🦖Theropods

Two-legged hunters

Saurischia › Theropoda

Theropods were dinosaurs that walked on two legs. Many were meat-eaters with sharp teeth and claws, like Tyrannosaurus rex. Birds are theropods too, so you can still see one outside your window!

Theropods are saurischian dinosaurs defined by features such as hollow, thin-walled bones, a furcula (wishbone) and a foot built around three weight-bearing toes. They appear in the Late Triassic, roughly 230 million years ago, and never went extinct: birds are a surviving branch of coelurosaurian theropods. Although the group is famous for predators such as Allosaurus, Spinosaurus and Tyrannosaurus, it also includes omnivores and even plant-eaters, like the long-clawed therizinosaurs. Feathers are now known from many small and mid-sized theropods, showing that many bird traits evolved long before flight.