Maniraptora

Maniraptora is a clade of coelurosaurian theropod dinosaurs that includes birds along with the non-avian dinosaurs more closely related to birds than to the ornithomimosaurs. Its major subgroups are the dromaeosaurids, troodontids, oviraptorosaurs, therizinosaurs, and avialans (the bird lineage), with alvarezsauroids and Ornitholestes often included as well; together with its sister group Ornithomimosauria it forms the larger clade Maniraptoriformes. Maniraptorans first appear in the fossil record during the Jurassic and survive today as living birds. They are distinguished by long arms and three-fingered grasping hands, a half-moon-shaped wrist bone that allowed the hand to fold, and, in many lineages, a backward-pointing pubis unlike the forward-pointing hip of most other saurischians. Some form of feathers or downy covering appears to have been present across the group, and Maniraptora is the only dinosaur clade known to include flying members. Once assumed to be strictly meat-eaters, maniraptorans are now thought to have been ancestrally omnivorous, giving rise to several plant-eating groups while only the dromaeosaurids reverted to pure carnivory.