Dino card No. 1160 of 2,027

Mei

Say it: MAY-eye

Name means: “sleeping one”1

Ate: MeatRaptorsEarly Cretaceous

Mei was a small, feathered dinosaur that lived in what is now China. It is famous for being found in a sleeping pose, just like a bird tucking its head under its wing.1

Lived

126 to 120 million years ago3

Early Cretaceous

Fossils found in

Liaoning Province, China1 3

Food

Meat2

Length

0.5 m1

estimated from the holotype skeleton

When did it live?

Triassic

Jurassic

Cretaceous

252 million years ago20114566, the asteroid

How big was it?

How long was it?

as long as 3 bananas end to end

How big was Mei compared to YOU?

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

cool stuff

Fun facts

Mei is one of the smallest known troodontid dinosaurs, about the size of a modern pigeon.1

The name Mei means 'sleeping one' in Chinese, because the fossil was found curled up with its head tucked under its arm, just like a sleeping bird.1

Mei lived during the Early Cretaceous period, about 125 to 120 million years ago.2

This dinosaur had feathers and was a close relative of birds.1

The sleeping posture of Mei shows that this behavior, common in modern birds, evolved before birds themselves appeared.1

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

Ask Rex about Mei

Rex only answers questions about this page. 3 questions a day.

Rex is an AI and can make mistakes. He runs on servers in the EU and questions are never saved. Never type your name or other personal things.

For dino experts

Scientific name: Mei
Named by: Xu and Norell 20043
Group: Raptors
Family / clade: Troodontidae3
Classification: Theropoda > Troodontidae3
Age of the rocks: 126 to 120 million years (Barremian / Aptian)3
Rock formations: Yixian3
Countries: China3
Fossil records: 2 in the Paleobiology Database3
Discovery: Mei was named in 2004 by paleontologists Xu Xing and Mark Norell. The only known fossil was found in the Yixian Formation in Liaoning, China.1 3
Still debated: Scientists are not sure if Mei was a ground dweller or if it could climb trees.2

Where the facts come from

A new troodontid dinosaur from China with avian-like sleeping posture | Nature (nature.com)
PBDB Taxon (paleobiodb.org)
Mei 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.

Rex is hungry! Dino Wiki is a dad's project for his dino-loving son, free with no ads. Grown-ups can feed Rex a snack to help keep it online.Feed Rex