First appearing in the Late Jurassic, these small, featherless runners have a fragmentary and poorly-known early history. After the low-slung, Late Jurassic †Elaphrosaurus of Africa (and possibly North America as well), noasaurids are only known from the Southern Hemisphere, with Cretaceous forms including †Noasaurus and †Ligabueino from Argentina. These predators are best known for their slashing, sickle claws, which were thought to have evolved independently from the deinonychosaurs, but presumably used for the same purpose. However, it has been found that noasaurids actually carried these claws on their hands. †Velocisaurus, another noasaurid from the same time and place as Noasaurus, also represents the earliest record of the characteristic noasaurid feet, in which the first toe is los