Compsognathus longipes

Compsognathus longipes is one of the historically most important small dinosaurs. Its nearly complete Bavarian skeleton was described as early as 1859, just before Archaeopteryx helped bring bird-like dinosaurs into evolutionary debate. A second, roughly twice-as-large skeleton from Canjuers, France, was named Compsognathus corallestris in 1972 and later referred to the same species. Together, only these two individuals underpin nearly everything known about the animal. They show a lightly built, long-tailed biped with a small narrow head and three-fingered hands. Both also preserve direct feeding evidence: a small lizard inside the German specimen and remains interpreted as rhynchocephalians within the French one. Its familiar downy covering is plausible but unpreserved, and a major 2024 analysis challenged whether the traditional family Compsognathidae is a natural group at all.

Its fossils occur between approximately 150.5 and 148 million years ago. Values shown here are approximate and reflect the current curated seed dataset.

The German holotype SNSB-BSPG AS I 563 is about 70–90 centimetres long depending on how missing tail segments are restored; the French specimen MNHN CNJ 79 reaches roughly 1.25–1.5 metres. Both have a low, lightly constructed skull, slender jaws with recurved teeth, a flexible neck, long hind limbs and a very long balancing tail. Peyer’s re-study established at least three functional fingers, overturning older two-fingered reconstructions. The French specimen also showed that broad structures once interpreted as swimming paddles were sedimentary features rather than anatomy. Fine impressions beside its tail have been described as skin, but neither specimen preserves unequivocal feathers. Their substantial size difference probably includes an ontogenetic component, although published assessments disagree over which growth stage each animal represents.

• Small, low skull on a flexible neck
• Slender jaws with small recurved teeth
• At least three functional fingers on each hand
• Long hind limbs for obligate bipedal locomotion
• Very long tail forming about half the restored body length
• Nearly complete skeletons known from both Germany and France
• Direct gut contents preserving small lepidosaur prey
• No unequivocal feather impressions despite exceptional preservation

The exact quarry and finder of the Bavarian specimen are undocumented. Physician and fossil collector Joseph Oberndorfer owned it by the late 1850s and lent it to Johann Andreas Wagner, who briefly named Compsognathus longipes in 1859 and described it more fully in 1861. The Bavarian state collection acquired Oberndorfer’s fossils in 1866; the holotype is now SNSB-BSPG AS I 563. Quarrying at Canjuers in southeastern France produced the second skeleton in the early 1970s. Alain Bidar and colleagues named it C. corallestris, interpreting its forelimbs as aquatic adaptations. Later work rejected that interpretation, and Karin Peyer’s 2006 redescription treated the French form as a subjective junior synonym of C. longipes. The specimen, MNHN CNJ 79, is now displayed in Paris.

Discovery credit: Unknown Bavarian quarry worker; specimen collected by Joseph Oberndorfer, Canjuers quarry workers.

Naming authors: Johann Andreas Wagner.

Both skeletons entered quiet carbonate lagoons around the northern Tethys, but they represent separate island systems. The Bavarian animal came from the Solnhofen Plattenkalk region, an archipelago of low islands, reef barriers and restricted lagoons whose oxygen-poor bottoms discouraged scavengers. The exact holotype quarry is uncertain, with historical labels pointing broadly to the Altmühl valley near Kelheim and later to Jachenhausen. Canjuers was another shallow lagoon bordered by emergent reef areas in what is now Provence. Sedimentology indicates that storms carried many land and reef organisms into the basin. Compsognathus lived on nearby dry land; its preservation in marine limestone does not make it an aquatic dinosaur.

Compsognathus was an active terrestrial carnivore, and its meals provide unusually direct evidence. Ostrom identified the articulated animal inside the German ribcage as the lizard Bavarisaurus rather than an embryo, disproving an old cannibalism story. The French specimen preserves two small reptile remains identified by the MNHN as rhynchocephalians. These fossils show ingestion of small vertebrates but do not reveal whether prey was chased, ambushed or scavenged. Long legs suggest capable terrestrial movement, yet no trackway supplies a measured speed. There is no nest, group accumulation or injury pattern demonstrating social behaviour, parental care or combat.

• Only two skeletons are securely known, yet Compsognathus has appeared in dinosaur books for more than 160 years.
• The larger French skeleton was once named C. corallestris and reconstructed with flipper-like hands; both the species distinction and the flippers were later rejected.
• A tiny articulated lizard inside the Bavarian specimen was once mistaken for an embryo and evidence of cannibalism.
• The three-fingered hand was clarified only after detailed re-study of the French skeleton.
• A 2024 phylogenetic analysis proposed that traditional ‘compsognathids’ are immature members of several different theropod lineages rather than one family.

A research repository is not necessarily a public exhibit. Loan and display status can change, so check with the institution before visiting.

1. 01
   The Paleobiology Database

   Open source
2. 02
   Über einige im lithographischen Schiefer neu aufgefundene Schildkröten und Saurier

   Johann Andreas Wagner · Sitzungsberichte der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften 49 · 1859

   Open source
3. 03
   The osteology of Compsognathus longipes Wagner

   John H. Ostrom · Zitteliana 4 · 1978

   Open source
4. 04
   A reconsideration of Compsognathus from the Upper Tithonian of Canjuers, southeastern France

   Karin Peyer · Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology 26(4) · 2006

   Open source
5. 05
   A new look at the Late Jurassic Canjuers conservation Lagerstätte (Tithonian, Var, France)

   Karin Peyer, Sylvain Charbonnier, Ronan Allain and 2 coauthors · Comptes Rendus Palevol 13(5) · 2014

   Open source
6. 06
   A unified framework for predatory dinosaur macroevolution

   Andrea Cau · Bollettino della Società Paleontologica Italiana 63(1) · 2024

   Open source
7. 07
   Compsognathus: Canjuers specimen

   Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle

   Open source
8. 08
   Compsognathus longipes holotype cast MNHN.F.SLN284

   Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle scientific collections

   Open source
9. 09
   Compsognathus: Dino Directory

   Natural History Museum, London

   Open source
10. 10
    Fossil fishes, amphibians and sauropsids collection

    Bayerische Staatssammlung für Paläontologie und Geologie

    Open source