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Procompsognathus

 
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Procompsognathus
 
 
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Procompsognathus is a genus
Genus

A genus is a low-level taxonomic rank used in the classification of living and fossil organisms. The taxonomic ranks are domain , kingdom , phylum, class , order , family , genus, and species....
 of small theropod dinosaur
Dinosaur

Dinosaurs were the dominant vertebrate animals of Landform ecosystems for over 160 million years, from the late Triassic Period until the end of the Cretaceous Period , when most of them became extinct in the Cretaceous?Tertiary extinction event....
 that lived during the Late Triassic
Triassic

The Triassic is a geologic period that extends from about 251 to 199 annum . As the first period of the Mesozoic Era, the Triassic follows the Permian and is followed by the Jurassic....
 Period, about 222 to 219 million years ago. Procompsognathus was named by Eberhard Fraas in 1913. He named the type species
Type species

In taxonomy, a type species is the species that originally defined a genus . It is an individual specimen that fixes the name of a genus . Two different definitions are used interchangeably, in a general term and a botanical term....
, P. triassicus, on the basis of a poorly-preserved skeleton found in Württemberg
Württemberg

W?rttemberg [], formerly known as Wirtemberg, is an area and a former state in southwestern Germany, including parts of the regions Swabia and Franconia....
, Germany
Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered to the north by the North Sea, Denmark, and the Baltic Sea; to the east by Poland and the Czech Republic; to the south by Austria and Switzerland; and to the west by France, Luxembourg, Belgium, and the Netherlands....
.

The name is derived from Compsognathus
Compsognathus

Compsognathus was a small, bipedalism, carnivore theropoda dinosaur. The animal was the size of a turkey and lived around 150 mya , the early Tithonian faunal stage of the late Jurassic Period , in what is now Europe....
 meaning 'elegant jaw' (Greek
Ancient Greek

Ancient Greek is the historical stage in the development of the Greek language spanning across the Archaic Greece , Classical Greece , and Hellenistic civilization periods of ancient Greece and the classical antiquity....
 kompsos/??µ??? meaning 'elegant', 'refined' or 'dainty' and gnathos/??a??? meaning 'jaw'), which was a later (Jurassic
Jurassic

The Jurassic is a geologic period that extends from about annum to  Ma, that is, from the end of the Triassic to the beginning of the Cretaceous....
) dinosaur.






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Encyclopedia


Procompsognathus is a genus
Genus

A genus is a low-level taxonomic rank used in the classification of living and fossil organisms. The taxonomic ranks are domain , kingdom , phylum, class , order , family , genus, and species....
 of small theropod dinosaur
Dinosaur

Dinosaurs were the dominant vertebrate animals of Landform ecosystems for over 160 million years, from the late Triassic Period until the end of the Cretaceous Period , when most of them became extinct in the Cretaceous?Tertiary extinction event....
 that lived during the Late Triassic
Triassic

The Triassic is a geologic period that extends from about 251 to 199 annum . As the first period of the Mesozoic Era, the Triassic follows the Permian and is followed by the Jurassic....
 Period, about 222 to 219 million years ago. Procompsognathus was named by Eberhard Fraas in 1913. He named the type species
Type species

In taxonomy, a type species is the species that originally defined a genus . It is an individual specimen that fixes the name of a genus . Two different definitions are used interchangeably, in a general term and a botanical term....
, P. triassicus, on the basis of a poorly-preserved skeleton found in Württemberg
Württemberg

W?rttemberg [], formerly known as Wirtemberg, is an area and a former state in southwestern Germany, including parts of the regions Swabia and Franconia....
, Germany
Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered to the north by the North Sea, Denmark, and the Baltic Sea; to the east by Poland and the Czech Republic; to the south by Austria and Switzerland; and to the west by France, Luxembourg, Belgium, and the Netherlands....
.

The name is derived from Compsognathus
Compsognathus

Compsognathus was a small, bipedalism, carnivore theropoda dinosaur. The animal was the size of a turkey and lived around 150 mya , the early Tithonian faunal stage of the late Jurassic Period , in what is now Europe....
 meaning 'elegant jaw' (Greek
Ancient Greek

Ancient Greek is the historical stage in the development of the Greek language spanning across the Archaic Greece , Classical Greece , and Hellenistic civilization periods of ancient Greece and the classical antiquity....
 kompsos/??µ??? meaning 'elegant', 'refined' or 'dainty' and gnathos/??a??? meaning 'jaw'), which was a later (Jurassic
Jurassic

The Jurassic is a geologic period that extends from about annum to  Ma, that is, from the end of the Triassic to the beginning of the Cretaceous....
) dinosaur. The prefix p??/pro implies 'before' or 'ancestor of', although this direct lineage is not supported by subsequent research.

Paleobiology

Procompsognathus may have been about 1.2 meters long (4 ft). A biped
Biped

Bipedalism is a form of terrestrial locomotion where an organism Motion by means of its two rear limbs, or legs. An animal or machine that usually moves in a bipedal manner is known as a biped , meaning "two feet" ....
, it had long hind legs, short arms, large clawed hands, a long slender snout with many small teeth, and a stiff tail. It lived in a relatively dry, inland environment and may have eaten insect
Insect

Insects are the biggest class of arthropods and the only ones with wings. They are the most diverse group of animals on the planet. They are most diverse at the equator and their diversity declines toward the poles....
s, lizard
Lizard

Lizards are a large and widespread group of squamate reptiles, with nearly 5,000 species, ranging across all continents except Antarctica as well as most oceanic island chains....
s, and other small prey.

