Meet Shuvuuia deserti, a nocturnal dinosaur that lived 70 million years ago

It was a pheasant-sized, two-legged Cretaceous Period dinosaur weighing about as much as a small house cat.

Under the cover of darkness in desert habitats about 70 million years ago, in what is today Mongolia and northern China, a gangly looking dinosaur employed excellent night vision and superb hearing to thrive as a menacing pint-sized nocturnal predator. Scientists said on Thursday an examination of a ring of bones surrounding the pupil and a bony tube inside the skull that houses the hearing organ showed that this dinosaur, called Shuvuuia deserti, boasted visual and auditory capabilities akin to a barn owl, indicating it could it hunt in total darkness. , published in the journal Science, showed that predatory dinosaurs overall generally possessed better-than-average hearing — helpful for hunters — but had vision optimized for daytime. In contrast, Shuvuuia loved the nightlife.