Compsognathus, the "Elegant Jaw," may be an adorably small creature, but it is truely an opportunistic carnivore with a bad attitude. With a length of a meter and height of half a meter, some members of the species managed to grow to the size of turkies, but not much larger. Commonly called a "compy," several fossil finds of this creature are nearly complete and very well preserved; due to the remarkable  integrity of the remains, even the contents of some Compsognathus' bellies have been fossilized. This gives paleontologists a clear idea  of its diet, which is not very  common amongst dinosaurs due to the  precarious nature of the fossil  record.  During the Late Jurassic, the  Compsognathus lived in the tropical achipelago that is now Europe.  Fossil evidence (or lack thereof)  hints that Compsognathus may have  been the only terrestrial dinosaur on the European archipelago, living  with small flying creatures like  Archaeopteryx and Rhamphorhynchus,  which occupied very different niches from its own, leaving it to be the  top land predator in the region. It preyed on small vertebrates such as lizards, which were found fossilized  in its belly. Its small frame and and long tail and limbs permitted  swift movement, which allowed it to  outrun and outmaneuver other small  creatures that would be its prey.