Assessing ontogenetic maturity in extinct saurian reptiles

CT Griffin, MR Stocker, C Colleary… - Biological …, 2021 - Wiley Online Library
Morphology forms the most fundamental level of data in vertebrate palaeontology because it
is through interpretations of morphology that taxa are identified, creating the basis for broad …

Morphology and distribution of scales, dermal ossifications, and other non‐feather integumentary structures in non‐avialan theropod dinosaurs

C Hendrickx, PR Bell, M Pittman, ARC Milner… - Biological …, 2022 - Wiley Online Library
Modern birds are typified by the presence of feathers, complex evolutionary innovations that
were already widespread in the group of theropod dinosaurs (Maniraptoriformes) that …

Late Cretaceous neornithine from Europe illuminates the origins of crown birds

DJ Field, J Benito, A Chen, JWM Jagt, DT Ksepka - Nature, 2020 - nature.com
Our understanding of the earliest stages of crown bird evolution is hindered by an
exceedingly sparse avian fossil record from the Mesozoic era. The most ancient …

Dinosaur biodiversity declined well before the asteroid impact, influenced by ecological and environmental pressures

FL Condamine, G Guinot, MJ Benton… - Nature …, 2021 - nature.com
The question why non-avian dinosaurs went extinct 66 million years ago (Ma) remains
unresolved because of the coarseness of the fossil record. A sudden extinction caused by …

Early Cretaceous troodontine troodontid (Dinosauria: Theropoda) from the Ohyamashimo Formation of Japan reveals the early evolution of Troodontinae

K Kubota, Y Kobayashi, T Ikeda - Scientific Reports, 2024 - nature.com
A new troodontid dinosaur, Hypnovenator matsubaraetoheorum gen. et sp. nov., is
described based on an articulated postcranial skeleton recovered from the fluvial deposits of …

[LIVRE][B] Jurassic West: the dinosaurs of the Morrison Formation and their world

J Foster - 2020 - books.google.com
The famous bone beds of the Morrison Formation, formed one hundred and fifty million
years ago and running from Wyoming down through the red rock region of the American …

A total-group phylogenetic metatree for Cetacea and the importance of fossil data in diversification analyses

GT Lloyd, GJ Slater - Systematic Biology, 2021 - academic.oup.com
Phylogenetic trees provide a powerful framework for testing macroevolutionary hypotheses,
but it is becoming increasingly apparent that inferences derived from extant species alone …

New information on Bonapartenykus (Alvarezsauridae: Theropoda) from the Allen Formation (middle Campanian-lower Maastrichtian) of Río Negro Province …

JG Meso, JN Choiniere, MA Baiano, SL Brusatte… - PloS one, 2025 - journals.plos.org
Alvarezsauria is a group of morphologically distinctive, medium-to small-sized later-
diverging coelurosaurian theropod dinosaurs, whose record ranges from the Late Jurassic …

Functional constraints on the number and shape of flight feathers

Y Kiat, JK O'Connor - … of the National Academy of Sciences, 2024 - National Acad Sciences
As a fundamental ecological aspect of most organisms, locomotor function significantly
constrains morphology. At the same time, the evolution of novel locomotor abilities has …

Forty new specimens of Ichthyornis provide unprecedented insight into the postcranial morphology of crownward stem group birds

J Benito, A Chen, LE Wilson, BAS Bhullar, D Burnham… - PeerJ, 2022 - peerj.com
Ichthyornis has long been recognized as a pivotally important fossil taxon for understanding
the latest stages of the dinosaur–bird transition, but little significant new postcranial material …