Citipes elegans

Citipes is an extinct genus of caenagnathid theropod from the Late Cretaceous Dinosaur Park Formation in Alberta, Canada. The genus contains only one species, the type species, C. elegans. The generic name of Citipes is Latin for "fleet-footed", and the specific epithet "elegans" is Latin for "elegant". The type specimen of Citipes has a convoluted taxonomic history, and has been previously assigned to the genera Ornithomimus, Macrophalangia, Elmisaurus, Chirostenotes, and Leptorhynchos before being given its own genus in 2020.

Citipes elegans

Gregory Funston · CC BY 4.0 · via Wikipedia/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.

On record

Recorded, not inferred
Sits inside
CitipesPBDB
Diet
omnivorePBDB, for Oviraptorosauria
Life habit
ground dwelling, depth=surfacePBDB, for Oviraptorosauria
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Oviraptorosauria
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Oviraptorosauria

Time the record covers

At most 18 million years on record.

Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 83.6 Mya and 66 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.

Late Cretaceous — about 12 of 12 occurrencesLate CretaceousPaleocene — about 0 of 12 occurrences84–83 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences83–83 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences83–82 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences82–82 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences82–81 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences81–80 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences80–80 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences80–79 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences79–79 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences79–78 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences78–77 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences77–77 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences77–76 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences76–75 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences75–75 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences75–74 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences74–74 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences74–73 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences73–72 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences72–72 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences72–71 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences71–70 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences70–70 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences70–69 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences69–69 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences69–68 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences68–67 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences67–67 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences67–66 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences66–66 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences84.1 Mya65.5 Mya

12 occurrences of Citipes elegans on record, most of them in the Late Cretaceous. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.

When

12 occurrences

These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.

Found in

2 formations

Dinosaur Park — 50.73°N, 111.51°WDinosaur Park — 50.13°N, 111.69°WDinosaur Park — 50.76°N, 110.02°WDinosaur Park — 50.76°N, 111.47°WDinosaur Park — 50.73°N, 111.56°WDinosaur Park — 50.84°N, 111.32°WDinosaur Park — 50.77°N, 111.40°WDinosaur Park — 50.82°N, 111.58°WHell Creek — 47.10°N, 104.66°W

Loading coastlines…

The named rock units Citipes elegans has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed.

Citipes elegans and its relatives

Late Cretaceous

Where Citipes elegans and its relatives were recorded in the Late Cretaceous.

Found in the same rock

10 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 11 sites for Citipes elegans, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too.

This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.

Entered from

4 references

Each of the 12 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. Entries link to doi.org where the Paleobiology Database holds an identifier, and to its own record where it does not. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.

Media and terms

Media content1

Picture of Citipes elegans

Credit
Gregory Funston
Licence
CC BY 4.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan was found. Smithsonian Open Access, MorphoSource and Sketchfab were all searched.

The description on this site

Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0

This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.

Keep going

What may have been alongside itCitipes through timeFormations of the Late CretaceousThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Parks 1933)