Coelophysis: Carnivorous Triassic Dinosaur

Coelophysis was a small, lightly built carnivorous dinosaur that lived during the late Triassic Period. Remains of hundreds of coelophysis have been unearthed in New Mexico, which suggests that it hunted in packs in order to bring down larger prey. However, nothing in paleontology can be taken at face value, and the presence of such large numbers might have simply meant that coelophysis died in large numbers in that particular place and time.

Coelophysis was lightly built and possessed hollow bones like modern-day birds. It averaged around two to three meters in length and about four feet tall. Its slight build would have made it a very swift runner by dinosaur standards. Furthermore, fossilized imprints of coelophysis footprints are evidence for this rapid locomotion. Taken with the length of the leg bones, the nearly meter-long stride of the carnivore meant that it would have been very fleet-footed indeed. This would have been a particularly useful adaptation to hunt down small, fast prey and also to elude larger, but slower predators.

It is likely that coelophysis was an opportunistic carnivore, catching live prey when it could, but also scavenging carcasses left by larger predators. In this way, it was like modern-day foxes. Coelophysis is also well-known as being a dinosaur cannibal, eating its own young when it was more advantageous during times of food shortages. Evidence for cannibalism can be seen when looking at the well-preserved stomach contents of coelophysis fossils, which contain bones of young and juvenile dinosaurs belonging to the same genus. There is a slight chance that coelophysis gave birth to live young, but even mammal-like reptiles that were around during the Triassic period had not yet evolved this trait common to placental mammals. Thus, so long as the remains found inside these coelophysis skeletons are indeed young coelophysis, then there seems to be a good chance that the dinosaur ate its own young when given the opportunity.

Coelophysis represents a large leap in the evolution of the therapod dinosaurs. It already had the characteristic therapod shape of long legs, short arms, a very long skull, and a long tail for balance. Furthermore, coelophysis represents a crossroads of evolution. Fossilized remains still show the presence of a fourth finger, which would eventually be lost entirely to therapods of the Jurassic and Cretaceous Periods. Descendents of this small hunter would represent the plethora of carnivorous dinosaur species that ranged from the size of a chicken to that of a titanic Tyrannosaurus.