Shortest dinosaur genre name

The dinosaur with the shortest genus name is Yi (full binomial Yi qi), which is a non-avian dinosaur first unearthed in Hebei Province, China, in 2007. Dating to the mid to late Jurassic Period, the pigeon-sized reptile had a feathered body and unusual membranous bat-like wings, resulting in its name which translates from Mandarin as "strange wing". The species was formally described in Nature on 29 April 2015.

This beat the previous shortest dinosaur genus name of Mei for a bipedal, duck-sized troodontid dinosaur first unearthed in China in 2004. Its full binomial – Mei long – translates as "sleeping dragon".

Currently known from a single (albeit extremely well-preserved) specimen found by farmer Wang Jianrong in a quarry near Mutoudeng Village, Yi belongs to the Scansoriopterygidae family, along with three other confirmed genera to date: Epidendrosaurus (=Scansoriopteryx), Epidexipteryx and Ambopteryx.

It's unknown whether Yi qi used its wings to glide (like a flying squirrel) or flapped its wings for takeoff and manoeuvring in flight, or a combination of the two.

Yi qi is, in fact, the shortest possible binomial allowed in the current rules of laid out by the International Code for Zoological Nomenclature (Articles 11.8 and 11.9), where genus and species names must have at least two letters each. An extant species with an equally short scientific name is the great evening bat (Ia io) of eastern Asia.