Outline: a typical theropod
Papiliovenator
"butterfly hunter"
Type species Papiliovenator neimengguensis
- Lived
- 84 to 72 million years ago, Late Cretaceous
- Diet
- Omnivore
- Group
- Theropods, Troodontidae
- Found in
- China
- Named by
- Pei et al. 2022
Where its fossils were found
The evidence
Today
80 million years ago
Field notes
About Papiliovenator
What it was like
Papiliovenator was a small feathered troodontid, known from a skull and part of the skeleton. Some of its back bones had a butterfly-shaped feature, which gave it its name.
Its world
It lived in the Late Cretaceous in what is now northern China. Its bones come from the Wulansuhai Formation, where it shared the land with Protoceratops, the raptor Linheraptor and the small troodontid Philovenator.
How it was found
Pei and colleagues named Papiliovenator in 2022, from a single find.
Lived alongside
Found in the same rock formations
Close relatives
Other members of Troodontidae
Sources: WikidataNamed in: R. Pei, Y. Qin, and A. Wen, Q. Zhao, Z. Wang, Z. Liu, W. Guo, P. Liu, W. Ye, L. Wang, Z. Yin, R. Dai, X. Xu. 2022. A new troodontid from the Upper Cretaceous Gobi Basin of inner Mongolia, China. Cretaceous Research 130:105052