Sinovenator

Fossil of Sinovenator

• Yixian Formation, Liaoning, People's Republic of China

Sinovenator ( "Raiders of China") is a genus of theropod dinosaur from the group of Troodontidae. The name is derived from the Greek Σινάι "China, Chinese, Chinese " and the Latin venator "hunters". The animal was about the size of a chicken.

The findings come from the Lower Cretaceous and be dated with an age of about 131-123 million years, which corresponds approximately to the time periods Barremian and early Aptian. The archaeological site of the two fossils is located in the lower Yixian Formation in China. The holotype of Sinovenator changii called IVPP 12615 was described in 2002 by Xu, Norell, Wang, and Wu Mackovicky. This is an incomplete skull with skeleton disassembled. The other finds IVPP 12583 is an incomplete skeleton, but still maintains its original context. The Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences ( IVPP ) in Beijing is in possession of these two finds.

Sinovenator was a basal Troodontide and it represents the previously oldest and least developed members of this kinship group ( the unrecorded Fund WDC DML 001 Although from the Kimmeridgian of the Morrison Formation in the United States is even older, but already much further developed ).

Sinovenator has the most primitive representatives of Dromaeosauridae and Avialae on matching characteristics that suggest a common ancestry of these three representatives of Paraves.