Cerapoda

Encyclopedia : C : CE : CER : Cerapoda

Triceratops skeleton at the National Museum of Natural History

The Cerapoda are a clade of the order Ornithischia. They are the sister group of the Thyreophora within the Genasauria. They are divided either into two or three groups. The first of these groups were Ornithopoda ("bird-foot"). The other two groupd were the Pachycephalosauria ("thick-headed lizards") and Ceratopsia ("horned-face"). These latter two are sometimes combined as Marginocephalia ("fringed heads") owing to their shared features which included the bony shelf they possessed on the back of the skull.

Taxonomy

• CERAPODA
• *Suborder Ornithopoda
• **Family Hypsilophodontidae
• **Iguanodontia
• ***Family Hadrosauridae - (duck-billed dinosaurs)
• *Suborder Marginocephalia
• **Family Heterodontosauridae
• **Superfamily Pachycephalosauria
• **Superfamily Ceratopsia - (horned dinosaurs)

External links

• [Encyclopædia Britannica]
• [Palæos]

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