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Anomalipes

Say it: an-oh-MAL-ih-peez

Name means: “unusual foot”1

Ate: A bit of everythingOdd feathered dinosLate Cretaceous

Anomalipes was a small, feathered dinosaur that lived in what is now China. It had a very unusual foot, which is how it got its name. Scientists think it ate both plants and meat.5 1

Lived

84 to 72 million years ago5

Late Cretaceous

Fossils found in

Kugou Quarry, Zhucheng, Shandong Province, China5 1

Food

A bit of everything5

Length

up to 1.9 m2

largest known specimen

Weight

up to 24 kg2

largest known specimen

When did it live?

Triassic

Jurassic

Cretaceous

252 million years ago20114566, the asteroid

How big was it?

How long was it?

How heavy was it?

as heavy as 6 house cats

as long as 4 house cats nose to tailas long as 11 bananas end to endas heavy as 5 watermelons

How big was Anomalipes compared to YOU?

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cool stuff

Fun facts

Anomalipes is known only from a partial left hindlimb, including a thigh bone, shin bone, and foot bones.1

Its foot was so unusual that scientists gave it the name Anomalipes, which means 'unusual foot'.1

Anomalipes was smaller than most other caenagnathid dinosaurs but larger than typical oviraptorids.1

It lived about 83 to 72 million years ago, during the Campanian stage of the Late Cretaceous.5

The only known fossil of Anomalipes was found in a bonebed full of the giant duck-billed dinosaur Shantungosaurus.1

Anomalipes had a finger-shaped lesser trochanter on its femur, a feature shared with some other feathered dinosaurs.1

AI-made picture of Anomalipes — An AI-made picture of how Anomalipes might have looked, made by a computer from what scientists know. It is a guess: the real animal may have looked different, and nobody knows its true colours.

you asked

Most asked questions about Anomalipes

?How big was Anomalipes?

It was a small dinosaur. The only known thigh bone was about 30 centimetres (1 foot) long, so the whole animal was probably around the size of a large turkey or a small dog.1 3

?What did Anomalipes eat?

Scientists think it ate both plants and meat, like many oviraptorosaurs. Its beak-like mouth was probably good for cracking seeds or eating small animals.1

?Why is it called Anomalipes?

Its name means 'unusual foot' in Latin, because its foot bones had a very strange shape that is different from other dinosaurs.4 1

?When did Anomalipes live?

It lived about 83 to 72 million years ago, during the Late Cretaceous period. That was around the same time as the giant duck-billed dinosaur Shantungosaurus.4 5

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For dino experts

Scientific name: Anomalipes
Named by: Yu et al. 20185
Group: Odd feathered dinos
Family / clade: Caenagnathidae5
Classification: Theropoda > Oviraptorosauria5
Age of the rocks: 84 to 72 million years (Campanian)5
Rock formations: Hongtuya5
Countries: China5
Fossil records: 1 in the Paleobiology Database5
Discovery: Anomalipes was named in 2018 by Yilun Yu and colleagues based on a partial hindlimb found at the Kugou Quarry in Zhucheng, China. The species name honors Chinese paleontologist Xijin Zhao.5 1
Still debated: Scientists are not sure exactly what Anomalipes looked like because only its leg bones have been found.1

Where the facts come from

A new caenagnathid dinosaur from the Upper Cretaceous Wangshi Group of Shandong, China, with comments on size variation among oviraptorosaurs | Scientific Reports (nature.com)
Anomalipes zhaoi | Dinosaur Database by DinoAnimals.com (dinoanimals.com)
A new caenagnathid dinosaur from the Upper Cretaceous Wangshi Group of Shandong, China, with comments on size variation among oviraptorosaurs (pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov)
Anomalipes (en.wikipedia.org)
Anomalipes in The Paleobiology Database (CC BY 4.0): age, places, rock formations, classification.

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