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Scipionyx
Temporal range: Upper Cretaceous, 113 mya
9121 - Milano, Museo storia naturale - Scipionyx samniticus - Foto Giovanni Dall'Orto 22-Apr-2007a.jpg
Fossil specimen, Museo Civico di Storia Naturale di Milano
Scientific classification
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Genus:
Scipionyx
Species:
S. samniticus
Binomial name
Scipionyx samniticus
Sasso & Signore, 1998
Scipionyx reconstruction
A possible reconstruction of a Scipionyx samniticus

Scipionyx samniticus is a very special dinosaur fossil. It's a tiny meat-eating dinosaur, called a theropod, found in Cretaceous rocks in southern Italy, close to Naples. Even though it was found way back in 1981, people didn't realize how important it was until 1994.

This fossil is amazing because it shows parts of the dinosaur's inside, like its organs and muscles! Usually, soft parts of animals rot away before they can turn into fossils. This makes Scipionyx super rare. Studying this fossil can teach us a lot about how dinosaurs were built and how their bodies worked.

This dinosaur was a baby, only about 9.5 inches (24 cm) long. It lived about 113 million years ago, during the Cretaceous period. At that time, it lived near a shallow lagoon, which is like a calm, shallow body of water. Scientists think it might be related to another dinosaur called Compsognathus.

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See also

Kids robot.svg In Spanish: Scipionyx samniticus para niños

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