Compsognathus (;
Greek kompsos/κομψός; "elegant", "refined" or "dainty", and
gnathos/γνάθος; "jaw") is a
genus of small,
bipedal,
carnivorous theropod dinosaurs. Members of its single
species Compsognathus longipes could grow to the size of a
turkey. They lived about 150
million years ago, the
Tithonian age of the late
Jurassic period, in what is now Europe. Paleontologists have found two well-preserved fossils, 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 larger specimen discovered in France in the 1970s was once thought to belong to a separate species and named
C. corallestris.