Millions of years ago, there were extravagant species that populated the Earth. They were prehistoric reptiles of various sizes, dinosaurs.
One of them, the Oviraptor, developed in the Cretaceous era, 75 million years ago. And today, you can see them here. It is because there are fantastic oviraptor coloring pages you can get below.
Free Oviraptor Coloring Pages
The Oviraptor was a small theropod discovered in an expedition in Mongolia in 1924, where remains and the first eggs of these dinosaurs were collected.
Like birds, Oviraptor possessed a rib cage and a relatively rigid body formed by a partial skeleton. With a length of 2 meters, a height of one meter, and a weight of 11 kilograms, it can be said that it was a light animal.
The unusual shape of the Oviraptor’s skull stands out, with a ridge above the nostrils that extended back to the sockets and was full of holes and thin ribbons of bone.
The snout was very short, the skull broad, and the jaws had no teeth. The upper and lower part of the mouth was wide, providing a sizeable bony area. It is assumed that this area was a sharp-edged horny beak.
Oviraptor exhibited a wishbone, quite similar to that of today’s birds. It had short forelimbs and long, slender hind limbs, with a wrist bone that allowed it to rotate its hand.
It had three clawed toes on its feet, and 3-inch nails on its hands, presumably used to catch prey. It had a short tail.
It is known that the females possessed a particular type of bone tissue that was a reservoir of calcium for mounting eggs.
Due to the absence of this tissue in the Oviraptor fossils and other related species that were found incubating eggs, it is deduced that the males were in charge of this task.
One of the most debated and discussed topics is the feeding of Oviraptor because no evidence has been found to define this aspect precisely.
There is no concrete information about the formation of its mouth; it is only conjectured that it had a beak shape, so it could not have teeth.
The idea that it had been herbivorous is becoming more and more insistent, since thanks to its beak, it could tear leaves in a very effective way.
Motivated by its peculiar appearance and reputation as an egg thief, the Oviraptor has become a frequent “actor” in fictional movies based on dinosaurs.
However, its appearance has relied on previously conceived ideas, with that high crest now known to have been Citipati and not of lately recorded specimens of Oviraptor.
A very popular Oviraptor “model” is highlighted in James Gurney’s book Dinotopia. Having learned that it was not an egg predator, Gurney renamed it Ovinutrix, which expresses the sense of egg keeper.
Also, the Oviraptor stars in several movies, such as Disney’s Dinosaur, in which it is seen taking an egg from an Iguanodon.
The Discovery Channel has become famous in an episode of the TV series Dinosaur Planet, where it can be seen fighting for food with a Velociraptor.
He can also be spotted in video games such as Dino Stalker and Dino Crisis 2, both as Dilophosaurus from Jurassic Park and in the TV series The Land Before Time.