carnosaur

Any of the large carnivorous dinosaurs, a branch of theropod dinosaurs that evolved into predators of large herbivorous dinosaurs.

Carnosaurs were massive animals with short necks, large skulls, and wide, gaping mouths equipped with formidable teeth. They walked on two legs. Tyrannosaurs were the largest of all carnosaurs. The carnosaurs became extinct at the end of the Cretaceous period (65 million years ago).

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▪ dinosaur group

      any of the dinosaurs (dinosaur) belonging to the taxonomic group Carnosauria, a subgroup of the bipedal, flesh-eating theropod dinosaurs that evolved into predators of large herbivorous dinosaurs.

      Most were large predators with high skulls and dagger-shaped teeth that were recurved and compressed laterally with serrated keels on their front and back edges for slicing through flesh. Carnosaurs include Allosaurus and relatives that are more closely related to allosaurs than to birds. Carnosaurs are thus contrasted with coelurosaurs, which include birds and all other theropod dinosaurs more closely related to birds than to allosaurs. (The tyrannosaurs (tyrannosaur) are considered to be members of Coelurosauria, not Carnosauria, despite their large size.) The carnosaurs lived during the late Jurassic Period and survived into the Cretaceous Period.

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