Chordate
A chordate is an animal constituting the phylum Chordata. During some period of their life cycle, chordates possess a notochord, a dorsal nerve cord, pharyngeal slits, an endostyle, a post-anal tail: these five anatomical features define this phylum. Chordates are bilaterally symmetric; the Chordata and Ambulacraria together form the superphylum Deuterostomia. Chordates are divided into three subphyla: Vertebrata. There are extinct taxa such as the Vetulicolia. Hemichordata has been presented as a fourth chordate subphylum, but now is treated as a separate phylum: hemichordates and Echinodermata form the Ambulacraria, the sister phylum of the Chordates. Of the more than 65,000 living species of chordates, about half are bony fish that are members of the superclass Osteichthyes. Chordate fossils have been found from as early as the Cambrian explosion, 541 million years ago. Cladistically, vertebrates - chordates with the notochord replaced by a vertebral column during development - are considered to be a subgroup of the clade Craniata, which consists of chordates with a skull.
The Craniata and Tunicata compose the clade Olfactores. Chordates form a phylum of animals that are defined by having at some stage in their lives all of the following anatomical features: A notochord, a stiff rod of cartilage that extends along the inside of the body. Among the vertebrate sub-group of chordates the notochord develops into the spine, in wholly aquatic species this helps the animal to swim by flexing its tail. A dorsal neural tube. In fish and other vertebrates, this develops into the spinal cord, the main communications trunk of the nervous system. Pharyngeal slits; the pharynx is the part of the throat behind the mouth. In fish, the slits are modified to form gills, but in some other chordates they are part of a filter-feeding system that extracts particles of food from the water in which the animals live. Post-anal tail. A muscular tail that extends backwards behind the anus. An endostyle; this is a groove in the ventral wall of the pharynx. In filter-feeding species it produces mucus to gather food particles, which helps in transporting food to the esophagus.
It stores iodine, may be a precursor of the vertebrate thyroid gland. There are soft constraints that separate chordates from certain other biological lineages, but are not part of the formal definition: All chordates are deuterostomes; this means. All chordates are based on a bilateral body plan. All chordates are coelomates, have a fluid filled body cavity called a coelom with a complete lining called peritoneum derived from mesoderm; the following schema is from the third edition of Vertebrate Palaeontology. The invertebrate chordate classes are from Fishes of the World. While it is structured so as to reflect evolutionary relationships, it retains the traditional ranks used in Linnaean taxonomy. Phylum Chordata †Vetulicolia? Subphylum Cephalochordata – Class Leptocardii Clade Olfactores Subphylum Tunicata – Class Ascidiacea Class Thaliacea Class Appendicularia Class Sorberacea Subphylum Vertebrata Infraphylum incertae sedis Cyclostomata Superclass'Agnatha' paraphyletic Class Myxini Class Petromyzontida or Hyperoartia Class †Conodonta Class †Myllokunmingiida Class †Pteraspidomorphi Class †Thelodonti Class †Anaspida Class †Cephalaspidomorphi Infraphylum Gnathostomata Class †Placodermi Class Chondrichthyes Class †Acanthodii Superclass Osteichthyes Class Actinopterygii Class Sarcopterygii Superclass Tetrapoda Class Amphibia Class Sauropsida Class Synapsida Craniates, one of the three subdivisions of chordates, all have distinct skulls.
They include the hagfish. Michael J. Benton commented that "craniates are characterized by their heads, just as chordates, or all deuterostomes, are by their tails". Most craniates are vertebrates; these consist of a series of bony or cartilaginous cylindrical vertebrae with neural arches that protect the spinal cord, with projections that link the vertebrae. However hagfish have incomplete braincases and no vertebrae, are therefore not regarded as vertebrates, but as members of the craniates, the group from which vertebrates are thought to have evolved; however the cladistic exclusion of hagfish from the vertebrates is controversial, as they ma
Kotasaurus
Kotasaurus is a genus of sauropod dinosaur from the Early Jurassic period. The only known species is Kotasaurus yamanpalliensis, it was discovered in the Kota Formation of Telangana and shared its habitat with the related Barapasaurus. So far the remains of at least 12 individuals are known; the greater part of the skeleton is known, but the skull is missing, with the exception of two teeth. Like all sauropods, it was a quadrupedal herbivore with long neck and tail. Kotasaurus is one of the most basal sauropods known; the general body plan was that of a typical sauropod, but in several basal features it resembles prosauropods. Like all sauropods, Kotasaurus was an obligate quadruped, while prosauropods were primitively bipedal; the body length is estimated at nine meters, with a weight of 2.5 tonnes, therefore comparable with that of sauropods. The femur was straight and oval in cross section, which means that the limbs were columnar; the teeth were spoon-shaped, like those of sauropods. Basal features, on the other hand, include the short and twisted humerus, as well as the retention of a lesser trochanter on the femur.
