Hypsilophodon foxii HIP-sih-LOH-foh-don
"High-crested tooth"
You 1.8 m (5.9 ft) tall
Hypsilophodon 2 m (6.6 ft) long
2 people holding hands
- Length
- 2 m (6.6 ft) — About 2 m long, ~20 kg — a fast bipedal herbivore the size of a small deer.
- Period
- Early Cretaceous (130–125 Mya)
- Place
- Europe · England · Isle of Wight
- Food
- Herbivore — Low-growing ferns and other soft plants, chewed quickly to escape predators.
Hypsilophodon was a small fast-running herbivore — built to flee. Long legs, light bones, big eyes for spotting trouble. For a long time scientists thought it lived in trees, but the foot anatomy turned out to be wrong for climbing. It was a ground runner, sprinting through the Early Cretaceous forests of southern England.
What we know
- Small and lightly built — about deer-sized, all running anatomy.
- Big eyes facing slightly forward, useful for spotting predators.
- Once thought to be tree-climbing — that idea was abandoned in the 1970s.
- Many skeletons known from the Isle of Wight in southern England.
What we guess
- Whether it traveled in groups for protection — likely, based on multi-individual finds.
- Top speed — bone strength models suggest 30–40 km/h.
- Whether young Iguanodon and Hypsilophodon competed for the same plant food.