Saurornitholestes

Saurornitholestes
	Drawing life reconstruction of Saurornitholestes
Temporal occurrence
	Upper Cretaceous (late Campanium )
	76.4 to 72 million years
Locations
	North America;
Systematics
	Lizard dinosaur (Saurischia)
	Theropoda
	Tetanurae
	Coelurosauria
	Dromaeosauridae
	Saurornitholestes
Scientific name
	Saurornitholestes
	Suez , 1978
species
	Saurornitholestes langstoni Sues, 1978 ; Saurornitholestes robustus Sullivan, 2006 ;

Saurornitholestes ("lizard-bird-robber") is a genus of small theropod dinosaur from the Upper Cretaceous of North America.

Some incomplete skeletons and many individual bones and teeth were found in Dinosaur Provincial Park in the Canadian province of Alberta and are on display at the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Palaeontology . Judging by the number of finds, it appears to have been the most common Dromaeosauridae . The fossils are dated to the late Campanian and are thus around 76 to 72 million years old.

features

Skeleton of Saurornitholestes in the Museum of the Rockies in Bozeman , Montana

As with other theropods from the Dromaeosauridae family, the second toe of the Saurornitholestes' foot was designed as a large sickle claw. Saurornitholestes had a long neck, was about the size of a coyote, and probably closely related to Velociraptor .

A Saurornitholestes tooth was found in a wing bone of the giant pterosaur Quetzalcoatlus . It is not known whether he actually killed the much larger animal or ate carcass from a carcass.

literature

Robert M. Sullivan: Saurornitholestes robustus, n. Sp. (Theropoda: Dromaeosauridae) from the Upper Cretaceous Kirtland Formation (De-Na-Zin Member), San Juan Basin, New Mexico. In: Spencer G. Lucas, Robert M. Sullivan (eds.): Late cretaceous vertebrates from the western interior (= New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science. Bulletin. 35, ISSN 1524-4156 ). New Mexico Museum of Natural History & Science, Albuquerque NM 2006, pp. 253-256, digitized .
Philip J. Currie & David C. Evans. Cranial Anatomy of New Specimens of Saurornitholestes langstoni (Dinosauria, Theropoda, Dromaeosauridae) from the Dinosaur Park Formation (Campanian) of Alberta. Anatomical Record, published online September 9, 2019; doi: 10.1002 / ar.24241

Web links

Commons : Saurornitholestes - Collection of images, videos and audio files

^ Gregory S. Paul : The Princeton Field Guide To Dinosaurs. Princeton University Press, Princeton NJ et al. 2010, ISBN 978-0-691-13720-9 , online .

[paul_10-1] Gregory S. Paul : The Princeton Field Guide To Dinosaurs. Princeton University Press, Princeton NJ et al. 2010, ISBN 978-0-691-13720-9 , online .