Oviraptorosauria Barsbold 1976
Creators: name: Rauhut, Oliver W. M.
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2003
Subjects: Biodiversity
Taxonomy
Animalia
Chordata
Reptilia
Oviraptorosauria

description: Oviraptorosauria Barsbold, 1976 <i>a</i> <i>Included taxa.</i> Caenagnathidae Sternberg, 1940: <i>Caenagnathasia martinsoni</i> Currie, Godfrey and Nessov, 1993; <i>Chirostenotes elegans</i> (Parks, 1933); <i>Chirostenotes pergracilis</i> Gilmore, 1924 <i>a</i>; <i>Elmisaurus rarus</i> Osmólska, 1981. Oviraptoridae Barsbold, 1976 <i>b</i>: <i>Citipati osmolskae</i> Clark, Norell and Barsbold, 2001; <i>Conchoraptor gracilis</i> Barsbold, 1986; <i>Ingenia yanshini</i> Barsbold, 1981; <i>Khaan mckennai</i> Clark, Norell and Barsbold, 2001; <i>Nomingia gobiensis</i> Barsbold, Osmólska, Watabe, Currie and Tsogtbataar, 2000; <i>Oviraptor mongoliensis</i> Barsbold, 1986; <i>Oviraptor philoceratops</i> Osborn, 1924. <i>Temporal range.</i> Turonian-Maastrichtian. <i>Occurrence.</i> Bissekty Formation, Uzbekistan; Judith River Formation, Alberta, Canada, and Montana, USA; Horseshoe Canyon Formation, Alberta, Canada; Nemegt Formation, Omnogov, Mongolia; Red beds of Khermeen Tsav, Omnogov, Mongolia; Beds of Bugeen Tsav, Bayankhongor, Mongolia; Djadokhta Formation, Omnogov, Mongolia; Bayan Mandahu Red beds, Nei Mongol Zizhiqu, China. <i>Diagnosis.</i> Maxilla with broad palatal shelf bearing two longitudinal ridges and with posteromedial toothlike process; dentary with medial ridge; dorsal margin of dentary deeply concave; dentary with two long posterior processes separated by the external mandibular fenestra; coronoid process of dentary inflected dorsomedially; articular surface of lower jaw convex in lateral view, distinctly expanded laterally and medially, and raised above the dorsal margin of the mandibular ramus; proximal caudal vertebrae strongly pneumatised. The following characters might be synapomorphies of the Oviraptorosauria, but are currently unknown in caenagnathids: postorbital part of the skull subequal in length to the preorbital part (i.e. snout very short and high); suborbital fenestra closed, ectopterygoid contacts the palatine in a broad suture anteriorly (the condition in therizinosaurs might be similar, but is uncertain); premaxillary body as high as, or higher than the height of orbit. <i>Remarks.</i> The first representatives of this peculiar group of dinosaurs (Text-fig. 6f) were described by Osborn (1924) and Gilmore (1924 <i>a</i>), although it was not then recognized that <i>Chirostenotes</i> Gilmore is a close relative of <i>Oviraptor</i> Osborn. In 1940, Sternberg described two edentulous lower jaws from the Campanian Judith River Formation of Canada as a new genus of Cretaceous birds, <i>Caenagnathus,</i> and referred it to its own family, Caenagnathidae. All of these taxa received surprisingly little attention until new and better preserved material of oviraptorosaurs discovered in the Upper Cretaceous of Mongolia in the 1970s revealed the bizarre skull anatomy of these animals. Osmólska (1976) recognized the close similarities of the lower jaws of <i>Caenagnathus</i> and <i>Oviraptor</i> and Barsbold (1976 <i>a</i>, <i>b)</i> created the family Oviraptoridae and the suborder Oviraptorosauria. In 1981, Osmólska described some new theropod remains from the Late Cretaceous of Mongolia as <i>Elmisaurus rarus</i> and created the family Elmisauridae to include <i>Elmisaurus, Chirostenotes</i> and <i>Macrophalangia</i> Sternberg, 1932. Currie and Russell (1988) confirmed the close relationships of <i>Elmisaurus</i> and <i>Chirostenotes,</i> and synonymized <i>Macrophalangia</i> with the latter genus. In the 1990 compendium ‘The Dinosauria ’ (Weishampel <i>et al.),</i> Currie listed <i>Elmisaurus</i> and <i>Chirostenotes</i> as elmisaurids, and referred the species <i>O rnithomimus elegans</i> Parks, 1933 to the latter genus. In the same compendium, Barsbold <i>et al.</i> listed the Oviraptoridae and the Caenagnathidae as members of the Oviraptorosauria. In 1997, Sues described a new specimen of <i>Chirostenotes</i> from the Horseshoe Canyon Formation of western Canada. He presented a good case for arguing that <i>Caenagnathus</i> represents the same genus as <i>Chirostenotes</i> and consequently used the older family name Caenagnathidae Sternberg, 1940, instead of Elmisauridae Osmolska, 1981. He further concluded that caenagnathids and oviraptorids can be united as Oviraptorosauria, based on several cranial and postcranial synapomorphies. This view is followed here.
description: Published as part of <i>Rauhut, Oliver W. M., 2003, The interrelationships and evolution of basal theropod dinosaurs, pp. 1-213 in Special papers in palaeontology 69</i> on page 40, DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.3382576
description: {"references": ["------ 1976 \". A new Late Cretaceous family of small theropods (Oviraptoridae n. fam.) in Mongolia. Doklady Akademii Nauk SSSR, 226, 685 - 688. [In Russian].", "STERNBERG, R. M. 1940. A toothless bird from the Cretaceous of Alberta. Journal of Paleontology, 14, 81 - 85.", "------ 1924 \". A new coelurid dinosaur from the Belly River Cretaceous of Alberta. Bulletin of the Canadian Department of Mines, Geological Survey, 38, 1 - 12.", "------ 1976 b. New data on Therizinosaurus (Therizinosauridae, Theropoda). Sovmestnaya Sovyetsko-Mongolskaya Paleontologicheskaya Ekspeditsiya Trudy, 3, 76 - 92. [In Russian].", "CLARK, J. M., NORELL, M. a. and barsbold, R. 2001. wo new oviraptorids (heropoda: Oviraptorosauria), Upper Cretaceous Djadokhta Formation, Ukhaa Tolgod, Mongolia. Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, 21, 209 - 213.", "------ 1986. Raubdinosaurier Oviraptoren. 210 - 223. In vorobyeva, e. i. (ed.). Herpetologische Untersuchungen in der Mongolischen Volksrepublik. Akademia Nauk SSSR, Moscow, 246 pp. [In Russian].", "------ 1981. oothless carnivorous dinosaurs of Mongolia. Sovmestnaya Sovyetsko-Mongolskaya Paleontologicheskaya Ekspeditsiya Trudy, 15, 28 - 39. [In Russian].", "OSMOLSKA, H. 1976. New light on the skull anatomy and systematic position of Oviraptor. Nature, 262, 683 - 684.", "STERNBERG, c. M. 1932. wo new theropod dinosaurs from the Belly River Formation of Alberta. Canadian Field-Naturalist, 46, 99 - 105."]}