Dr. Dean Lomax

Yikui is only a bit longer than a squirrel.

That was found in this incredible area in Liaoning in China, where you have often soft tissue preservation.

The way they were preserved is when they died, they were intermingled with volcanic ash and things that helped to preserve them really well.

A little bit like Pompeii kind of thing, but not quite that.

So the smallest dinosaur.

So there are a few that have been named.

One of the smallest would be a dinosaur called, like a bird-like dinosaur called Anchionis.

And you're talking about the size of like a squirrel.

And there's a few that have been described here, there, and everywhere.

In fact, I named one that was about a little bit longer than a squirrel, but a longer tail, a thing called Hesperonothoides.

And it's a little velociraptor-like dinosaur.

But yeah, no larger than a squirrel about that size.

and uh and that was we found but that was found before my time in wyoming but when i volunteered in wyoming uh the first time which is 18 years ago now in 2008 which i know we'll probably chat about that but but yeah that was a specimen showed to me it's like a draw was pulled out one of my now good friends said hey this is a new dinosaur i was like is it that's cool and i you know i had no idea what to do about that but years later i'd be part of the team who named that that's so cool this might be a stupid question but when i love them

No stupid questions in paleo and science, Stevie.

That's a really good question.

The way in which you can look at that, the time in which Hesperonithoides was alive was a time called the Late Jurassic, and it's roughly about 150, 155 million years ago.

That's based on studying the geology and the rocks in which it's found in.

Velociraptor lived quite a few million years later in the Cretaceous period.

So definitely it wasn't a Velociraptor.

There's no way it'd be a Velociraptor.