Mei (dinosaur)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 |
||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
Extinct (fossil)
|
||||||||||||||||||||
| Scientific classification | ||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
| Mei long Xu & Norell, 2004 |
Mei (from Chinese 寐 mèi soundly sleeping) is a genus of duck-sized troodontid dinosaur first unearthed by paleontologists in Liaoning, China in 2004. Mei lived during the Early Cretaceous Period. Its binomial name, Mei long (Chinese 寐 mèi and 龙 lóng) means dragon, soundly sleeping.
Some of the fossils unearthed from the site, preserved in three-dimensional detail, were found with their faces nestled behind one of their forelimbs, similar to the sleeping position of modern birds. The fossil provides a behavioral link between birds and dinosaurs.[1] Mei has the shortest genus name of any dinosaur, surpassing the previous record-holders Minmi, an ankylosaur discovered in Australia, and Khaan, an oviraptorid from Mongolia.
[edit] In popular culture
Mei long was featured in the third episode of the ITV series Prehistoric Park, where five Mei longs attacked Ben, looking for the food in Ben's backpack.
[edit] References
- ^ Xu and Norell, (2004). "A new troodontid dinosaur from China with avian-like sleeping posture." Nature, 431: 838-841.
