Fukuivenator

What it was like

Fukuivenator was a small feathered theropod with a strange mix of features, which is why its species name means "puzzling". Its teeth and skeleton look partly like those of meat eaters and partly like those of plant eaters.

Scientists now think it was an early relative of the therizinosaurs, the long-clawed plant eaters, and that it probably ate both plants and small animals.

Its world

It lived about 121 to 113 million years ago, in the Early Cretaceous, in what is now Japan. Its bones come from the Kitadani Formation, where it shared the land with the hunter Fukuiraptor, the plant eater Fukuisaurus and the long-necked Fukuititan.

How it was found

Azuma and colleagues named Fukuivenator paradoxus in 2016, from a single skeleton, one of the most complete dinosaurs found in Japan.