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Abelisauroidea was coined by Bonaparte (1991) and first defined as a stem-based taxon by Holtz (1994), who incorrectly cited Bonaparte (1991) for the definition. Rowe et al. (1997), Padian et al. (1999) and Tykoski and Rowe (2004) followed Holtz but used species as specifiers. Wilson et al. (2003) and Sereno et al. (2004), on the other hand, presented a node-based definition to better fit the taxon concept of Bonaparte (1991), who divided Abelisauroidea into two families, Noasauridae and Abelisauridae. A node-stem triplet anchored on Abelisauroidea faithfully preserves this dichotomy, which has been supported recently by more complete noasaurid material. By using the more inclusive stem-based definition alluded to above, Abelisauroidea subsumed Abelisauria which, in turn, included Abelisauridae (Tykoski and Rowe 2004:fig. 3.12)—an awkward taxonomy for the Linnean family-group. The active definition is that coined by Wilson et al. (2003).
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