Re: Tiny dinosaurs

[dbensen <dbensen@gotnet.net>]

>>>>Somebody was asking about teeny-tiny dinosaurs.  There's some very small
dinosaur specimens known only from teeth.. . . But who's to say these teeth
didn't come from
juveniles (even hatchlings)?<<

As  long as we're talking about _any_ small dinosaur, I know of an extinct one
that is only slightly larger than the (extant) bee hummingbird.  Liaoxiornis
delicatus was a toothed bird from China during the Early Cretaceous (or was it
Late Jurassic?) and measured about 6 cm long (taking into account an unusually
long tail).  The body may well be about the same size as the bee hummingbird,
but L. delicatus was probably an insectivore (it having a short bill and there
not being many flowers around at the time).

Speaking of which, what advantage would such tiny size be to an insectivore?
I've looked at the skeletal reconstruction and L. delicatus did not have the
giant sternum of a hummingbird so it probably didn't hover.  No modern insect
eaters (that we know of anyway) are that small, well, kinglets come close, but
they are still 10 cm long.  So why be so tiny?

Dan