Journal
SCIENCE
Volume 327, Issue 5965, Pages 571-574Publisher
AMER ASSOC ADVANCEMENT SCIENCE
DOI: 10.1126/science.1182143
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Funding
- National Science Foundation Division of Earth Sciences and Office of International Science and Engineering of the USA
- National Natural Sciences Foundation of China
- Chinese Academy of Sciences
- GWU
- Jurassic Foundation
- Hilmar Sallee bequest
- George Washington University
- Division Of Earth Sciences
- Directorate For Geosciences [0922187] Funding Source: National Science Foundation
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The fossil record of Jurassic theropod dinosaurs closely related to birds remains poor. A new theropod from the earliest Late Jurassic of western China represents the earliest diverging member of the enigmatic theropod group Alvarezsauroidea and confirms that this group is a basal member of Maniraptora, the clade containing birds and their closest theropod relatives. It extends the fossil record of Alvarezsauroidea by 63 million years and provides evidence for maniraptorans earlier in the fossil record than Archaeopteryx. The new taxon confirms extreme morphological convergence between birds and derived alvarezsauroids and illuminates incipient stages of the highly modified alvarezsaurid forelimb.
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