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Limusaurus

Say it: lye-moo-SORE-us

Ate: PlantsMeat-eating dinosLate Jurassic

Limusaurus was a small, beaked dinosaur that lived in what is now China about 155 million years ago. Unlike most meat-eating dinosaurs, it ate plants! Its strange hand helped scientists solve a puzzle about how bird wings evolved.1

Lived

162 to 155 million years ago7

Late Jurassic

Fossils found in

Xinjiang, China, in the Shishugou Formation2 1

Food

Plants1

Length

1.7 to 1.955 m3 4

holotype 1.7 m; adult 15% larger gives 1.955 m

Weight

15 kg3

estimate for holotype; adult weight not given

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 4 house cats

as long as 4 house cats nose to tailas long as 11 bananas end to endas heavy as 120 bananas

How big was Limusaurus compared to YOU?

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

cool stuff

Fun facts

Limusaurus was a ceratosaur, the first one ever found in Asia.1

It had a very small thumb, or first digit, while the other two fingers were normal. This is a rare condition in dinosaurs.1

Its hand showed a mix of features: the wrist bones were like the second, third and fourth digits, but the finger bones were like the first, second and third.1

Limusaurus lived during the Oxfordian stage, about 161 to 155 million years ago.2

It is the only Jurassic theropod known to have a beak and a plant-based diet.1

The discovery of Limusaurus helped scientists understand how the three-fingered hand of theropods could turn into the two-fingered hand of birds.1

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

?What did Limusaurus eat?

It ate plants. Adults had a beak and no teeth, and they also had gastroliths (stomach stones) to help grind up plant food. Juveniles had teeth, so they may have eaten a mix of plants and small animals.5

?How big was Limusaurus?

About 1.7 metres long and weighed around 15 kilograms. That is about as long as a small car is tall, but much lighter.5

?Did Limusaurus have feathers?

Nobody knows for sure. It may have had feathers, but no direct evidence of feathers has been found on its fossils.5

?Why is Limusaurus important?

Its strange hand helped scientists solve a puzzle about how bird wings evolved. It showed a mix of wrist and finger features that explain how the three-fingered hand of theropods turned into the bird wing.1 6

?Is Limusaurus a dinosaur?

Yes, it is a dinosaur. It is a theropod dinosaur, which is the same group that includes birds.5

?When did Limusaurus live?

It lived during the Late Jurassic period, about 161 to 155 million years ago.5

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Myth buster

Myth: Because it is a theropod, Limusaurus must have been a meat-eater.

Truth: Limusaurus was actually a plant-eater, with a beak and no sharp teeth for hunting. It is one of the few herbivorous theropods known.1

For dino experts

Scientific name: Limusaurus
Named by: Xu et al. 20097
Group: Meat-eating dinos
Family / clade: Noasauridae7
Classification: Theropoda > Ceratosauria7
Age of the rocks: 162 to 155 million years (Oxfordian)7
Rock formations: Shishugou7
Countries: China7
Fossil records: 3 in the Paleobiology Database7
Discovery: Limusaurus was named and described in 2009 by a team led by paleontologist Xing Xu. Fossils were found in the Junggar Basin of western China.1 2
Still debated: Scientists still debate exactly which digits of the hand were lost during theropod evolution, and Limusaurus shows a confusing mix of features that makes this question tricky.1

Where the facts come from

A Jurassic ceratosaur from China helps clarify avian digital homologies | Nature (nature.com)
PBDB Taxon (paleobiodb.org)
Limusaurus (en.wikipedia.org)
A Jurassic ceratosaurian theropod with implications for homologies in the avian hand (ivpp.cas.cn)
Limusaurus (Wikipedia) (Wikipedia)
Beaked, Bird-like Dinosaur Tells Story of Finger Evolution | NSF - National Science Foundation (nsf.gov)
Limusaurus 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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