Pronunciation: See-low-fie-sis bow-er-eyeMeaning: hollow form
Period: Late Triassic
Length: 3 m
Weight: 35 kg
Fossil discoveries: Southwestern USA
Diet: small animals
Not only was Coelophysis one of the first dinosaurs to walk the earth, but also it was the first dinosaur to travel into outer-space; in 1998 a fossil skull was taken aboard the space shuttle Endeavor and transferred to Mir space station where it circled the globe for over 6 million kilometers before returning to earth.
Coelophysis was likely an agile, fast predator of small animals and larger insects. Like many theropods, and most birds today, it had pneumatic (hollow) bones, making it lightweight. It is also one of the best known dinosaurs, having had thousands of fossils recovered from one site in New Mexico representing hundreds of individual dinosaurs. Some of these specimens contained the bones of smaller, immature Coelophysis in their abdominal cavities, suggesting that cannibalism was not uncommon.
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