 * a (major aspects): b (focused):
 * 1) It follows the neutral point of view policy.
 * Fair representation without bias:
 * 1) It is stable.
 * No edit wars etc.:
 * 1) It is illustrated by images, where possible and appropriate.
 * a (images are tagged and non-free images have fair use rationales): b (appropriate use with suitable captions):
 * 1) Overall:
 * Pass/Fail:
 * 1) It is illustrated by images, where possible and appropriate.
 * a (images are tagged and non-free images have fair use rationales): b (appropriate use with suitable captions):
 * 1) Overall:
 * Pass/Fail:
 * 1) Overall:
 * Pass/Fail:

An excellent article! Just a few small comments:
 * 1) The diagrams and images around the "Distribution" section are very cluttered. Could this be cleaned up?
 * 2) "Some fossils currently referred to Stokesosaurus may instead belong to Aviatyrannis, which would not be surprising given the great similarities in the dinosaur faunas of Portugal and North America during this time." (Distribution) I'm not sure what it is, but something about this sentence just doesn't seem encyclopedic, and it revolves around the tone of the "which would not be surprising" part. Maybe it sounds a bit ORish? I can't tell, but it REALLY stands out given the professional and scientific tone of the rest of the article and is very distracting.
 * 3) The lead needs to conform to WP:LEAD. Specifically, it must cover every major point/heading made in the body of the article. Currently, there is nothing on one of the subsections of "Paleobiology" (head crests) and not enough on the other, given its prominence in the article ("Feathers"; the one sentence about it in the lead sticks out like a sore thumb and requires some context).
 * 4) "Unpublished research suggests that some genera currently identified as compsognathids may in fact be basal tyrannosauroids as well." (Phylogeny) First of all, the fact that it is unpublished research suggests that this statement violates Wikipedia's no original research policy. Secondly, it is cited by a blog and, while it seems as if the person is notable in their field, the combination of unpublished work and a potentially unreliable source (I say this not to disparage the individual, but merely to note that he could post anything he wanted on his blog without having to get it scrutinized scientifically) means that this sentence needs to go if it cannot be better sourced (and since it's unpublished, it would be surprising if it could)

To allow for these changes to be made, I am sending my pet tyrannosaurus out to eat Jimmy Wales putting the article on hold for a period of up to seven days, after which it may be failed without further notice. Thank you for your work thus far. Cheers, CP 08:03, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
 * 1) Moved some pictures around to spread them out a bit. Any better or did I just move the clutter from one place to another?
 * 2) You're right, removed that bit from the sentence altogether. I trust it still holds together?
 * 3) Drew out the lead a bit, added a sentence to cover the missing section.
 * 4) Struck that sentence entirely, we can add it back if and when Darren ever publishes that stuff.
 * Thanks for taking the time to review our work! Please let us know if there are further changes necessary. Sheep81 (talk) 08:23, 9 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Wow, I barely had time to use the restroom. Everything looks excellent now, definitely a Good Article and more! Congratulations, and thank you for your hard work! Cheers, CP 08:28, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Well, we do obsess about our little corner of Wikipedia. :) Thank you for the review! Sheep81 (talk) 08:30, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

One thing that bothers me about this article: sometimes it focusses on the Tyrannosauridea as a whole, but other times it seems to treat only the basal (non-Tyrannosauridae) members. The article should either consistently treat the group as a whole or treat only the basal members.

It would also be nice to have a distribution map set on a Pangaea, instead of just the modern continental distribution. --EncycloPetey (talk) 02:59, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

-ids and -oids in section "Phylogeny"
Section "Phylogeny" starts with "While paleontologists have long recognized the family Tyrannosauridae, its ancestry has been the subject of much debate". As it stands this sentence is confusing, especially for non-specialists who are not familiar with the distinction between -ids and -oids and the corresponding Greek plural endings. The sentence's use of "family" suggests it really means "Tyrannosauridae", rather than being a typo. Would e.g. "While paleontologists have long recognized the family Tyrannosauridae, identifying and defining the wider group Tyrannosauroidea has proved difficult" be both accurate and clearer for nonpecialists? -- Philcha (talk) 10:07, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

Tyrannosaur from Australia?
Check this out, it could be a species from Australia. Does anyone know its name yet? --HoopoeBaijiKite 16:27, 8 April 2010 (UTC)
 * This is already mentioned in the article, under the section Distribution. It doesn't have a name because the fossils are too fragmentary and would likely be an automatic nomen dubium if more are ever found. MMartyniuk (talk) 23:38, 8 April 2010 (UTC)


 * Thanks for letting me know, I didn't see it. ^^ --HoopoeBaijiKite 07:26, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

Sinotyrannus restoration
I'm suggesting a Sino restoration here instead of on the Sinotyrannus talk page because nobody would probably ever find it.

