ornitholestid
English
Noun
ornitholestid (plural ornitholestids)
- (zoology, very rare) Any member of the family †Ornitholestidae, now superseded by family †Compsognathidae.
- 1975, Dudley W. Bolyard, Deep drilling frontiers of the central Rocky Mountains, Rocky Mountain Association of Geologists, OCLC 1730794, page 114:
- E. H. Colbert (pers. commun. to Harshbarger, 1957) suggested that Segisaurus looks very much like an ornitholestid; Ornitholestes is found in the Morrison Formation (Jurassic).
- 1985, MK Brett-Surman, “A new family of bird-like dinosaurs linking Laurasia and Gondwanaland”, in Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, volume 5, number 2, page 133:
- In proportions, and especially in their uncompressed central metatarsal, Avisaurus retains the conservative condition seen in such basal theopods as Coelophysis and Ceratosaurus (Fig. 2), and thus retains a basal condition compared to derived theropods and Archaeopteryx, which have proximally pinched central metatarsi (eg, compsognathids, ornitholestids, allosaurids, tyrannosaurids, elmisaurids, ornithomimids, dromaeosaurs and saurornithoidids; Paul, 1984).
- 1988, Gregory S. Paul, Predatory Dinosaurs of the World: A Complete Illustrated Guide, Simon & Schuster, OCLC 18350868:
- Aublysodonts and tyrannosaurs appear to have been the culmination of the ornitholestid-allosaur-tyrannosaur group.
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