Carcharodontosauridae
Skeletal reconstruction of Giganotosaurus
- America
- Europe
- Africa
The Carcharodontosauridae (from gr Καρχαροδοντόσαυρος, jagged tooth lizard or shark tooth lizard ) are a kinship group ( taxon ) of large theropods, the first occurred in the Lower Cretaceous and are closely related to the Allosauriden. It was first defined by Ernst Stromer in 1931.
They include the largest known predatory dinosaurs until today, as the two South American genera Giganotosaurus with a length of more than 13 meters and Mapusaurus (about 12.2 meters) or Carcharodontosaurus from Africa, which has a length of up to 13.5 meters could have achieved. The fossil record of Carcharodontosauriden extends over a period of more than 40 million years ( 131-89 mya ). The Carcharodontosauriden spread mainly on the supercontinent of Gondwana, but also had representatives in North America ( Acrocanthosaurus ), Europe ( Concavenator ) and Asia ( Shaochilong ). The Carcharodontosauriden shared their habitat with similarly large Spinosauriden, but this probably had a different range of prey and hunt smaller prey such as fish or ate carrion.
Features
They reached or surpassed the height of the tyrannosaurids and therefore are regarded as one of the largest land predators on earth. Your skull could be up to 1.6 meters long. Despite their size, they were lighter than, say, Allosauriden or tyrannosaurid same size. They had a robust physique and were still agile.
System
Outer systematics
The Carcharodontosauridae are considered very advanced group of Allosauriden. They are often shown as the sister taxon Neovenatoridae; both are combined to form the Carcharodontosauiria. The following cladogram shows the external classification by Benson et al. (2010):
Sinraptoridae
Carcharodontosauridae
Neovenatoridae
Inside systematics
The Carcharodontosauridae family was originally named by Ernst Stromer to incorporate the then newly discovered species of Carcharodontosaurus saharicus him in the Theropoda. In 1995, Giganotosaurus was described, this was also assigned to the family. Defined with the discovery of Mapusaurus 2006 Rodolfo Coria and Phil Currie the subfamily Giganotosaurinae which Giganotosaurus and Mapusaurus includes and defines these two genera of the remaining Carchadontosauriden.
1998 Paul Sereno defined the Carcharodontosauridae as a clade that includes Carcharodontosaurus and all genres that are more closely related to Carcharodontosaurus than Allosaurus with, Sinraptor, Monolophosaurus or Cryolophosaurus.
The cladogram of Brusatte et al. (2009 ) illustrates the internal classification of Carcharodontosauridae, it being mention here that Neovenator is placed in recent studies outside the Carcharodontosauridae, namely in the Neovenatoridae, :
Neovenator
Acrocanthosaurus
Shaochilong
Carcharodontosaurus
Giganotosaurus
Mapusaurus