My point is, however, can anybody (e.g., FunkMonk, Dmitry Bogdanov, Nobu Tamura, Matt Martyniuk) draw a Sinotyrannus kazuoensis? It is barely depicted in any pictures and no skeletal restoration has ever been produced. I would draw it, but I have no idea how to make digital art, just draw on a piece of paper and put it in the scanner. BTW, how do you do that? 72.222.175.250 (talk) 17:14, 17 July 2011 (UTC), a.k.a. DeinonychusDinosaur999
 * I've done one here. Not sure if I'll donate to Wiki or not, but it's out there :) As for digital art, just get a program like Photoshop or some free equivalent and start playing around. I use a tablet like these (looks like they don't make my model anymore! :X) to draw and color, but started out with just a mouse, and it worked just fine. The easiest way to get going with digital is to draw on paper, scan or photo the drawing in, use whatever way your program allows to delete all the white, and then color in behind the pencil part. Basically like 'colorizing' a black and white photo. MMartyniuk (talk) 01:02, 19 July 2011 (UTC)
 * That restoration looks amazing, thanks for the information, too. 72.222.175.250 (talk) 01:44, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

New South American Tyrannosaur
You guys may not believe this at first but it's true.It's a new south American dinosaur and it's a tyrannosauroid!!! Its name is Nototyrannus violantei.Its fossils were discovered in Argentina.It lived during the Cretaceous and confirms that tyrannosaurs spread over THE ENTIRE planet.It was a small tyrannosaur,measuring 4 meters long and was a small and gracile runner.We must start an article about it now!!! Still don't believe me? Well,copy and paste the following URL in your browser(since i still don't know how to add external links)It's in spanish,but can provide nice information.If it doesn't work,just google up Nototyrannus http://rionegro.ar/diario/rn/nota.aspx?idart=683489&idcat=9521&tipo=2 Dino-Mario (talk) 00:20, 24 August 2011 (UTC)
 * You need to subscribe to the dinosaur mailing list. Abyssal (talk) 01:59, 24 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Yeah, definitely. Dgrootmyers (talk) 18:54, 24 August 2011 (UTC)
 * You're right.i found it.But we must write about that dinosaur NOW!!!Please!!!We must tell people about it.Dino-Mario (talk) 00:20, 25 August 2011 (UTC)
 * This is exactly why we don't have articles for nomina nuda. MMartyniuk (talk) 12:48, 25 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Given the scandal surrounding this one we might be justified in creating an article on it as details emerge. Abyssal (talk) 14:08, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

Bad news:Nototyrannus turned out to be an abelisaur189.165.49.153 (talk) 21:54, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

Orphaned references in Tyrannosauroidea
I check pages listed in Category:Pages with incorrect ref formatting to try to fix reference errors. One of the things I do is look for content for orphaned references in wikilinked articles. I have found content for some of Tyrannosauroidea's orphans, the problem is that I found more than one version. I can't determine which (if any) is correct for this article, so I am asking for a sentient editor to look it over and copy the correct ref content into this article.

Reference named "currieetal2005": From Gorgosaurus:  From Albertosaurus:  From Nanotyrannus: Currie, Henderson, Horner and Williams (2005). "On tyrannosaur teeth, tooth positions and the taxonomic status of Nanotyrannus lancensis." In "The origin, systematics, and paleobiology of Tyrannosauridae”, a symposium hosted jointly by Burpee Museum of Natural History and Northern Illinois University. From Tyrannosauridae:  

I apologize if any of the above are effectively identical; I am just a simple computer program, so I can't determine whether minor differences are significant or not. AnomieBOT ⚡ 15:01, 20 November 2011 (UTC)

