Editing Compsognathus (section)

{{short description|Genus of dinosaurs}}
{{distinguish|Compsosaurus|Compsosuchus|Procompsognathus}}
{{pp-move-indef}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=January 2021}}
{{Automatic taxobox
| fossil_range = [[Late Jurassic]], {{fossil range|150.8|145}}
| image = Compy.jpg
| image_upright = 1.15
| image_caption = Reconstructed skeleton at the [[Museum of Ancient Life]] 
| parent_authority = [[Edward Drinker Cope|Cope]], 1875
| taxon = Compsognathus
| authority = [[Johann Andreas Wagner|Wagner]], 1859
| type_species = {{extinct}}'''''Compsognathus longipes'''''
| type_species_authority = Wagner, 1859
| synonyms =
* ''Compsognathus corallestris'' <br><small>Bidar ''et al.'', 1972</small>
}}

'''''Compsognathus''''' ({{IPAc-en|k|ɒ|m|p|ˈ|s|ɒ|ɡ|n|ə|θ|ə|s}};<ref>{{Cite OED|Compsognathus}}</ref> [[Ancient Greek|Greek]] ''kompsos''/κομψός; "elegant", "refined" or "dainty", and ''gnathos''/γνάθος; "jaw")<ref>{{cite book | last1 = Liddell | first1 = Henry George | author-link = Henry Liddell | last2 = Scott | first2 = Robert | author-link2 = Robert Scott (philologist) | year = 1980 | orig-year = 1871 | edition = abridged | title = A Greek-English Lexicon | publisher = [[Oxford University Press]] | location = Oxford, United Kingdom | isbn = 978-0-19-910207-5| title-link = A Greek-English Lexicon }}</ref> is a [[genus]] of small, [[bipedalism|bipedal]], [[carnivore|carnivorous]] [[theropoda|theropod]] [[dinosaur]]. Members of its single [[species]] '''''Compsognathus longipes''''' could grow to around the size of a [[chicken (bird)|chicken]]. They lived about 150&nbsp;[[mya (unit)|million years ago]], during the [[Tithonian]] [[Stage (stratigraphy)|age]] of the late [[Jurassic]] [[Period (geology)|period]], in what is now [[Europe]]. Paleontologists have found two well-preserved [[fossil]]s, one in [[Germany]] in the 1850s and the second in [[France]] more than a century later. Today, ''C. longipes'' is the only recognized species, although the French specimen was once thought to belong to a separate species named ''C. corallestris''.

Many presentations still describe ''Compsognathus'' as "chicken-sized" dinosaurs because of the size of the German specimen, which is now believed to be a juvenile. ''Compsognathus longipes'' is one of the few dinosaur species whose diet is known with certainty: the remains of small, agile lizards are preserved in the bellies of both specimens. Teeth discovered in Portugal may be further fossil remains of the genus.

Although not recognized as such at the time of its discovery, ''Compsognathus'' is the first theropod dinosaur known from a reasonably complete fossil skeleton. Until the 1990s, it was the smallest-known non-[[Avialae|avialan]] dinosaur, with the preceding centuries incorrectly labelling them as the closest relative of ''[[Archaeopteryx]]''.