page_title: Timeline of ceratosaur research
section_title: 1980s
hierarchical_section_title: Timeline of ceratosaur research / 20th century / 1980s
caption_attribution_description: Italiano: fossil Carnotaurus
context_page_description: This timeline of ceratosaur research is a chronological listing of events in the history of paleontology focused on the ceratosaurs, a group of relatively primitive, often horned, predatory theropod dinosaurs that became the apex predators of the southern hemisphere during the Late Cretaceous. The nature and taxonomic composition of the Ceratosauria has been controversial since the group was first distinguished in the late 19th century. In 1884 Othniel Charles Marsh described the new genus and species Ceratosaurus nasicornis from the Late Jurassic Morrison Formation of the western United States. He felt that it belonged in a new family that he called the Ceratosauridae. He created the new taxon Ceratosauria to include both the Ceratosauridae and the ostrich-like ornithomimids. The idea of the Ceratosauria was soon contested, however. Later that same decade both Lydekker and Marsh's hated rival Edward Drinker Cope argued that the taxon was invalid.
  The idea of the Ceratosauria would regain some support more than thirty years later when Gilmore argued in its favor in 1920.
context_section_description: 1980
  José Bonaparte and Jaime Powell described the new genus and species Noasaurus leali. They classified it in a new family, the Noasauridae.
  1985
  Bonaparte and Fernando Emilio Novas described the new genus and species Abelisaurus comahuensis.
  Bonaparte described the new genus and species Carnotaurus sastrei.
  1986
  Robert T. Bakker thought the loose joints in the skull of Ceratosaurus was an adaptation allowing it to swallow prey that would otherwise be too large.
  Ricardo Martínez and others described the new genus and species Xenotarsosaurus bonapartei.
  Gauthier "resurrected the name Ceratosauria" to apply to the sister group of the tetanuran theropods. However, while he listed the members of his Ceratosauria, he did not propose a formal phylogenetic definition.
  1989
  Rowe formally defined the Ceratosauria as theropods more closely related to Ceratosaurus nasicornis than birds, based on Gauthier's 1986 usage of the term.
caption: Skull of Carnotaurus sastrei
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