Changmiania

What it was like

Changmiania was a small, two-legged plant eater. Its skeletons show strong shoulders, a short neck and a spade-like snout, which suggest it may have dug burrows.

Its world

It lived about 126 to 120 million years ago, in the Early Cretaceous, in what is now China. Its bones come from the Yixian Formation, a land of forests and volcanoes shared with the small horned Psittacosaurus and the feathered Sinosauropteryx.

How it was found

Yang and colleagues named it in 2020. Two skeletons were found lying as if asleep, perhaps buried quickly in their burrows by volcanic mud, which gave it its name.