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(pronounced AH-vee-MIME-us) Avimimus (meaning "bird mimic") was a very fast moving, light-weight, bird-like theropod dinosaur that may have had feathers.

ANATOMY
Avimimus was about 3 feet (1 m) long and weighed about 33 pounds (15 kg). Avimimus had a long, toothless beak, a very short tail, and very long legs. This dinosaur has tiny ridges running along its arms; some paleontologists think that they may have anchored feathers.

WHEN AVIMIMUS LIVED
Avimimus lived during the late Cretaceous period, about 85 million-75 million years ago.

INTELLIGENCE
Avimimus was an advanced theropod, whose intelligence (as measured by its relative brain to body weight, or EQ) was high among the dinosaurs.

DIET
Avimimus may have been an omnivore, eating small animals, insects, eggs, and some plant material.

LOCOMOTION
Avimimus walked on two long, slender legs. It was a fast, agile dinosaur, probably running about as quickly as an ostrich , which can run up to 43 mph (70 kph).

DISCOVERY OF FOSSILS
Four partial skeletons of Avimimus were found in Mongolia. It was found and named by Russian paleontologist Sergei Mikhailovich Kurzanov in 1981.

CLASSIFICATION
Avimimus belonged to the:

• Kingdom Animalia (animals)
• Phylum Chordata (having a hollow nerve chord ending in a brain)
• Class Archosauria (diapsids with socket-set teeth, etc.)
• Order Saurischia - lizard-hipped dinosaurs
• Suborder Theropoda - bipedal carnivores
• Infraorder Coelurosauria - lightly-built fast-running predators with hollow bones and large brains
• Superfamily Maniraptoriformes - advanced coelurosaurs with a fused wrist bone
• Family Avimimidae
• Genus Avimimus
• Species portentosus (the type species, Kurzanov, 1981)

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