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Picture
Name: Compsognathus
Pronunciation: KOMP-sog-NAH-thus
Translation: Pretty Jaw
Diet: Carnivore
Height: 1 Foot ( .3 Meter)
Length: 3 feet (1 meter)
Weight: 8 Pounds (3.6 kg.)
Location: Germany and France
Time: Jurassic Period

Compsognathus is often described as “the size of a chicken”.  This description is based on an almost complete skeletal specimen discovered in Germany in the 1850s.
Over 100 years later, a second skeleton fossil was found in France in the 1970s, and showed its size slightly larger, more adequately compared to “the size of a turkey”.  Some scientists explain the size difference by the belief that the first skeleton found in Germany might have been that of a juvenile.  Either way, Compsognathus is surely one of the smallest carnivores of the Jurassic Period.
It is also one of the few dinosaurs for which the diet is known with certainty: the remains of small, agile lizards are preserved in the stomach of each of those two Compsognathus’ specimens.
Compsognathus is the closest supposed relative of the early bird Archaeopteryx.
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