The neural spines of the vertebrae were built and their centra are massive, in contrast to those of the related Barapasaurus, which show more hollowing, be it without pneumatisation, of the sides as a weight-saving measure. Autapomorphies include the slender limb bones as well as the low and elongated preacetabular process, it was not clear if Kotasaurus represents a true sauropod or a basal sauropodomorph that has to be classified outside Sauropoda. Some paleontologists placed it inside a basal sauropod family called Vulcanodontidae though, together with Barapasaurus and the fragmentary Ohmdenosaurus and Zizhongosaurus; this grouping is now recognized to be paraphyletic. Today Kotasaurus is recognized as one of the most basal sauropods known; the exact relationships are not clear, however. A recent study by Bandyopadhyay and colleagues renders Kotasaurus to be more basal than Barapasaurus and Vulcanodon but more derived than Jingshanosaurus and Chinshakiangosaurus. All known fossils come from an area of 2,400 m² near the village of Yamanpalli in Telangana forty kilometres north of the Barapasaurus type locality.
These finds, altogether 840 skeletal parts, were found in the late 1970s. In 1988 they were named and described by P. M. Yadagiri as a new genus and species of sauropod, Kotasaurus yamanpalliensis; the generic name refers to the Kota Formation. The specific name reflects the provenance from Yamanpalli; the holotype is an ilium. The Geological Survey of India combined several elements into a skeletal mount and displayed it at the Birla Science Museum, Hyderabad. In 2001, Yadagiri described the osteology in more detail
Animal
Animals are multicellular eukaryotic organisms that form the biological kingdom Animalia. With few exceptions, animals consume organic material, breathe oxygen, are able to move, can reproduce sexually, grow from a hollow sphere of cells, the blastula, during embryonic development. Over 1.5 million living animal species have been described—of which around 1 million are insects—but it has been estimated there are over 7 million animal species in total. Animals range in length from 8.5 millionths of a metre to 33.6 metres and have complex interactions with each other and their environments, forming intricate food webs. The category includes humans, but in colloquial use the term animal refers only to non-human animals; the study of non-human animals is known as zoology. Most living animal species are in the Bilateria, a clade whose members have a bilaterally symmetric body plan; the Bilateria include the protostomes—in which many groups of invertebrates are found, such as nematodes and molluscs—and the deuterostomes, containing the echinoderms and chordates.
Life forms interpreted. Many modern animal phyla became established in the fossil record as marine species during the Cambrian explosion which began around 542 million years ago. 6,331 groups of genes common to all living animals have been identified. Aristotle divided animals into those with those without. Carl Linnaeus created the first hierarchical biological classification for animals in 1758 with his Systema Naturae, which Jean-Baptiste Lamarck expanded into 14 phyla by 1809. In 1874, Ernst Haeckel divided the animal kingdom into the multicellular Metazoa and the Protozoa, single-celled organisms no longer considered animals. In modern times, the biological classification of animals relies on advanced techniques, such as molecular phylogenetics, which are effective at demonstrating the evolutionary relationships between animal taxa. Humans make use of many other animal species for food, including meat and eggs. Dogs have been used in hunting, while many aquatic animals are hunted for sport.
Non-human animals have appeared in art from the earliest times and are featured in mythology and religion. The word "animal" comes from the Latin animalis, having soul or living being; the biological definition includes all members of the kingdom Animalia. In colloquial usage, as a consequence of anthropocentrism, the term animal is sometimes used nonscientifically to refer only to non-human animals. Animals have several characteristics. Animals are eukaryotic and multicellular, unlike bacteria, which are prokaryotic, unlike protists, which are eukaryotic but unicellular. Unlike plants and algae, which produce their own nutrients animals are heterotrophic, feeding on organic material and digesting it internally. With few exceptions, animals breathe oxygen and respire aerobically. All animals are motile during at least part of their life cycle, but some animals, such as sponges, corals and barnacles become sessile; the blastula is a stage in embryonic development, unique to most animals, allowing cells to be differentiated into specialised tissues and organs.
