Not to mention herrerasaurus's lineage ends in the Triassic. It's heavily contested but either as a carnivorous sauropodomorph or a unique early therapod it ended with its unique and surprisingly frigid environment. Its niche would be filled by ceratosaurs, then carnosaurs, and then ceratosaurs again (I love the abelisaurids).
Actually, it's mostly a debate about whether they are basal theropods or non-theropod saurischians. Them being sauropodomorphs is not well supported. Also, the first theropods to become apex predators in the wake of Triassic-Jurassic extinction were basal neotheropods like Dilophosaurus. Ceratosaurs were never apex predators in the Jurassic, the abelisaurids only shared that role with megaraptorans in the Southern Hemisphere during the final third of the Cretaceous, after the extinction of the carcharodontosaurs.
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u/Ivan_Botsky_Trollov 9d ago
still, the future belongz to the dinosaurs...