Compsognathus

Not all carnivorous dinosaurs are the giant animals we imagine. Some are small and sophisticated. Compsognathus is one of the best known dinosaurs. It is a turkey-sized predator living near water. A small animal is shaped like a bird on its hindpaw, chases lizards and small mammals and attacks prey with small hands and teeth-like jaws. Perhaps Compsognathus eats with the oldest known Archeopteryx.

German paleontologist Andreas Wagner explained the first Compsognathus in 1861. That name means "elegant chin". A doctor named Oberndorfer found a limestone limestone in a valley near the town of Kelheim. As happened in many small fossil vertebrates, sedimentary rocks flatten it. That bone is too thin to crush between fossils. But from nature to half of the elongated tail, nature holds almost the entire skeleton. Wagner did not identify Compsognathus as a dinosaur. Perhaps it was as big and bulky as his dinosaur image.

A few years later, Thomas Henry Huxley used Compsognathus as an example of his theory and today's bird fell from "Bird Reptiles". It is clear that Compsognathus is a small relative of those dinosaurs as scientists study bones of other animal legs such as Allosaurus and birds.

In 1881, Othniel Marsh noticed that Wagner specimen had something in her stomach and thought it might be an embryo. In 1903, Frann Nopcsa concluded that the object is too large to be an embryo and is the remains of the animal's last meal, the lizard. After 75 years, paleontologist John Ostrom certified the lizard as Valladolid.

Compsognathus longipes are rare in museum collections. Except for Wagner, there is only one other specimen. Approximately 50% of the skeleton is found in limestone near Canjuers in France. A group of French paleontologists reported this skeleton in 1972. They believe it belongs to different species. They named the new species Compsognathus corallestris. It has somewhat different fins instead of the ratio of hands and bones. However, Ostrom stated that the "flipper" of the specimen did not belong to animals. He also showed that the difference in sample size is due to the fact that the person is younger. He believes that the skeleton of France is an adult and the Germans are young. Scientists now believe that both animals belong to a single species, Compsognathus longipes.

Ostrom's 1978 study showed that Compsognathus can have two fingers. This all surprised many paleontologists because all other known animal legions dinosaurs except Tyrannosaurus have three or more fingers. Not everyone agrees that Ostrom's description is correct. Compsognathus is the only member sufficient to be classified as its family Compsognathidae.

As it is famous, Compsognathus is diagnosed based on limited fossil evidence - just a few well-formed specimens. Therefore, only one species of existing Compsognathus is present. Longipes - Although there was once (C. corallestris) was abandoned. Thus, Compsognathus is very different from other early-discovered dinosaurs (such as zebra) that dozens of suspicious species are assigned.

Many reports still describe Compsognathus as "dinosaurs of chicken size" because the size of German specimens is currently considered a teenager. Compsognathus longipes is one of the few dinosaur species whose meals are definite. The small flexible lizard remains remains on the abdomen of the two specimens. Teeth found in Portugal may be ruins of further fossils of the genus. Compsognathus was not recognized in the fashion discovery, but it was the first ryegrass dinosaur known from a fairly complete fossil skeleton. Until the 1990s, it was the smallest non-avian dinosaur that had been incorrectly classified as the nearest relative of Archeoptery during the past several centuries.

For nearly a century, Compsognathus longipes are the only known small species of beast legs. This leads to comparison with Archeoptery and recommendation for a particularly close relationship with birds. Indeed, not the Archeoptery, Compsognathus stimulated Huxley 's interest in the origins of birds. The two animals are similar in shape and proportion, indeed, two specimens of many Archeoptery "Eichstätt" and "Solnhofen" have been mistaken for Compsognathus for a while. Many other types of theropod dinosaurs, such as Manila Plutlan, are now known to be more closely related to birds.