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Daurlong

Say it: DAWR-long WANG-ee

Name means: “Daur dragon, named after the Daur Nation and the Chinese word for dragon, plus wangi honoring Mr. Wang Junyou”1

Ate: MeatRaptorsEarly Cretaceous

Daurlong was a bird-like dinosaur that hunted fish, mammals and other dinosaurs. It lived about 120 million years ago in what is now Inner Mongolia, China. Scientists found a fossil with a blue stain in its belly, which is one of the few preserved intestines ever found in a non-bird dinosaur.1 2

Lived

121 to 120 million years ago4

Early Cretaceous

Fossils found in

Pigeon Hill, Morin Dawa Daur Autonomous Banner, Inner Mongolia, China1 4

Food

Meat1 4

Length

1.5 to 2 m1

estimated from a mid-sized dromaeosaurid

Weight

15 kg to 25 kg1

Height

0.5 to 0.7 m1

at the hips

When did it live?

Triassic

Jurassic

Cretaceous

252 million years ago20114566, the asteroid

How big was it?

How long was it?

How tall was it?

at the hips

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 Daurlong compared to YOU?

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cool stuff

Fun facts

Daurlong had a large blue stain in its abdomen from preserved intestines, one of only a few such finds in non-avian dinosaurs.1 2

It was a mid-sized dromaeosaurid, bigger than microraptors but smaller than some other raptors.1

Daurlong had short arms compared to many other dromaeosaurids, similar to Tianyuraptor and Zhenyuanlong.1 2

Its fossil was found in the Jehol Biota, a famous fossil site in China that preserved many feathered dinosaurs.1 2

Daurlong lived during the Aptian age of the Early Cretaceous, about 121 to 120 million years ago.4

The species name wangi honors Mr. Wang Junyou, director of the Inner Mongolia Museum of Natural History.1

Daurlong had longer and more robust teeth in its upper jaw than its relative Tianyuraptor.1

AI-made picture of Daurlong — An AI-made picture of how Daurlong 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 Daurlong

?How big was Daurlong?

Daurlong was a mid-sized dromaeosaurid, about 1.5 metres (4.9 feet) long.3

?What did Daurlong eat?

Daurlong was a predator that hunted fish, mammals and other dinosaurs.2

?Did Daurlong have feathers?

Yes, the fossil preserves plumage along the back of the skull and neck, and the edges of the tail.3

?Why does Daurlong have a blue stain?

The blue stain is one of the few preserved intestines ever found in a dinosaur, matching the intestinal tract seen in another dinosaur called Scipionyx.3 1

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For dino experts

Scientific name: Daurlong
Named by: Wang et al. 20224
Group: Raptors
Family / clade: Dromaeosauridae4
Classification: Theropoda > Dromaeosauridae4
Age of the rocks: 121 to 120 million years (Aptian)4
Rock formations: Longjiang4
Countries: China4
Fossil records: 1 in the Paleobiology Database4
Discovery: Daurlong was named in 2022 by Wang and colleagues based on a nearly complete skeleton found at Pigeon Hill in Inner Mongolia, China. The fossil includes preserved intestines, which is very rare.1 4
Still debated: Scientists are not sure if Daurlong was more closely related to microraptorines or to eudromaeosaurs, because it has a mix of features from both groups.1 2

Where the facts come from

Intestinal preservation in a birdlike dinosaur supports conservatism in digestive canal evolution among theropods | Scientific Reports (nature.com)
Intestinal preservation in a birdlike dinosaur supports conservatism in digestive canal evolution among theropods (pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov)
Daurlong (en.wikipedia.org)
Daurlong in The Paleobiology Database (CC BY 4.0): age, places, rock formations, classification.

Every fact on this page has a number that points to its source. If we got something wrong, sorry, we are dino fans, not a science journal. Tell us at [email protected] and we will fix it.

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