All animals are composed of cells, surrounded by a characteristic extracellular matrix composed of collagen and elastic glycoproteins. During development, the animal extracellular matrix forms a flexible framework upon which cells can move about and be reorganised, making the formation of complex structures possible; this may be calcified, forming structures such as shells and spicules. In contrast, the cells of other multicellular organisms are held in place by cell walls, so develop by progressive growth. Animal cells uniquely possess the cell junctions called tight junctions, gap junctions, desmosomes. With few exceptions—in particular, the sponges and placozoans—animal bodies are differentiated into tissues; these include muscles, which enable locomotion, nerve tissues, which transmit signals and coordinate the body. There is an internal digestive chamber with either one opening or two openings. Nearly all animals make use of some form of sexual reproduction, they produce haploid gametes by meiosis.
These fuse to form zygotes, which develop via mitosis into a hollow sphere, called a blastula. In sponges, blastula larvae swim to a new location, attach to the seabed, develop into a new sponge. In most other groups, the blastula undergoes more complicated rearrangement, it first invaginates to form a gastrula with a digestive chamber and two separate germ layers, an external ectoderm and an internal endoderm. In most cases, a third germ layer, the mesoderm develops between them; these germ layers differentiate to form tissues and organs. Repeated instances of mating with a close relative during sexual reproduction leads to inbreeding depression within a population due to the increased prevalence of harmful recessive traits. Animals have evolved numerous mechanisms for avoiding close inbreeding. In some species, such as the splendid fairywren, females benefit by mating with multiple males, thus producing more offspring of higher genetic quality; some animals are capable of asexual reproduction, which results
Saurischia
Saurischia is one of the two basic divisions of dinosaurs. ‘Saurischia’ translates to lizard-hipped. In 1888, Harry Seeley classified dinosaurs into two orders, based on their hip structure, though today most paleontologists classify Saurischia as an unranked clade rather than an order. All carnivorous dinosaurs are traditionally classified as saurischians, as are all of the birds and one of the two primary lineages of herbivorous dinosaurs, the sauropodomorphs. At the end of the Cretaceous Period, all saurischians except the birds became extinct in the course of the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event. Birds, as direct descendants of one group of theropod dinosaurs, are a sub-clade of saurischian dinosaurs in phylogenetic classification. Saurischian dinosaurs are traditionally distinguished from ornithischian dinosaurs by their three-pronged pelvic structure, with the pubis pointed forward; the ornithischians' pelvis is arranged with the pubis rotated backward, parallel with the ischium also with a forward-pointing process, giving a four-pronged structure.
The saurischian hip structure led Seeley to name them "lizard-hipped" dinosaurs, because they retained the ancestral hip anatomy found in modern lizards and other reptiles. He named ornithischians "bird-hipped" dinosaurs because their hip arrangement was superficially similar to that of birds, though he did not propose any specific relationship between ornithischians and birds. However, in the view which has long been held, this "bird-hipped" arrangement evolved several times independently in dinosaurs, first in the ornithischians in the lineage of saurischians including birds, lastly in the therizinosaurians; this would be an example of convergent evolution, therizinosaurians, ornithischian dinosaurs all developed a similar hip anatomy independently of each other as an adaptation to their herbivorous or omnivorous diets. In his paper naming the two groups, Seeley reviewed previous classification schemes put forth by other paleontologists to divide up the traditional order Dinosauria, he preferred one, put forward by Othniel Charles Marsh in 1878, which divided dinosaurs into four orders: Sauropoda, Theropoda and Stegosauria.
Seeley, wanted to formulate a classification that would take into account a single primary difference between major dinosaurian groups based on a characteristic that differentiated them from other reptiles. He found this in the configuration of the hip bones, found that all four of Marsh's orders could be divided neatly into two major groups based on this feature, he placed the Stegosauria and Ornithopoda in the Ornithischia, the Theropoda and Sauropoda in the Saurischia. Furthermore, Seeley used this major difference in the hip bones, along with many other noted differences between the two groups, to argue that "dinosaurs" were not a natural grouping at all, but rather two distinct orders that had arisen independently from more primitive archosaurs; this concept that "dinosaur" was an outdated term for two distinct orders lasted many decades in the scientific and popular literature, it was not until the 1960s that scientists began to again consider the possibility that saurischians and ornithischians were more related to each other than they were to other archosaurs.
