"Mahakala" is both the most primitive dromaeosaur ever described and the smallest. This evidence, and "Microraptor" and the troodontid "Anchiornis", suggests the common ancestor of dromaeosaurs, troodontids, and birds – the 'ancestral paravian' – may have been very small, at around 65 cm in length and 600 to 700 grams of mass.