Theropod dinosaurs

Behaviours

Discover what these behaviours are and how different plants and animals use them.

Egg layer
Oviparous animals lay eggs, inside which the young then develop before hatching occurs. Birds, reptiles, amphibians, fish, invertebrates and even some mammals (the monotremes) all lay eggs but they're of very different size and construction.

What killed them

Cretaceous-Tertiary mass extinction
The Cretaceous-Tertiary mass extinction - also known as the K/T extinction - is famed for the death of the dinosaurs. However, many other organisms perished at the end of the Cretaceous including the ammonites, many flowering plants and the last of the pterosaurs.

Fossil types

Learn more about the other animals and plants that also form these fossils.

Trace fossils
It's not only the actual bodily remains of dead animals and plants that can become fossils. Things created or left behind by animals can also fossilise, such as their footprints, burrows and dung.

About

Theropoda (theropod /ˈθɛrəpɒd/; suborder name Theropoda /θɨˈrɒpɵdə/, from Greek meaning "beast feet") is both a suborder of bipedal saurischian dinosaurs, and a clade consisting of that suborder and its descendants (including modern birds). Dinosaurs belonging to the suborder Theropoda were primarily carnivorous, although a number of theropod groups evolved herbivory, omnivory, and insectivory. Theropods first appeared during the Carnian age of the late Triassic period about 230 million years ago (Ma) and included the sole large terrestrial carnivores from the Early Jurassic until at least the close of the Cretaceous, about 65 Ma. In the Jurassic, birds evolved from small specialized coelurosaurian theropods, and are today represented by 9,900 living species.

Among the features linking theropod dinosaurs to birds are a furcula (wishbone), air-filled bones, brooding of the eggs, and (in some cases) feathers.

Read more at Wikipedia