Dinosaur Taxonomy

 Dinosaur Taxonomy

In today’s blog, we dig deeper into the dinosaur taxonomy there are a lot of other classifications other than Saurischian and Ornithischian, but this time we will describe how dinos from these classifications will look(you can only see Saurischian and Ornithischian in fossils in other words bones). This will also have carnivore and herbivore portrayal.


Saurischian

Saurischian means lizard-hipped in this their pubis bone in the hips point forward. Examples of Saurischians are often in the category of therapods and sauropods, a definite example is the Tyrannosaurus Rex.


Ornithischian

Ornithischian means bird-hipped in this their pubis bone points backwards like modern-day birds, so its basically the inverse of Saurischian, the irony is that today’s birds are actually close relatives of the Saurischians. A definite example is Styracosaurus.


Carnivore Portrayal

☞ Meat-eaters.
☞ Long, muscular legs to run faster than herbivores; ran up to 48kmph.
☞ Most had excellent eyesight and sense of smell had mighty jaws and razor-sharp teeth.
☞ Scavengers and hunters; often hunted in packs example velociraptor
☞ Grew from ranges to 70cm* and 45 feet
*the smallest size
☞ Examples: Velociraptor, Allosaurus, Tyrannosaurus Rex



Herbivore Portrayal

⇨ Primarily plant-eaters
⇨ Primarily Ceratopsians and a few others had beaks to cut plants and consume them, others like Sauropods had flat teeth had for just grinding them
⇨ Weighed a hefty 100 tons
⇨ Many had cheek pouches to store food

⇨ Examples: Triceratops, Stegasaurus, Brachiosaurus



Therapods

Therapods the meaning of this word is ‘Beast Foot’ comprises of all carnivorous dinosaurs, they walk on 2 feet. Although this might seem astonishing as it seems therapods are the saurischians from which modern-day birds evolved, because of their close relativity raptors somewhat have the behaviour of birds of prey so it was named as raptor because raptor means bird of prey! There was also a classification called dromaeosaurs they were feathered carnivores with flexible claws used for hunting.


Sauropods

Sauropods are the most gigantic dinosaurs to have ever walked the Earth, they were quadrupeds which means they walk on 4 legs, all of these were saurischians. There was also a classification called prosauropods these guys walked on 2 legs and were the largest of their time that walked on 2 legs.


Ornithomimids

They had a similar structure as an ostrich, with a light build and powerful legs so they could run really fast. Example: Ornithamimus. So now you know the taxonomy of these dinosaurs so whenever you go to a museum and see a dino fossil try to classify it!!