Pronounced “See-low-FY-sis,” the name literally means “hollow form.” It is the combination of two Greek words, koilos (hollow) and phisis (form), referring to the hollow bones of this meat-eating dinosaur. Coelophysis was a small theropod dinosaur (up to 9.8 feet/3 metres long). Theropods were the meat-eating dinosaurs, and range from Coelophysis, one of the earliest theropods of the Late Triassic, to Tyrannosaurus, one of the last theropods of the Late Cretaceous. Known from hundreds of skeletons found at Ghost Ranch, New Mexico, Coelophysis is one of the best known theropod dinosaurs. The Triassic dinosaur Coelophysis is world famous because thousands of skeletons of this early dinosaur were found in a fossil bone bed at Ghost Ranch in Rio Arriba County, New Mexico. Known only from New Mexico, Coelophysis is a uniquely New Mexican dinosaur. On March 17, 1981, the New Mexico State Legislature designated Coelophysis as the Official State Fossil of New Mexico.