Its skeleton is among the most bizarre of all dinosaurs, the study said.
The new study investigated how vision and hearing abilities of dinosaurs and birds compared.
Though most dinosaurs are thought to have hunted primarily during the day, a little bird-like dinosaur may have been strictly a night hunter, a new study suggested.
The dinosaur, Shuvuuia deserti, was a small critter, about the size of a chicken, and it lived about 65 million years ago in the deserts of what is now Mongolia.
Shuvuuia s skeleton is among the most bizarre of all dinosaurs, the study said. It had a fragile, bird-like skull; brawny, weightlifter arms with a single claw on each hand; and long, roadrunner-like legs.
Dinosaur skull scans reveal clues about flight and communication
X-ray images are revealing how these ancient animals moved through the world, what they could hear and see, and even how their young likely chirped.
A dinosaur of the genus Shuvuuia, which lived during the Cretaceous period in what is now Mongolia, had eyes and ears that suggest it hunted at night.Illustration by Viktor Radermaker
ByRiley Black
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It’s a golden age for paleontology: In recent years, scientists have gathered all kinds of clues about the way dinosaurs looked and lived, from awe-inspiring fossil reconstructions to preserved footprints and bite marks on bones. Now, paleontologists are showing that some of the most tantalizing indications of how these extinct animals behaved are enclosed inside their skulls.