Although his concept of a polyphyletic Dinosauria is no longer accepted by most paleontologists, Seeley's basic division of the two dinosaurian groups has stood the test of time, has been supported by modern cladistic analysis of relationships among dinosaurs. One alternative hypothesis challenging Seeley's classification was proposed by Robert T. Bakker in his 1986 book The Dinosaur Heresies. Bakker's classification separated the theropods into their own group and placed the two groups of herbivorous dinosaurs together in a separate group he named the Phytodinosauria; the Phytodinosauria hypothesis was based on the supposed link between ornithischians and prosauropods, the idea that the former had evolved directly from the latter by way of an enigmatic family that seemed to possess characters of both groups, the segnosaurs. However, it was found that segnosaurs were an unusual type of herbivorous theropod saurischian related to birds, the Phytodinosauria hypothesis fell out of favor. A 2017 study by Dr Matthew Grant Baron, Dr David B. Norman and Prof. Paul M. Barrett did not find support for a monophyletic Saurischia, according to its traditional definition.
Instead, the group was found to be paraphyletic, with Theropoda removed from the group and placed as the sister group to the Ornithischia in the newly defined clade Ornithoscelida. As a result, the authors redefined Saurischia as "the most inclusive clade that contains D. carnegii, but not T. horridus", resulting in a clade containing only the Sauropodomorpha and Herrerasauridae
Antetonitrus
Antetonitrus is a genus of sauropod dinosaur found in Early Jurassic rocks in South Africa. The only species is Antetonitrus ingenipes; as one of the oldest known sauropods, it is crucial for the understanding of the origin and early evolution of this group. It was a quadrupedal herbivore, like all of its relatives, but shows primitive adaptations to use the forelimbs for grasping, instead of purely for weight support. Adam Yates, an Australian expert on early sauropodomorphs, named Antetonitrus in a 2003 report co-authored by South African James Kitching; the name is derived from the Latin ante- and tonitrus, which refers to its existence, before other known sauropods Brontosaurus. The one known species of Antetonitrus is called A. ingenipes, from the Latin ingens and pes, because it shows the beginning of the development of feet designed to support weight. The fossils now known as Antetonitrus were discovered by Kitching in 1981 in the Free State of South Africa, were stored in the Bernard Price Institute where they were labeled as Euskelosaurus.
Yates published a description several years later. The holotype, or original specimen, consists of several vertebrae and numerous bones from both forelimb and hind limb, all presumed to be from one individual. Five more limb bones from another smaller individual were referred to the genus; the holotype specimen may have measured 8 to 10 m in total body length and was 1.5 to 2 m high at the hips. However, the neural arches of the vertebrae were not fused with the centra, indicating that this individual was not grown. Antetonitrus shows several features which appear to be similar to those of sauropods, but still retains some primitive features. Unlike most of its smaller and more built ancestors, Antetonitrus was quadrupedal. Like sauropods, its forelimbs were much longer relative to its hind legs than earlier animals, while the metatarsus was shortened. However, the first digit of the hand called the "thumb" or pollex, was still twisted and flexible, capable of grasping against the hand. In more derived sauropods, the wrist bones are large and thick, arranged in such a way as to lock the hand into a permanently pronated position for full-time weight support, the hand is incapable of grasping.
Antetonitrus shows adaptations for an increasing body size as seen in all sauropods: The wrist bones were broader and thicker to support more weight, whereas the femur was elliptical in cross section. The vertebrae bear high neural spines and well developed hyposphene-hypantrum articulations which add rigidity to the trunk; the first toe of the hind foot bears a large claw longer than the first metatarsal. The femur was sigmoidal in lateral view rather than straight as in other sauropods. A cladistic analysis by Yates and Kitching recognizes Antetonitrus as a basal sauropod, occupying a position between more derived animals such as Isanosaurus or Vulcanodon, more basal sauropods like Melanorosaurus; the back vertebrae are similar to Lessemsaurus from South America, while the limb bones are similar to Blikanasaurus, another stocky early sauropod from South Africa. However, these animals were not included in a cladistic analysis with Antetonitrus because they are poorly known. Apaldetti et al. erected Lessemsauridae, a clade containing Antetonitrus and Ingentia.
Their cladogram is reproduced below: While Antetonitrus is not the earliest sauropod from a phylogenetic standpoint, it one of the oldest known sauropod chronologically, or rather tied for that distinction with other early sauropods from the same formation, like Melanorosaurus and Blikanasaurus. Fossils of these animals were recovered from the Elliot Formation, it was though to be recovered from the Lower Elliot Formation which dates to the Norian stage of the Late Triassic, or 221 to 210 million years ago. Studies indicate that it was recovered from the Early Jurassic Upper Elliot Formation. Before Antetonitrus and the other animals recovered from the Elliot Formation were recognized as sauropods, the oldest known sauropod had been Isanosaurus from the Rhaetian stage of Thailand. Early sauropods and their prosauropod relatives were found around the world as all of the continents were at the time united into the single supercontinent, which made dispersal across the entire terrestrial world possible.
