Dino card No. 1813 of 2,027

Tochisaurus

Say it: TOH-chee-SORE-us

Name means: “ostrich lizard”1

Ate: MeatRaptorsLate Cretaceous

Tochisaurus was a small, fast dinosaur that ran on two legs. It had a very slender foot with only two main toes that touched the ground, just like an ostrich. It lived in what is now Mongolia during the Late Cretaceous Period.1

Lived

72 to 66 million years ago5

Late Cretaceous

Fossils found in

Nemegt Formation, southern Gobi Desert, Mongolia1 3

Food

Meat2

Length

1 to 2 m2

estimated based on related troodontids

When did it live?

Triassic

Jurassic

Cretaceous

252 million years ago20114566, the asteroid

How big was it?

How long was it?

as long as 4 house cats nose to tailas long as 11 bananas end to end

How big was Tochisaurus compared to YOU?

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cool stuff

Fun facts

Tochisaurus is known only from a single left foot bone, called a metatarsus.1

The foot bone is 242 millimetres long, making Tochisaurus a relatively large troodontid.1

Its second toe bone was very thin and reduced, so it probably walked on only two toes, like an ostrich.1 3

The name Tochisaurus comes from the Mongolian word for ostrich, because its foot looks like an ostrich's foot.1

Tochisaurus lived about 72 to 66 million years ago, during the Maastrichtian stage.2

It was a member of the Troodontidae family, a group of bird-like dinosaurs.1

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

?What did Tochisaurus eat?

Tochisaurus was a carnivore, meaning it ate meat.4

?How big was Tochisaurus?

Tochisaurus was a small dinosaur. Its only known foot bone is 242 millimetres long, which shows it was a relatively large troodontid, but no full size estimate is known.1

?When did Tochisaurus live?

Tochisaurus lived during the Late Cretaceous Period, about 72 to 66 million years ago, in the Maastrichtian stage.1 4

?Is Tochisaurus a dinosaur?

Yes, Tochisaurus is a dinosaur. It is a small troodontid theropod dinosaur from the Late Cretaceous of Mongolia.1

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For dino experts

Scientific name: Tochisaurus
Named by: Kurzanov and Osmólska 19915
Group: Raptors
Family / clade: Troodontidae5
Classification: Theropoda > Troodontidae5
Age of the rocks: 72 to 66 million years (Maastrichtian)5
Rock formations: Nemegt5
Countries: Mongolia5
Fossil records: 1 in the Paleobiology Database5
Discovery: A Soviet-Mongolian expedition found the fossil in 1948 in the Gobi Desert near Nemegt. Scientists Sergei Kurzanov and Halszka Osmólska named it Tochisaurus nemegtensis in 1991.1
Still debated: Scientists are not sure exactly what Tochisaurus looked like because only its foot bone has been found.1

Where the facts come from

Tochisaurus (en.wikipedia.org)
PBDB Taxon (paleobiodb.org)
Tochisaurus nemegtensis gen. et sp. n., a new troodontid ... (app.pan.pl)
TOCHISAURUS - DinoChecker dinosaur archive (dinochecker.com)
Tochisaurus 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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