Citipati
Citipati osmolskae
Citipati nests provide direct evidence of parental care and feathers in non-avian theropods.
Image: Jonathan Chen · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Loading map textures; the previous reconstruction stays visible...
Sites on today's globe · 1 marker
Characteristics
- Scientific name
- Citipati osmolskae
- Period
- Late Cretaceous (Campanian)
- Lived
- 75–71 Ma (75 million years ago)
- Diet
- Omnivore
- Habitat
- Desert, Plains
- Length (estimate)
- 3 m
- Mass (estimate)
- 25 kg
Description
Citipati was a feathered oviraptorosaur with a short, toothless beak and a high skull crest. A fossil found over a nest shows a brooding posture with the arms covering the eggs, although the precise nest construction is not fully known. Its beak could process plants, small animals or both, and its diet was probably varied. The name Oviraptor means ‘egg thief’, but that early interpretation arose from an animal that was probably sitting on its own nest.
Habitat
Dry dune fields and oases of the Gobi Desert.
Fossil sites
Ukhaa Tolgod, Ömnögovi
Djadochta Formation
Contemporaries in the database
Sources: Citipati