Megaraptorans?
I am aware of the published study and one unpublished study placing megaraptorans as tyrannosaurs, but to include them as such… isn't that premature? Should we wait until more, conclusive studies to see if they are indeed tyrannosaurs? --4444hhhh (talk) 04:06, 11 January 2014 (UTC)
 * As of yet, no evidence has been put forth to suggest they aren't tyrannosauroids (note the "oid", as that means "form" - thus, Megaraptora, if they are tyrannosauroids, would not be crown tyrannosaurids. I have the information sourced to the paper in which they were classified as tyrannosauroids, and the unpublished study may end up supporting the Novas paper, or hindering it.--Dromaeosaurus is best dinosaur (talk) 17:12, 7 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Mortimer's unpublished phylogeny had found Megaraptora to be tyrannosauroids before Novas. Cau is so far the only one I know of to have independently tested this idea, and IIRC he found the allosauroid and tyrannosauroid positions to be about equally likely given current evidence. But that's another unpublished analysis. I don't think anybody has ever formally tested Novas et al.'s analysis so it should be treated as extremely preliminary right now.
 * "no evidence has been put forth to suggest they aren't tyrannosauroids" Except every other phylogenetic analysis ever produced including both taxa, none of which have previously recovered this result. Not that that means it's wrong, but this is science, and "it hasn't been disproven" is an argument for pseudoscience. It needs to be tested by forcing different relationships to see how many extra steps are added, as Cau did. Note that Cau's megamatrix is objectively better than the matrix used by Novas et al. 2012 because it includes more taxa and characters.Dinoguy2 (talk) 19:51, 7 May 2014 (UTC)
 * The "no evidence" bit was actually attempted sarcasm on my end; that's totally my fault for thinking sarcasm would fare well on the Internet. ;) But I'll just say straight-on that I have it sourced to the Novas paper only because Mortimer's paper is still unpublished. If/when it's published, I'll probably either swap the sources or simply add Mortimer's phylogeny before Novas' for priority. It's highly, highly preliminary, I'll admit; but sourcing it to at least one source is better than leaving it totally unsourced, at least.


 * So I guess when Mortimer's phylogeny is published (and I know Cau's megamatrix is ultimately better than Novas', because of the added taxa and characters; I'm just worried about sourcing), I could add them onto the existing reference, if that's a good idea. I could also source the Cau megamatrix (or at least the part that deals with Megaraptora's relationships) to some prose that states that the classification of megaraptorans as tyrannosauroids is still up in the air, if that would help. Dromaeosaurus is best dinosaur (talk) 15:17, 9 May 2014 (UTC)--

drawing of 'feathered' T.Rex in this article
Besides being the current consensus for an adult T. Rex being unfeathered about 60/40 (against) or so in the Paleo world, that drawing is pushing a massive POV and speculative, and should be replaced with either a scaly Rex or a very, very scarce covering here and there. HammerFilmFan (talk) 00:00, 28 June 2015 (UTC)
 * I believe that the ratio among palaeontologists is around 90:10 for being feathered. This does not account for the amount of feathering, but still shows that feathers were likely present in some regions. So a scaly rex might be too extreme, but the images we have are still not overly feathered. IJReid  discuss 01:09, 28 June 2015 (UTC)
 * The accusation of POV-pushing is false, of course. And this idea that our majority is on scaly T.rex is itself POV-pushing; it suggests that everyone says a scaly T.rex is actually seriously considered by the majority now, which isn't the case; since the early 2000's, we've been depicting T.rex with feathering, with the amount of feathers only increasing since. Also, judging from what we know of Hell Creek, it was not a greenhouse; an average temperature similar to the Yixian is not exactly a hugely warm area, which suggests temperate or seasonal climates. If that's the case, a T.rex with large amounts of feathers is actually more likely than one with more feather loss, as it'd be much more advantageous to the genus to have large amounts of insulative integument in seasonal or temperate climates than small amounts of it. We've been thinking T.rex had feathers for, what, 15-20 years at this point? It's something we've only been getting more evidence towards over the years, and little against; and Wikipedia leans towards the majority opinion in reliable sources in most circumstances; and as the majority opinion in reliable palaeontology sources is that Tyrannosaurus was feathered, that is what Wikipedia will use for it's reconstruction untill consensus changes. In fact, our current recon is, in my opinion at least, not feathered enough given what we currently know of Hell Creek's climate. Raptormimus456 (talk) 13:08, 10 September 2015 (UTC)--


 * June 2017 article - https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/t-rex-skin-was-not-covered-feathers-study-says-180963603/ 104.169.39.45 (talk) 01:27, 24 January 2018 (UTC)