Classification

While it is undoubtedly a small, bipedal carnivore, the extremely poor preservation of the only known Procompsognathus fossil makes its exact identity difficult to determine. It has historically been considered a theropod dinosaur, though some, such as Allen (2004), have found Procompsognathus to be a primitive, non-dinosaurian ornithodira
Ornithodira

Ornithodira is a clade within the larger group Archosauria.In 1986 Jacques Gauthier coined the name for a node clade, containing the last common ancestor of the dinosaurs and the pterosaurs and all of its descendants....
n. Sereno and Wild (1992) stated that the holotype
Holotype

A holotype is one of several possible biological types. A type is what fixes a name to a taxon. A holotype is a single physical example of an organism, known to have been used when the species was formally described....
 specimen consisted of fossils from two separate animals. They referred the skull to the primitive crocodylomorph
Crocodylomorpha

The Crocodylomorpha are an important group of archosaurs that include the crocodilians and their extinct relatives.During Mesozoic and early Tertiary times the Crocodylomorpha were far more diverse than they are now....
 Saltoposuchus
Saltoposuchus

Saltoposuchus is an extinct genus of small , long- tailed crocodylomorph reptile , from the Norian of Europe and North America. The name translated means "leaping crocodile"....
, and the remainder of the skeleton to a ceratosaur
Ceratosauria

Ceratosaurs are members of a group of theropod dinosaurs defined as all theropods sharing a more recent common ancestry with Ceratosaurus than with birds....
 related to Segisaurus
Segisaurus

Segisaurus is a genus of small coelophysoid theropod dinosaur, that measured approximately 1 metre in length. The only known specimen was discovered in 1933 in early Jurassic strata in Tsegi Canyon, Arizona, for which it was named....
. Rauhut and Hungerbuhler (2000) noted features of the vertebra
Vertebra

A vertebra is an individual bone in the flexible column that defines vertebrate animals. The vertebral column encases and protects the spinal cord, which runs from the base of the cranium down the dorsal side of the animal until reaching the pelvis....
e which suggest that Procompsognathus may be a coelophysid
Coelophysidae

The Coelophysidae are a family of primitive carnivorous theropod dinosaurs. Most species were relatively small in size. The family flourished in the late Triassic and early Jurassic periods....
 or ceratosaur, and Carrano et al. (2005), in their re-study of the related genus Segisaurus
Segisaurus

Segisaurus is a genus of small coelophysoid theropod dinosaur, that measured approximately 1 metre in length. The only known specimen was discovered in 1933 in early Jurassic strata in Tsegi Canyon, Arizona, for which it was named....
, found both Segisaurus and Procompsognathus to belong to the Coelophysidae within Dinosauria.

In popular culture

In Michael Crichton
Michael Crichton

John Michael Crichton, Doctor of Medicine , was an United States author, film producer, film director, and physician, best known for his work in the science fiction, medical fiction, and techno-thriller genres....
's novels Jurassic Park
Jurassic Park

Jurassic Park is a 1990 science fiction novel written by Michael Crichton. Often considered a cautionary tale on unconsidered biological tinkering in the same spirit as Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, it uses the mathematical concept of chaos theory and its philosophical implications to explain the collapse of an amusement park showcasin...
 and The Lost World, Procompsognathus (often referred to as "compys") are one of the extinct species
Species

In biology, a species is one of the basic units of biological classification and a taxonomic rank. A species is often defined as a group of organisms capable of interbreeding and producing fertile offspring....
 recreated through genetic engineering. Crichton portrays these dinosaurs as being venomous, a characteristic invented for the novel and not supported by fossil evidence
Biological issues in Jurassic Park

Jurassic Park, a Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton, with a Jurassic Park directed by Steven Spielberg, revolves around the resurrection of dinosaurs via genetic engineering....
. He also portrays them as scavenger
Scavenger

Scavenging, or necrophagy, is a carnivorous feeding behaviour in which a predator consumes corpses or carrion that were not killed to be eaten by the predator or others of its species....
s and coprophagists
Coprophagia

Coprophagia is the consumption of feces, from the Greek language ??p??? copros and fa?e?? phagein . Many animal species practice coprophagia as a matter of course; other species do not normally consume feces but may do so under unusual conditions....
 (eaters of feces
Feces

Feces, faeces, or f?ces is a waste product from an animal's gastrointestinal tract expelled through the anus during defecation....
), useful in keeping the park clean of sauropod excrement. In the film
The Lost World: Jurassic Park

The Lost World: Jurassic Park is a 1997 in film American science fiction film and the second Jurassic Park film as part of the Jurassic Park franchise....
 adaptation of The Lost World, Procompsognathus were replaced with the distantly related coelurosaur Compsognathus
Compsognathus

Compsognathus was a small, bipedalism, carnivore theropoda dinosaur. The animal was the size of a turkey and lived around 150 mya , the early Tithonian faunal stage of the late Jurassic Period , in what is now Europe....
. However, in the second film, Robert Burke refers to them as Compsognathus triassicus (triassicus being the type species
Type species

In taxonomy, a type species is the species that originally defined a genus . It is an individual specimen that fixes the name of a genus . Two different definitions are used interchangeably, in a general term and a botanical term....
 of Procompsognathus).

In Eric Garcia
Eric Garcia

Eric Garcia is the author of several humorous novels including Matchstick Men which was made into a Matchstick Men directed by Ridley Scott and starring Nicolas Cage, and the Anonymous Rex series which is being used as the basis for a new TV show on the Sci Fi Channel ....
's trio of "Rex" novels, Procompsognathus is one of sixteen genera to survive into the present day. As in Jurassic Park, Garcia refers to them as "compys".

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