Unenlagia facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Unenlagia Temporal range: Late Cretaceous ~89Ma PreЄ Є O S D C P T J K Pg N ↓
Casts of U. paynemili fossils; today the claw is considered one of the hand unguals, not of the foot as shown here
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Clade:	Dinosauria
Clade:	Saurischia
Clade:	Theropoda
Family:	†Dromaeosauridae
Subfamily:	†Unenlagiinae
Genus:	†Unenlagia Novas & Puerta, 1997
Species
†U. comahuensis Novas & Puerta, 1997 (type) †U. paynemili Calvo, Porfiri & Kellner, 2004

Unenlagia was a theropod from the mid-Cretaceous, living about 90 million years ago. The first birds appeared 150 million years ago, evolving from dinosaurs long before Unenlagia lived. Therefore, it is not an ancestor of modern-day birds, but was an evolutionary dead-end. The most bird-like dinosaur ever discovered is the 90-million-year-old Unenlagia comahuensis, a flightless, 4-foot tall, 7.5-foot-long carnivore.

Images for kids

• 

  Size comparison with a 1.7 m tall human

See also

In Spanish: Unenlagia para niños