Abstract
Maniraptora is a clade of coelurosaurian dinosaurs that includes birds and has been diversefrom the middle of the Mesozoic to today. The last half century has witnessed an explosive
discovery of important and astonishingly preserved fossils, and further, the ‘birds are
maniraptoran dinosaurs’ hypothesis is also widely accepted. In addition to the evolution of birds,
other lineages also reveal important evolutionary innovations, but relative to birds these have
lacked quantitative investigation. In this the sis, I explore the functional and morphological
evolution of some long neglected evolutionary clades or biological structures of maniraptorans.
First, I study one of the two significant miniaturization events in maniraptorans, parallel with
avian lineages, by applying up to date bone histological methods and macroevolutionary
approaches. In the last two chapters, I focus on the manual claws, at the most distal end of the
forelimbs and with many functional related characters. The extraordinary claws of myste rious
function in two early branching maniraptoran clades were widely investigated and were
revealed to have had surprisingly divergent functions. Finally, I apply the latest morpho
functional methodology to a wider taxonomic range of the coelurosaurian ma nual claws and
draw a wide landscape of manual claw functional evolution, exhibiting the high diversity of
forelimb functions. My results reveal that high diversity in size, function and ecology is not
exclusive to bird lineage maniraptorans but spread acr oss early to late branches. In the
Mesozoic, maniraptorans were even more successful and evolved disparate body sizes, diverse
behaviours, various diets, and occupied a wide variety of ecological niches. In conclusion, this
thesis has introduced multifaceted approaches to explore maniraptoran evolution and shed new
light on some long standing evolutionary puzzles. This thesis also provides pioneering
methodological pipelines and important data for subsequent exploration of the spectacular
evolution from non avian dinosaurs to birds.
| Date of Award | 3 Oct 2023 |
|---|---|
| Original language | English |
| Awarding Institution |
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| Supervisor | Michael J Benton (Supervisor) & Emily J Rayfield (Supervisor) |