Dino card No. 0684 of 2,015

Gallimimus

Say it: GAL-im-EYE-mus

Name means: “chicken mimic”1

Ate: PlantsOstrich dinosLate Cretaceous

Gallimimus was a fast, ostrich-like dinosaur that lived in what is now Mongolia. It had a small head, big eyes, and a long neck, and it could run up to 56 kilometers per hour (35 miles per hour) to escape predators.1

Lived

94 to 66 million years ago2

Late Cretaceous

Fossils found in

Mongolia (Gobi Desert) and Uzbekistan2 1

Food

Plants1

Length

6 m1

Weight

400 kg to 490 kg1

Height

1.9 m1

at the hips

Artist's life restoration of Gallimimus — How Gallimimus may have looked, by PaleoNeolitic. CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. Scientists still argue about colours and details.

When did it live?

Triassic

Jurassic

Cretaceous

252 million years ago20114566, the asteroid

How big was it?

cool stuff

Fun facts

Gallimimus is the largest known ornithomimid, or ostrich dinosaur. Adults were about 6 meters (20 feet) long and weighed up to 490 kilograms (1,080 pounds).1

Its name means 'chicken mimic' because the bones in its neck look like those of chickens and other galliform birds.1

Gallimimus could run at speeds of 42 to 56 kilometers per hour (29 to 34 miles per hour), making it one of the fastest dinosaurs.1

Scientists think Gallimimus may have had feathers, like its relative Ornithomimus.1

Several Gallimimus skeletons were found together in a bone bed, which suggests they might have lived in groups.1

Gallimimus appeared in the movie Jurassic Park, running across a field in a famous scene that helped show dinosaurs as bird-like animals.1

Myth buster

Myth: Gallimimus used its beak to filter small animals from water, like a flamingo.

Truth: The ridges in its beak were more like those of plant-eating animals. Scientists now think Gallimimus was a herbivore that ate tough plants, not a filter-feeder.1

For dino experts

Scientific name: Gallimimus
Named by: Osmólska et al. 19722
Group: Ostrich dinos
Family / clade: Ornithomimidae2
Classification: Theropoda > Ornithomimosauria2
Age of the rocks: 94 to 66 million years (Turonian to Maastrichtian)2
Rock formations: Nemegt, Baruungoyot, Bissekty2
Countries: Mongolia, Uzbekistan2
Fossil records: 30 in the Paleobiology Database2
Discovery: Polish and Mongolian scientists found several Gallimimus skeletons in the Gobi Desert during the 1960s. The dinosaur was named Gallimimus bullatus in 1972 by Halszka Osmólska, Ewa Roniewicz, and Rinchen Barsbold.1 2
Still debated: Scientists still debate what Gallimimus ate. Some think it was an omnivore that ate small animals and plants, while others believe it was mainly a plant-eater.1

Where the facts come from

Gallimimus (en.wikipedia.org)
Gallimimus in The Paleobiology Database (CC BY 4.0): age, places, rock formations, classification.

Every fact on this page has a number that points to its source. If we got something wrong, sorry, we are dino fans, not a science journal. Tell us at hello@dinowiki.app and we will fix it.