Qiupanykus

Name means: “claw from the Qiupa Formation”1

Ate: MeatMeat-eating dinosLate Cretaceous

Qiupanykus was a tiny, speedy dinosaur that lived at the very end of the age of dinosaurs. It had strong claws on its short arms and may have used them to crack open eggs for a snack. This little hunter was one of the last non-bird dinosaurs to walk the Earth.1

Lived

72 to 66 million years ago4

Late Cretaceous

Fossils found in

Henan Province, China1 3

Food

Meat1 2

Weight

0.27 kg to 0.91 kg1

When did it live?

Triassic

Jurassic

Cretaceous

252 million years ago20114566, the asteroid

How big was it?

How heavy was it?

as heavy as 8 bananas

lighter than a house catas heavy as 8 bananas

How big was Qiupanykus compared to YOU?

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cool stuff

Fun facts

Qiupanykus was very small, weighing less than a kilogram (about 2 pounds). Its leg bones were only about 25 cm (10 inches) long.1

Its fossils were found right next to broken eggshells from an oviraptorosaur. Scientists think Qiupanykus used its strong claws to crack those eggs open.1 2

Qiupanykus lived about 72 to 66 million years ago, during the Maastrichtian stage of the Late Cretaceous. That means it was alive right before the big dinosaur extinction.1 3

Like other alvarezsaurids, Qiupanykus had a special foot called an arctometatarsus, which helped it run fast.1

No skull bones of Qiupanykus have been found yet, so scientists are not sure what its head looked like.1

The name Qiupanykus means 'claw from the Qiupa Formation', because its fossils were found in the Qiupa Formation in China.1

AI-made picture of Qiupanykus — An AI-made picture of how Qiupanykus 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 all small dinosaurs were plant-eaters.

Truth: Qiupanykus was a small dinosaur, but it was a meat-eater. It may have eaten eggs and small animals.1

For dino experts

Scientific name: Qiupanykus
Named by: Lü et al. 20184
Group: Meat-eating dinos
Family / clade: Alvarezsauroidea4
Classification: Theropoda4
Age of the rocks: 72 to 66 million years (Maastrichtian)4
Rock formations: Qiupa4
Countries: China4
Fossil records: 1 in the Paleobiology Database4
Discovery: Qiupanykus was named in 2018 by Lü Junchang and his team. The fossils were found near the village of Guanping in Luanchuan County, Henan Province, China. The species name zhangi honors Shuancheng Zhang, who helped find the fossils.1
Still debated: Scientists are not sure whether Qiupanykus mostly ate eggs or also hunted small animals. They also debate if the eggshells found with it belonged to another dinosaur or to Qiupanykus itself.1

Where the facts come from

Qiupanykus (en.wikipedia.org)
A new alvarezsaurid dinosaur from the Late Cretaceous Qiupa Formation of Luanchuan, Henan Province, central China (exa.ai)
PBDB Taxon (paleobiodb.org)
Qiupanykus 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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