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Shuvuuia

Say it: shu-VOO-ee-ah
Name means: “bird”1
Ate: MeatOdd feathered dinosLate Cretaceous

Shuvuuia was a tiny dinosaur that lived in the desert. It had a very flexible jaw that could open super wide. Scientists think it might have eaten termites and other small bugs.1

Lived
84 to 72 million years ago5
Late Cretaceous
Fossils found in
Mongolia15
Length
0.6 m (2 ft)1
Weight
2.5 kg to 3.5 kg (6 to 8 lb)34
Height
0.3 m (1 ft)3
at the hips
Top speed
about 30 km/h (19 mph)
Running, estimate
What did Shuvuuia eat?
Shuvuuia probably ate insects and small animals. It may have used its strong arms to dig into insect nests and its flexible jaw to catch prey like termites or small mammals.

When did it live?

Triassic
Jurassic
Cretaceous
252 million years ago20114566, the asteroid

How big was it?

How long was it?

Shuvuuia about 0.6 m long (2 ft)A house cat about 0.5 m (1.6 ft)A dog about 1 m (3.3 ft)A bicycle about 1.8 m (5.9 ft)

How tall was it?

Shuvuuiaabout 0.3 m tall (1 ft)A house catabout 0.3 m (1 ft)A dogabout 0.5 m (1.6 ft)A horseabout 1.6 m (5.2 ft)

at the hips

How heavy was it?

as heavy as 29 bananas
as long as 3 bananas end to endabout as heavy as a house catas heavy as 29 bananassmall enough to walk under a chaircould run 100 metres in 12 seconds (the fastest human needs 9.6)

How big was Shuvuuia compared to YOU?

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

How fast was it?

cool stuff

Fun facts

1

Shuvuuia is known from two beautifully preserved skulls, which are the first skulls ever found for its group, the Alvarezsauridae.2

2

Its lower jaw was not locked to the skull, so its mouth could open very wide to catch larger prey.1

3

Shuvuuia lived in the Late Cretaceous period, about 75 to 81 million years ago, in what is now the Gobi Desert of Mongolia.1

4

Scientists think Shuvuuia may have eaten termites, because its skull and jaw look like those of modern animals that eat insects.1

5

The name Shuvuuia means 'bird' in Mongolian, because its skull shows features that link it to birds.1

AI-madeAI-made picture of Shuvuuia
An AI-made picture of how Shuvuuia 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 Shuvuuia

?How big was Shuvuuia?

Shuvuuia was very small, about 1 metre (3.3 feet) long and weighed around 3.5 kilograms (7.7 pounds). It is one of the smallest known non-avian dinosaurs.4

?Did Shuvuuia have feathers?

Yes, scientists think Shuvuuia had a coat of feathers. Fossils show tiny tube-like structures that contain the same proteins found in modern bird feathers.4

?What did Shuvuuia eat?

Shuvuuia probably ate insects and small animals. It may have used its strong arms to dig into insect nests and its flexible jaw to catch prey like termites or small mammals.41

?Could Shuvuuia see in the dark?

Some scientists think Shuvuuia had excellent night vision and hearing, like an owl, and could hunt in complete darkness. However, a 2025 study disagreed and said its hearing was more like a chicken's.4

?Where did Shuvuuia live?

Shuvuuia lived in the Late Cretaceous period, about 75 to 81 million years ago, in what is now the Gobi Desert in Mongolia. It shared its home with dinosaurs like Velociraptor and Protoceratops.41

?Why is Shuvuuia called a bird?

Shuvuuia means 'bird' in Mongolian because its skull has features that link it to birds. It is a bird like dinosaur, not a modern bird.41

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For dino experts

Scientific name
Shuvuuia
Named by
Chiappe et al. 19985
Group
Odd feathered dinos
Family / clade
Alvarezsauridae5
Classification
Theropoda > Alvarezsauridae5
Age of the rocks
84 to 72 million years (Campanian)5
Rock formations
Djadokhta5
Countries
Mongolia5
Fossil records
3 in the Paleobiology Database5
Discovery
Shuvuuia was named by Luis Chiappe, Mark Norell, and James Clark in 1998. The first fossils were found at Ukhaa Tolgod in Mongolia.25
Still debated
Scientists are still debating whether Shuvuuia was more closely related to birds or to other dinosaurs like therizinosaurs and oviraptorosaurs.2

Where the facts come from

  1. Shuvuuia | Natural History Museum (nhm.ac.uk)
  2. The skull of a relative of the stem-group bird Mononykus | Nature (nature.com)
  3. Shuvuuia Fact Sheet - Enchanted Learning (enchantedlearning.com)
  4. Shuvuuia (en.wikipedia.org)
  5. Shuvuuia 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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More from the same group: Odd feathered dinos

TherizinosaurusOdd feathered dinosOviraptorOdd feathered dinosChirostenotesOdd feathered dinosCitipesOdd feathered dinosLeptorhynchosOdd feathered dinosAvimimusOdd feathered dinos

Also from the same time: Late Cretaceous

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