Compsognathidae is a family of small, fast-moving theropods from the Late Jurassic through the Early Cretaceous, roughly 150 to 110 million years ago, with most species under 1.5 meters long. Diagnostic features include a lightly built skeleton, a long tail, grasping hands, and in several species -- most famously Sinosauropteryx from the Jehol Biota of Liaoning, China -- direct fossil evidence of simple filamentous feather-like structures preserved around the body. This makes the family central to the study of feather evolution and the broader recognition that many small theropods were feathered well before the origin of flight.
The type genus Compsognathus, from Bavaria, Germany, was for over a century known from a single small skeleton and long served as a textbook example of a compact, agile predator, likely feeding on small vertebrates and invertebrates based on preserved gut contents. Related genera such as Sinosauropteryx and Huaxiagnathus have since expanded the family's known range into East Asia, and exceptional Jehol preservation has given compsognathids an outsized influence on how paleontologists reconstruct the appearance and biology of small coelurosaurian dinosaurs generally.