Tiny owl-like dinosaur hunted like modern birds

An international team of scientists used CT scans and detailed measurements to collect

information about the relative size of the eyes and inner ear of nearly 100 living birds and  extinct dinosaur species.The study revealed that many carnivorous theropods, such as Tyrannosaurus rex, had However , a tiny theropod named Shuvuuia deserti, a member of the Alvarezsaurus group, possessed not only night vision, but  also extraordinary hearing.Scientists have dubbed this species a "dinosaur owl."

 Shuvuuya is a genus of bird-like theropod dinosaurs whose fossils have been found in the Upper Cretaceous deposits of Mongolia.It is a member of the superfamily Alvarezsauroidea, a small coelurosaur.The type and only species is Shuvuuia deserti.The name comes from the Mongolian shuvuu, bird.

Shuvuuia deserti was a little dinosaurthe size of a chicken and lived in the deserts in the territory of modern Mongolia. The skeleton of Shuvuuia deserti is one of the most bizarre of all dinosaurs. His skull is fragile. However, it possesses muscular forepaws with one claw each and long legs. This strange combination of properties has baffled scientists since its discovery in the 1990s. With the new data, the scientific team hypothesized that, like many desert animals, the Shuvuya foraged at night using hearing and sight to find prey. For example, he ate small mammals and insects.

Photo of the fossilized skeleton of the Desert Shuvuya. (Image credit: Mick Ellison / AMNH)

A combination of light-sensitive eyes andsuperior hearing suggests that the shuvuya, like owls, was very effective in locating prey and setting ambushes at night. For comparison, the theropod velociraptor, which lived in the Gobi Desert near Shuvuya, could hunt at dusk, but not in the dark, the authors of a new study note.

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