non-avian dinosaur

noun

variants or nonavian dinosaur

plural non-avian dinosaurs or nonavian dinosaurs

: any dinosaur that is not a bird

These new data show that certain non-avian dinosaurs and early birds shed their skin in ways very similar to that of modern birds and mammals.

—Hanneke Meijer

Following a mass extinction at the end of the Cretaceous period some 65 million years ago, an event that drove non-avian dinosaurs extinct, the size and diversity of mammals exploded over a 15-million-year period, researchers say.

—Pete Spotts

Whereas the last of the nonavian dinosaurs certainly perished 64.5 million years ago, many other animals survived …

—James Gurney

compare avian dinosaur

Word History

First Known Use

1988, in the meaning defined above