Megapnosaurus

What it was like

Megapnosaurus was a small, slender meat eater, a close relative of Coelophysis. It had a long neck, a narrow head with sharp teeth, and long legs for running. Adults were only a few meters long and lightly built.

Its world

It lived in the Early Jurassic in what is now Zimbabwe and South Africa. Its bones come from the Forest Sandstone and the Elliot Formation, where it shared the land with the long-necked plant eater Massospondylus and the small beaked Heterodontosaurus and Lesothosaurus.

How it was found

Its first name, given long ago, turned out to belong already to a beetle, so Ivie and colleagues gave it a new one in 2001. A bone bed in Zimbabwe holds the remains of many animals together, which suggests it may have lived or died in groups. Some scientists think it belongs in Coelophysis itself.