Ornithischia
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| Ornithischians Fossil range: Upper Triassic–Upper Cretaceous, 228–65 mya |
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| Ornithischian pelvic structure (left side) | |||||||||||
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Edmontosaurus pelvis (showing ornithischian structure – left side) Oxford University Museum of Natural History
Ornithischia is an order of beaked, herbivorous dinosaurs. The name ornithischia is derived from the Greek ornithos meaning 'of a bird' and ischion meaning 'hip joint'. They are known as the 'bird-hipped' dinosaurs because of their bird-like hip structure, even though birds actually descended from the 'lizard-hipped' dinosaurs, the Saurischia.
The ornithischia has two sub-orders:
- Thyreophora: the armoured dinosaurs: Ankylosaurs and Stegosaurs.
- Cerapoda: the duck-billed and horned dinosaurs.