Message #164814

[Melody Stacker]

Effect of food sources

The ancestral dinosaur was a carnivore. Herbivory among dinosaurs arose three times, at the origin of the ornithischian, sauropodomorph, and therizinosaurid clades. Individual therizinosaurids are herbivorous or omnivorous. Herbivory among the ornithischians and sauropodomorphs was never reversed.[3]

The potential co-evolution of plants and herbivorous dinosaurs has been subject to extensive speculation. The appearance of prosauropods in the late Triassic has been tentatively linked either to the demise or diversification of types of flora at that time. The rise of ceratopsids and iguanodont and hadrosaurid ornithopods in the Cretaceous has been tentatively linked to the angiosperm radiation. Unfortunately, there are still no hard data on dietary preferences of herbivorous dinosaurs, apart from data on chewing technique and gastroliths.