Dino card No. 0893 of 2,027

Itemirus

Name means: “Itemir lizard”1

Ate: MeatRaptorsLate Cretaceous

Itemirus was a small, fast, meat-eating dinosaur that lived in what is now Uzbekistan. It was a type of raptor, related to famous dinosaurs like Velociraptor. Scientists know it from just one piece of its skull, found near a village called Itemir.1 3

Lived

94 to 90 million years ago3

Late Cretaceous

Fossils found in

Uzbekistan (Navoi region)1 2

Food

Meat3

When did it live?

Triassic

Jurassic

Cretaceous

252 million years ago20114566, the asteroid

cool stuff

Fun facts

Itemirus is known from just one small, damaged braincase (the part of the skull that holds the brain).1

The fossil was found in 1958 near the village of Itemir in Uzbekistan.1

Itemirus lived during the Turonian stage of the Late Cretaceous, about 91 million years ago.1

Scientists have disagreed about which group Itemirus belongs to. It has been placed in the tyrannosaur family, the velociraptor subfamily, and the dromaeosaur subfamily.1

The name Itemirus comes from the village Itemir, where the fossil was found.1

The species name medullaris refers to the medulla oblongata, a part of the brain that the fossil braincase protected.1

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

?How big was Itemirus?

Nobody knows for sure because only a small piece of its skull has been found. It was probably a small dinosaur, like other raptors.1

?What did Itemirus eat?

It was a meat-eating dinosaur. As a raptor, it likely hunted small animals.1

?Is Itemirus a dinosaur?

Yes, it is a dinosaur. It is a type of dromaeosaurid theropod dinosaur.1

?When did Itemirus live?

It lived about 91 million years ago, during the Turonian stage of the Late Cretaceous.1

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For dino experts

Scientific name: Itemirus
Named by: Kurzanov 19763
Group: Raptors
Family / clade: Dromaeosauridae3
Classification: Theropoda > Dromaeosauridae3
Age of the rocks: 94 to 90 million years (Turonian)3
Rock formations: Bissekty3
Countries: Uzbekistan3
Fossil records: 5 in the Paleobiology Database3
Discovery: Itemirus was named by Soviet paleontologist Sergei Kurzanov in 1976. He described the single braincase fossil, which had been found in 1958 near the village of Itemir in Uzbekistan.1 3
Still debated: Scientists still debate which group of dinosaurs Itemirus belongs to. It has been classified as a tyrannosaur, a velociraptor, and a dromaeosaur at different times.1

Where the facts come from

Itemirus (en.wikipedia.org)
PBDB Taxon (paleobiodb.org)
Itemirus 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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