Paraves is a stem–based clade containing birds (clade Aves) and other closely related dinosaurs. The paravians include the Avialae, such as Archaeopteryx, and the Deinonychosauria, which includes the dromaeosaurids and troodontids.

The name Paraves was initially coined by Paul Sereno in 1997. The clade was defined by Sereno in 1998 as a stem–based clade containing all Maniraptora closer to Neornithes (which includes all the birds living in the world today) than to Oviraptor.

The ancestral Paravian is a hypothetical animal; the last common ancestor of birds, dromaeosaurids, and troodontids. Little can be said with certainty about this animal. The work of Xu et al. (2003) suggested that this paravian possibly was arboreal and could glide. The work of Turner et al. (2007) suggested that the ancestral paravian could not glide or fly, and that it was most likely small (around 65 centimeters long and 600-700 grams in mass)..

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