Allosauroidea . is a superfamily of carnosaur theropod dinosaurs , which lived from the Upper Jurassic Period to the Upper Cretaceous Period , approximately 156 and 90 million years ago, from the Oxfordian to the Maastrichtian , in what is now Europe , America , Asia , Africa and Australia .
Description
Allosauroids had elongated and narrow skulls , large eye sockets , hands with three fingers and, usually, small horns or ridges on the head weighing between 2 and 3 tons. A size between 8 and 11 meters in length, although the largest such as the Carcharodontosaurus or the Giganotosaurus could have reached 14 meters.
History
The taxon was originally proposed by Currie and Zhao (1993; p. 2079) and discussed by Sereno (1997). Later, Sereno (1998; p. 64) defined Allosauroidea as “all neotetanurns closer to allosaurs than to true birds.
