Who was Eoraptor?
Eoraptor is only slightly younger than Herrerasaurus, yet it already shows specialized features indicating that it lies several branches up from the base of the dinosaurian family tree. It is one of the most primitive members of the great lineage Theropoda – the theropod dinosaurs – which includes such celebrities as Tyrannosaurus rex, Allosaurus, Deinonychus, and Velociraptor. Some of these became huge, although most remained small, like Eoraptor and Herrerasaurus. And it is among these small theropod dinosaurs that we can now trace the ancestry of living birds. See a full description of the Eoraptor scan project.