Post about Antetonitrus on the Dinosaur Mailing List, written by Adam Yates
Sauropodomorpha
Sauropodomorpha is an extinct clade of long-necked, saurischian dinosaurs that includes the sauropods and their ancestral relatives. Sauropods grew to large sizes, had long necks and tails, were quadrupedal, became the largest animals to walk the Earth; the "prosauropods", which preceded the sauropods, were smaller and were able to walk on two legs. The sauropodomorphs were the dominant terrestrial herbivores throughout much of the Mesozoic Era, from their origins in the mid-Triassic until their decline and extinction at the end of the Cretaceous. Sauropodomorphs were adapted to browsing higher than any other contemporary herbivore, giving them access to high tree foliage; this feeding strategy is supported by many of their defining characteristics, such as: a light, tiny skull on the end of a long neck and a counterbalancing long tail. Their teeth were weak, shaped like leaves or spoons. Instead of grinding teeth, they had stomach stones, similar to the gizzard stones of modern birds and crocodiles, to help digest tough plant fibers.
The front of the upper mouth bends down in. One of the earliest known sauropodomorphs, was small and slender; the largest sauropods, like Supersaurus, Diplodocus hallorum and Argentinosaurus, reached 30–40 metres in length, 60,000–100,000 kilograms or more in mass. Bipedal, as their size increased they evolved a four-legged graviportal gait adapted only to walking on land, like elephants; the early sauropodomorphs were most omnivores as their shared common ancestor with the other saurischian lineage was a carnivore. Therefore, their evolution to herbivory went hand in hand with their increasing size and neck length, they had large nostrils, retained a thumb with a big claw, which may have been used for defense — though their primary defensive adaptation was their extreme size. Sauropodomorphs can be distinguished as a group on the basis of some of the following synapomorphies: The presence of large nares; the distal part of the tibia is covered by an ascending process of the astragalus. Their hind limbs are short.
The presence of three or more sacral vertebrae. The teeth are thin and are spatula-like, with bladed and serrated crowns; the presence of a minimum of 10 cervical vertebrae that are elongated The presence of 25 presacral vertebrae The manus had a large digit I Among the first dinosaurs to evolve in the Late Triassic Period, about 230 million years ago, they became the dominant herbivores by halfway through the late Triassic. Their perceived decline in the early Cretaceous is most a bias in fossil sampling, as most fossils are known from Europe and North America. Sauropods were still the dominant herbivores in the Gondwanan landmasses, however; the spread of flowering plants and "advanced" ornithischians, another major group of herbivorous dinosaurs, are most not a major factor in sauropod decline in the northern continents. Like all non-avian dinosaurs, the sauropodomorphs became extinct 66 Mya, during the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event; the earliest and most basal sauropodomorphs known are Chromogisaurus novasi and Panphagia protos, both from the Ischigualasto Formation, dated to 231.4 million years ago.
Some studies have found Eoraptor lunensis, traditionally considered a theropod, to be an early member of the sauropodomorph lineage, which would make it the most basal sauropodomorph known. Sauropodomorpha is one of the two major clades within the order Saurischia; the sauropodomorphs' sister group, the Theropoda, includes bipedal carnivores like Velociraptor and Tyrannosaurus. However, sauropodomorphs share a number of characteristics with the Ornithischia, so a small minority of palaeontologists, like Bakker, have placed both sets of herbivores within a group called "Phytodinosauria" or "Ornithischiformes". In Linnaean taxonomy, Sauropodomorpha is left unranked, it was established by Friedrich von Huene in 1932, who broke it into two groups: the basal forms within Prosauropoda, their descendants, the giant Sauropoda. Phylogenetic analyses by Adam Yates and others placed Sauropoda within a paraphyletic "Prosauropoda". Recent cladistic analyses suggest that the clade Prosauropoda, named by Huene in 1920 and was defined by Sereno, in 1998, as all animals more related to Plateosaurus engelhardti than to Saltasaurus loricatus, is a junior synonym of Plateosauridae as both contain the same taxa.
