Dino card No. 0997 of 2,027

Kuru

Say it: KOO-roo KOO-lah

Name means: “named after Kurukullā, a Tibetan Buddhist deity”1

Ate: MeatRaptorsLate Cretaceous

Kuru was a fast, feathered raptor that lived in the Late Cretaceous of Mongolia. It was about the size of a modern wolf and probably hunted small dinosaurs and lizards.3 1

Lived

84 to 72 million years ago3

Late Cretaceous

Fossils found in

Khulsan, Barun Goyot Formation, Ömnögovi Province, Mongolia3 1

Food

Meat3 1

Length

2 to 3 m1

estimated based on related raptors

Weight

20 kg to 30 kg1

Height

0.8 to 1 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 8 house cats

as long as 3 dogs nose to tailas long as 17 bananas end to endas heavy as 6 watermelonsup to the handle of a door

How big was Kuru compared to YOU?

Just maths in your browser. Nothing is saved or sent anywhere.

cool stuff

Fun facts

Kuru's fossils were discovered on July 5, 1991, just hours before another raptor called Shri devi was found nearby.1

Kuru had a sharp hornlet on its skull, above the eye, which might have been used for display or fighting.2

This raptor had a deep jaw bone with two holes (foramina) for blood vessels and nerves.2

Kuru lived alongside another raptor called Shri devi, and scientists think they might have eaten similar food.1

The name 'Kuru' was once mistakenly called 'Airakoraptor' in a scientific paper, but that name was never official.1

AI-made picture of Kuru — An AI-made picture of how Kuru 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.

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Myth buster

Myth: Some people think Kuru was a cannibal because its name sounds like 'kuru' disease.

Truth: The name actually comes from a Buddhist goddess, not the disease.2

For dino experts

Scientific name: Kuru
Named by: Napoli et al. 20213
Group: Raptors
Family / clade: Dromaeosauridae3
Classification: Theropoda > Dromaeosauridae3
Age of the rocks: 84 to 72 million years (Campanian)3
Rock formations: Baruungoyot3
Countries: Mongolia3
Fossil records: 1 in the Paleobiology Database3
Discovery: Kuru was named in 2021 by James Napoli and colleagues, based on a skeleton found in 1991 by an American-Mongolian team in the Gobi Desert.1 3
Still debated: Scientists are not sure exactly what Kuru ate, because its skull is too incomplete to compare with other raptors.1

Where the facts come from

Kuru kulla (en.wikipedia.org)
digitallibrary.amnh.org (digitallibrary.amnh.org)
Kuru 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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