Maniraptora
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| Maniraptorans Fossil range: Jurassic - Recent |
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 The hands of Deinonychus (left) and Archaeopteryx (right) are typical of maniraptorans.
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Maniraptora ("hand snatchers") is a clade of coelurosaurian dinosaurs that many paleontologists believe birds were derived from some 150 or so million years ago, in the Jurassic period. Hence, according to phylogenetic taxonomy, birds are by definition maniraptorans, and the other maniraptorans are their closest relatives.
