# Gallimimus bullatus

> The largest known ornithomimid, an "ostrich dinosaur" about 6 m long from the Late Cretaceous of Mongolia. Toothless and long-legged, it was probably a fast runner, and it is famous for the flocking scene in Jurassic Park.

- Classification: Dinosauria (clade) > Saurischia (clade) > Theropoda (clade) > Coelurosauria (clade) > Ornithomimosauria (clade) > Ornithomimidae (family) > Gallimimus (genus) > Gallimimus bullatus (species)
- Length: 6 m
- Hip height: 1.9 m
- Mass: 400–490 kg
- Age: 72.1–66 million years ago (Late Cretaceous)
- Fossils found in: Nemegt Formation (Ömnögovi Province); Mongolia
- Diet: omnivore
- Described: Halszka Osmólska, Ewa Roniewicz & Rinchen Barsbold, 1972
- In films: Jurassic Park (1993), The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997), Jurassic World (2015), Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (2018), Jurassic World Dominion (2022)

Canonical page: https://dinodex.club/dinosaurs/gallimimus-bullatus
Last updated: 2026-09-27

## Overview

Gallimimus bullatus lived in the Nemegt Formation of Mongolia at the end of the Cretaceous. The Polish-Mongolian expeditions of 1963-1965 found many ornithomimid skeletons of different ages in the Nemegt Basin; the largest, found by Zofia Kielan-Jaworowska at Tsagan Khushu in 1964, became the holotype when Halszka Osmólska, Ewa Roniewicz and Rinchen Barsbold named the species in 1972.

It had a small, toothless head with a horny beak, a long neck, short arms with three clawed fingers and long hind legs built for running. Adults were about 6 m long. Feathers have not been found with Gallimimus, but they are known from its relative Ornithomimus.

What it ate is debated. Soft-tissue beaks of ornithomimids described by Norell, Makovicky and Currie (2001) suggested straining food from water or sediment, while others see an omnivore or plant-eater. It is the most common ornithomimid of the Nemegt, alongside Deinocheirus and Tarbosaurus.

## Name meaning

"Chicken mimic", from Latin gallus, for neck vertebrae like those of galliform birds; bullatus from the Roman bulla, for a bulb-shaped structure at the base of the skull (Osmólska et al. 1972).

## Sources

1. (2026). Paleobiology Database: Gallimimus bullatus occurrences and type collection 38704. The Paleobiology Database (paleobiodb.org), data service 1.2, accessed 2026-09-23. https://paleobiodb.org/data1.2/occs/list.txt?taxon_name=Gallimimus%20bullatus&show=coords,paleoloc,strat,loc,ref&pgm=gplates
2. (2026). Wikipedia: Gallimimus. Wikipedia (English), accessed 2026-09-24. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gallimimus
3. Cohen, K. M., Harper, D. A. T., Gibbard, P. L. & Car, N. (2023). International Chronostratigraphic Chart (v2023/09). International Commission on Stratigraphy. https://stratigraphy.org/ICSchart/ChronostratChart2023-09.pdf
4. Norell, M. A., Makovicky, P. J. & Currie, P. J. (2001). The beaks of ostrich dinosaurs. Nature 412: 873-874. https://doi.org/10.1038/35091139
5. Osmólska, H., Roniewicz, E. & Barsbold, R. (1972). A new dinosaur, Gallimimus bullatus n. gen., n. sp. (Ornithomimidae) from the Upper Cretaceous of Mongolia. Palaeontologia Polonica 27: 103-143.

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Cite as: "Gallimimus bullatus". DinoDex. https://dinodex.club/dinosaurs/gallimimus-bullatus (updated 2026-09-27).