Mei (dinosaur)
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Categories: Dinosaurs

Mei Fossil range: Early Cretaceous
A Mei at the Field Museum
Conservation status
Extinct (fossil)
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia Phylum: Chordata Class: Sauropsida Superorder: Dinosauria Order: Saurischia Suborder: Theropoda Infraorder: Deinonychosauria Family: Troodontidae Genus: Mei Species: M. long
Binomial name
Mei long Xu & Norell, 2004

Mei (from Chinese 寐 mèi soundly sleeping) is a genus of duck-sized troodontid dinosaur first unearthed by paleontologists in Liaoning, China in 2004. Mei lived during the Early Cretaceous Period. Its binomial name, Mei long (Chinese 寐 mèi and 龙 lóng) means dragon, soundly sleeping.

Some of the fossils unearthed from the site, preserved in three-dimensional detail, were found with their faces nestled behind one of their forelimbs, similar to the sleeping position of modern birds. The fossil provides a behavioral link between birds and dinosaurs.^[1] Mei has the shortest genus name of any dinosaur, surpassing the previous record-holders Minmi, an ankylosaur discovered in Australia, and Khaan, an oviraptorid from Mongolia.

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• http://www.users.qwest.net/~jstweet1/troodontidae.htm

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