Shuvuuia

Shuvuuia was a diminutive, highly specialized theropod that scampered across the arid dunes of Late Cretaceous Mongolia. Measuring just sixty centimetres in length and weighing little more than a pheasant, it possessed exceptionally long hind legs suited for rapid sprinting across sandy ground. Its skull showed prokinetic flexibility resembling modern birds, and specialized CT scans have revealed inner ear lagena structures indicative of acute hearing, paired with large eye sockets adapted for nighttime hunting. It possessed strange, stunted forelimbs that ended in a solitary, powerful claw, perfectly designed for digging into subterranean insect colonies or tough termite mounds. Remarkably, fossil specimens of Shuvuuia have preserved delicate feathery integument, containing chemical remnants of beta-keratin that confirmed direct plumage preservation in non-avian maniraptoran dinosaurs.

CT scans revealed an enormous inner ear and large eyes adapted for nocturnal hunting.

Where and when

Shuvuuia lived in the Late Cretaceous, from 75 to 71 million years ago (Campanian age). Its remains come from Mongolia, in the Djadokhta Formation.

The numbers

Length 0.6 m (estimates run from 0.6 to 0.7 m). Mass about 1.4 kg. Hip height about 0.25 m. That is 0.4 human-lengths, or 0.05 of a double-decker bus. These are estimates from near-complete skeleton; fields marked estimated by the site are length, mass, hip height.

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