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as long as 2 house cats nose to tail🍌as long as 6 bananas end to end🪶lighter than a house cat🍌as heavy as 8 bananas🪑small enough to walk under a chair🏃could run 100 metres in 19 seconds (the fastest human needs 9.6)How big was Sinosauropteryx compared to YOU?
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Fun facts
Sinosauropteryx was the first feathered dinosaur discovered that was not directly related to birds.1
Scientists used Sinosauropteryx to figure out a dinosaur's color pattern for the first time ever.1
A fossil of Sinosauropteryx has a tiny lizard preserved in its stomach, showing what it ate for its last meal.1
Sinosauropteryx had over 50 very long tail bones, which made up about 60% of its body length.2
Its feathers were short and simple, like down feathers, not like the flight feathers of modern birds.2
Sinosauropteryx could not fly, but it could run fast on two legs, like an ostrich.2
One of the small mammals Sinosauropteryx ate, called Zhangheotherium, may have been venomous, with spurs on its ankles like a platypus.1
Most asked questions about Sinosauropteryx
?How big was Sinosauropteryx?
About 1.07 metres (3.5 feet) long and weighed around 0.55 kilograms (1.2 pounds). That is about as long as a skateboard but much lighter.31
?Did Sinosauropteryx have feathers?
Yes, it had a coat of thin, hair-like feathers. It was the first non-avian dinosaur discovered with evidence of feathers.13
?What did Sinosauropteryx eat?
It ate small animals like lizards, mammals, and insects. One fossil even has a tiny lizard preserved in its stomach.13
?When did Sinosauropteryx live?
It lived during the Early Cretaceous period, about 125 to 122 million years ago.13
?Where was Sinosauropteryx found?
Its fossils were found in Liaoning Province in northeastern China.13
?What color was Sinosauropteryx?
Scientists think it was reddish-brown with a light belly and dark and light bands on its tail, like a camouflage pattern.13
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For dino experts
- Scientific name
- Sinosauropteryx
- Named by
- Ji and Ji 19965
- Group
- Meat-eating dinos
- Family / clade
- Sinosauropterygidae5
- Classification
- Theropoda5
- Age of the rocks
- 126 to 120 million years (Barremian / Aptian)5
- Rock formations
- Yixian5
- Countries
- China5
- Fossil records
- 4 in the Paleobiology Database5
- Discovery
- A fossil hunter named Li Yumin found the first Sinosauropteryx remains in 1996 in Liaoning, China. He sold the fossils to museums, and scientists Ji and Ji named the dinosaur in the same year.15
Where the facts come from
- Sinosauropteryx | Natural History Museum (nhm.ac.uk)
- On the Discovery of the earliest fossil bird in China (Sinosauropteryx (naturalhistory.si.edu)
- Sinosauropteryx (en.wikipedia.org)
- Dinosaurs - Sinosauropteryx prima - The Australian Museum (australian.museum)
- Sinosauropteryx 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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