Possible New Taxobox Image?
Right now, our taxobox image has basically the same idea as the other taxobox images for groups of dinosaurs, which is that it features one example from that group(in this case, Yutyrannus). I'm thinking about a possible change from a picture of a singular dinosaur, to a large picture of multiple examples of Tyrannosauroidea, each individually representing the different families of dinosaurs inside Tyrannosauroidea. This would be rather like the choice of the image for the Dinosaur article or the Tyrannosauridae article. I do want more opinions though, as Tyrannosauroidea and other groups are much smaller than, for example, Ornithischia. BleachedRice (talk) 02:29, 17 February 2018 (UTC)
 * I don't like the idea of collage images, because so many end up with inaccuracies, poorly resolved, or questionable taxa. I don't think there are enough tyrannosaurs with skeletal mounts (as is typical for collages) to be worth it. The only non-tyrannosaurids that have good skeletal mounts are Appalachiosaurus, Yutyrannus and maybe Xiongguanlong (Dilong has a bad one, Bistahieversor has a kindof mount). There is no real way to represent the diversity in size and anatomy with only large, derived taxa. IJReid { {T - C - D - R} } 02:34, 17 February 2018 (UTC)
 * What I was actually suggesting was to have a collage of one good non-tyrannosaurid tyrannosauroid mount, one good non-tyrannosaurine tyrannosaurid mount, and one good tyrannosaurine mount. They'll all be of taxa that have fairly confident placements in groups(Appalachiosaurus' placement in as a non-tyrannosaurid tyrannosauroid isn't going to radically change soon, Gorgosaurus' placement as a non-tyrannosaurine tyrannosaurid isn't going to change anytime soon, and Tyrannosaurus' placement as a tyrannosaurine isn't going to change anytime soon.)BleachedRice (talk) 05:29, 17 February 2018 (UTC)
 * My issue with it is more that there just isn't really sufficient diversity in tyrannosaur proportions to make it really worth using. I have a similar problem with the image on the Tyrannosauridae page (where it's even worse). You could, instead, try and put in a selection of images in the body of the article, like I did for the Ornithopoda page.  Luso titan  (Talk | Contributions) 17:44, 17 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Hmm, that makes sense. Should the collage format be chosen for bigger groups, like Coelurosauria or Tetanurae?BleachedRice (talk) 01:22, 18 February 2018 (UTC)
 * I'm against collages but I think if you added one to Coelurosauria that would be preferable to Tetanurae because of the way the group is formed. Tetanurae is pretty much just Megalosauroidea + Avetheropoda, so it wouldn't be a collage showing diversity in evolution so much as contrasting the two subgroups. Coelurosauria is a lot more diverse, with Tyrannosauroidea, Ornithomimosauria, Therizinosauria, Oviraptorosauria etc. Thats another reason doing a collage for something like Neornithischia would be bad, because all neornithischians except the marginocephalians have generally the same proportions. IJReid { {T - C - D - R} } 02:13, 18 February 2018 (UTC)

Stokesosauridae
Stokesosauridae now has a proper definition, see https://www.researchgate.net/publication/340096681_Stokesosauridae_clade_nov_a_new_family_name_for_a_branch_of_basal_tyrannosauroids. However I think that Stokeosauridae should me merged into this article, it only contains 3 taxa, it has been disputed by some analyses and its synapomorphies and history are better covered in this article about the Tyrannosauroidea more generally. Hemiauchenia (talk) 14:04, 3 June 2020 (UTC)
 * Generally we should maybe figure out at what point a named clade needs an article? Is two or three taxa really enough? FunkMonk (talk) 19:20, 4 June 2020 (UTC)
 * I believe the issue is less the number of taxa and more that there is nothing to say about the clade beyond its inclusion.  Luso titan  (Talk | Contributions) 19:26, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

I agree, there's a lot to say about Scansoriopterygidae, much less so about Mimodactylidae or Hamipteridae. I definitely feel that Stokesosauridae falls into the latter category. Hemiauchenia (talk) 19:31, 4 June 2020 (UTC)
 * The article of Stokesosauridae does look very limited, same with Mimodactylidae and Hamipteridae, I agree if a merge is in order for Stokesosauridae into Tyrannosauroidea. But I don't know if the pterosaur families should be merged (at least for now), the next rank in the classification is Ornithocheiromorpha, which is a much larger clade, so I'm not completely sure for a merge between the pterosaur families. Jurassic Classic 767  (talk | contribs) 20:05, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

Evolution of the arctometatarsus within tyrannosauroidea (and Dryptosaurus)
"The arctometatarsus was also present in Appalachiosaurus but it is unclear whether it was found in Eotyrannus or Dryptosaurus. This structure was shared by derived ornithomimids, troodontids and caenagnathids, but was not present in basal tyrannosauroids like Dilong paradoxus, indicating convergent evolution."

In the wiki's photo of Alectrosaurus' holotype, and assuming it's not a very liberal reconstrunction, the arctometatarsalian condition in clearly present. Given that Alectrosaurus routinely scores as more basal than Dryptosaurus isn't it safe to assume by phylogenetic bracketing that the later did have it too? Draco ignoramus sophomoricus (talk) 00:52, 6 November 2022 (UTC)