Megalosauridae

Megalosaurids
Temporal range: Middle - Late Jurassic, 170–148 Ma
Afrovenator abakensis reconstruction
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Order: Saurischia
Suborder: Theropoda
Clade: Megalosauria
Family: Megalosauridae
Huxley, 1869
Type species
Megalosaurus bucklandii
Mantell, 1827
Subgroups

See text.

Synonyms

Torvosauridae Jensen, 1985
Eustreptospondylidae Paul, 1988
Streptospondylidae Kurzanov, 1989

Megalosauridae was a family of relatively primitive tetanuran theropod dinosaurs, order Saurischia. They were small-to-large carnivores with sharp teeth and three claws on each hand. Some members of this group were Megalosaurus, Eustreptospondylus, Streptospondylus and Torvosaurus. Megalosaurids first appeared in the mid Jurassic and seemed to have been displaced and replaced by other theropods by the end of that period; their fossils are known from Europe, North America, South America and Africa. They are considered by most researchers (Sereno 2005, Olshevsky 1995, Holtz 2004, etc.) to be close relatives of the spinosaurs.

Classification

Like Megalosaurus itself, the family Megalosauridae, coined by Huxley in 1869, had traditionally been used as a 'wastebasket' group, which included a wide variety of unrelated species (such as Dryptosaurus, Ceratosaurus, Indosaurus, and even Velociraptor). Because of this traditionally polyphyletic use, some scientists, such as Paul Sereno, reject the family name Megalosauridae in favor of Torvosauridae (coined by Jensen in 1985), despite the fact that Megalosauridae has priority under the ICZN rules governing family-level names in zoology.[1] While a 2008 review of Megalosaurus by Benson and colleagues also found that the relationships of Megalosaurus to other theropods could not be determined, and that the assignment of basal spinosauroids to the family Megalosauridae should be discontinued,[2] further work by Benson reversed this position, finding a well-supported Megalosauridae in phylogenetic analyses.[3]

Phylogeny

The clade Megalosauridae was first given a phylogenetic definition by Allain in 2002. According to Allain's definition, a megalosaurid is any dinosaur that shares a common ancestor with Poekilopleuron valesdunensis (since reclassified as Dubreuillosaurus), Torvosaurus, and Afrovenator.[4] In 2004, Holtz and colleagues proposed a new definition: all dinosaurs more closely related to Megalosaurus than to Spinosaurus, Allosaurus, or modern birds (represented by Passer domesticus).[5] In 2005, Sereno rejected the use of Megalosauridae as a clade altogether, due to the fragmentary nature of Megalosaurus, and used the name Torvosauridae instead, using the same definition as Holtz but replacing Megalosaurus with Torvosaurus.[1]

The cladogram presented here follows Benson (2010) and Benson et al. (2010).[3][6]

Megalosauridae
Eustreptospondylinae

Eustreptospondylus




Magnosaurus



Streptospondylus




Megalosaurinae

Duriavenator




Afrovenator



Dubreuillosaurus





Megalosaurus



Torvosaurus



Das Monster von Minden





Carrano, Benson & Sampson (2012) performed a much larger phylogenetic analysis of the Tetanurae that includes more taxa. They used the clade name Megalosauria (Bonaparte, 1850) in their analysis and defined it as the node comprising Megalosaurus, Spinosaurus, their most recent common ancestor, and all its descendants. Furthermore, a new megalosauroid family Piatnitzkysauridae was named to include all megalosauroids more closely related to Piatnitzkysaurus than to either Spinosaurus or Megalosaurus. Within Megalosauridae a new subfamily was named, Afrovenatorinae, to include all megalosaurids more closely related to Afrovenator than to Megalosaurus. Unlike Benson et al., 2010, they recovered Poekilopleuron as an afrovenatorine, while Xuanhanosaurus was recovered as the basalmost metriacanthosaurid. However, the position of these taxa is very unstable, and their exclusion from the analysis gave more resolved and stable cladogram. Streptospondylus was also excluded to get more resolved Megalosauridae and Afrovenatorinae. Streptospondylus itself was recovered as the basalmost spinosaurid or the basalmost megalosaurid or a eustreptospondyline. The Chinese tetanuran Leshansaurus was included for the first time in a phylogenetic analysis, and was recovered as an afrovenatorine. The cladogram presented here follows that study.[7]

Megalosauroidea

Piatnitzkysauridae


Megalosauria

Streptospondylus



Spinosauridae


Megalosauridae
Eustreptospondylinae

Eustreptospondylus




Megalosaurinae

Duriavenator




Megalosaurus



Torvosaurus



Das Monster von Minden




Afrovenatorinae

Afrovenator




Dubreuillosaurus



Magnosaurus





Leshansaurus



Piveteausaurus








See also

Portal iconDinosaurs portal

References

  1. 1 2 Sereno, P.C. (2005). Stem Archosauria—TaxonSearch [version 1.0, 2005 November 7]
  2. Benson R.B.J., Barrett P.M., Powell H.P., Norman D.B. (2008). "The taxonomic status of Megalosaurus bucklandii (Dinosauria, Theropoda) from the Middle Jurassic of OxfordshireE, UK.". Palaeontology 51 (2): 419–424. doi:10.1111/j.1475-4983.2008.00751.x.
  3. 1 2 Benson, R.B.J. (2010). "A description of Megalosaurus bucklandii (Dinosauria: Theropoda) from the Bathonian of the UK and the relationships of Middle Jurassic theropods". Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society 158: 882. doi:10.1111/j.1096-3642.2009.00569.x.
  4. Allain R (2002). "Discovery of megalosaur (Dinosauria, Theropoda) in the middle Bathonian of Normandy (France) and its implications for the phylogeny of basal Tetanurae". Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology 22 (3): 548–563. doi:10.1671/0272-4634(2002)022[0548:DOMDTI]2.0.CO;2.
  5. Holtz, T.R., Molnar, R.E., Currie, P.J. (2004). "Basal Tetanurae." In Weishampel, D.B., Dodson, P., & Osmolska, H. (Eds.). The Dinosauria (2nd Edition). Berkeley: University of California Press. Pp. 71-110.
  6. Benson, R.B.J., Carrano, M.T and Brusatte, S.L. (2010). "A new clade of archaic large-bodied predatory dinosaurs (Theropoda: Allosauroidea) that survived to the latest Mesozoic". Naturwissenschaften 97 (1): 71–78. Bibcode:2010NW.....97...71B. doi:10.1007/s00114-009-0614-x. PMID 19826771. Supporting Information
  7. Carrano, M. T.; Benson, R. B. J.; Sampson, S. D. (2012). "The phylogeny of Tetanurae (Dinosauria: Theropoda)". Journal of Systematic Palaeontology 10 (2): 211–300. doi:10.1080/14772019.2011.630927.
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