Most modern classification schemes break the prosauropods into a half-dozen groups that evolved separately from one common lineage. While they have a number of shared characteristics, the evolutionary requirements for giraffe-like browsing high in the trees may have caused convergent evolution, where similar traits evolve separately because they faced the same evolutionary pressure, instead of trait
Dinosaur
Dinosaurs are a diverse group of reptiles of the clade Dinosauria. They first appeared during the Triassic period, between 243 and 233.23 million years ago, although the exact origin and timing of the evolution of dinosaurs is the subject of active research. They became the dominant terrestrial vertebrates after the Triassic–Jurassic extinction event 201 million years ago. Reverse genetic engineering and the fossil record both demonstrate that birds are modern feathered dinosaurs, having evolved from earlier theropods during the late Jurassic Period; as such, birds were the only dinosaur lineage to survive the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event 66 million years ago. Dinosaurs can therefore be divided into birds; this article deals with non-avian dinosaurs. Dinosaurs are a varied group of animals from taxonomic and ecological standpoints. Birds, at over 10,000 living species, are the most diverse group of vertebrates besides perciform fish. Using fossil evidence, paleontologists have identified over 500 distinct genera and more than 1,000 different species of non-avian dinosaurs.
Dinosaurs are represented on every continent by fossil remains. Through the first half of the 20th century, before birds were recognized to be dinosaurs, most of the scientific community believed dinosaurs to have been sluggish and cold-blooded. Most research conducted since the 1970s, has indicated that all dinosaurs were active animals with elevated metabolisms and numerous adaptations for social interaction; some were herbivorous, others carnivorous. Evidence suggests that egg-laying and nest-building are additional traits shared by all dinosaurs and non-avian alike. While dinosaurs were ancestrally bipedal, many extinct groups included quadrupedal species, some were able to shift between these stances. Elaborate display structures such as horns or crests are common to all dinosaur groups, some extinct groups developed skeletal modifications such as bony armor and spines. While the dinosaurs' modern-day surviving avian lineage are small due to the constraints of flight, many prehistoric dinosaurs were large-bodied—the largest sauropod dinosaurs are estimated to have reached lengths of 39.7 meters and heights of 18 meters and were the largest land animals of all time.
Still, the idea that non-avian dinosaurs were uniformly gigantic is a misconception based in part on preservation bias, as large, sturdy bones are more to last until they are fossilized. Many dinosaurs were quite small: Xixianykus, for example, was only about 50 cm long. Since the first dinosaur fossils were recognized in the early 19th century, mounted fossil dinosaur skeletons have been major attractions at museums around the world, dinosaurs have become an enduring part of world culture; the large sizes of some dinosaur groups, as well as their monstrous and fantastic nature, have ensured dinosaurs' regular appearance in best-selling books and films, such as Jurassic Park. Persistent public enthusiasm for the animals has resulted in significant funding for dinosaur science, new discoveries are covered by the media; the taxon'Dinosauria' was formally named in 1841 by paleontologist Sir Richard Owen, who used it to refer to the "distinct tribe or sub-order of Saurian Reptiles" that were being recognized in England and around the world.
The term is derived from Ancient Greek δεινός, meaning'terrible, potent or fearfully great', σαῦρος, meaning'lizard or reptile'. Though the taxonomic name has been interpreted as a reference to dinosaurs' teeth and other fearsome characteristics, Owen intended it to evoke their size and majesty. Other prehistoric animals, including pterosaurs, ichthyosaurs and Dimetrodon, while popularly conceived of as dinosaurs, are not taxonomically classified as dinosaurs. Pterosaurs are distantly related to dinosaurs; the other groups mentioned are, like dinosaurs and pterosaurs, members of Sauropsida, except Dimetrodon. Under phylogenetic nomenclature, dinosaurs are defined as the group consisting of the most recent common ancestor of Triceratops and Neornithes, all its descendants, it has been suggested that Dinosauria be defined with respect to the MRCA of Megalosaurus and Iguanodon, because these were two of the three genera cited by Richard Owen when he recognized the Dinosauria. Both definitions result in the same set of animals being defined as dinosaurs: "Dinosauria = Ornithischia + Saurischia", encompassing ankylosaurians, ceratopsians, ornithopods and sauropodomorphs.
Birds are now recognized as being the sole surviving lineage of theropod dinosaurs. In traditional taxonomy, birds were considered a separate class that had evolved from dinosaurs, a distinct superorder. However, a majority of contemporary paleontologists concerned with dinosaurs reject the traditional style of classification in favor of phylogenetic taxonomy. Birds are thus considered to be dinosaurs and dinosaurs are, not extinct. Birds are classified as belonging to the subgroup M
