A genus of small theropod dinosaur from the Jurassic period, among the smallest known dinosaurs, roughly the size of a chicken.
From Greek 'kompsos' (delicate, elegant) + 'gnathos' (jaw), literally meaning 'elegant jaw.' The name was given by paleontologists in the 1870s to describe its refined, pointed jaw structure.
Compsognathus held the title of 'smallest dinosaur' for over a century, but in 2007 an even tinier dinosaur with a hilariously long name—Microraptor—stole its crown; this reminds us that dinosaur size records keep changing as paleontologists discover new fossils and reclassify old ones.
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