Ornitholestes
Sign in to saveOrnitholestes (from Ancient Greek ὄρνις (órnis), meaning "bird", and λῃστής (lēistḗs), meaning "robber", and thus, "bird robber") is a small theropod dinosaur of the late Jurassic (Brushy Basin Member of the Morrison Formation, middle Kimmeridgian age, about 154 million years ago) of Western Laurasia (the area that was to become North America).
Article
9 sectionsContents
- Discovery and naming
- Description
- Classification
- Paleobiology
- Forelimb function
- Diet
- Feathers
- References
- Sources
Ornitholestes (from Ancient Greek ὄρνις (órnis), meaning "bird", and λῃστής (lēistḗs), meaning "robber", and thus, "bird robber") is a small theropod dinosaur of the late Jurassic (Brushy Basin Member of the Morrison Formation, middle Kimmeridgian age, about 154 million years ago) of Western Laurasia (the area that was to become North America).
To date, Ornitholestes is known only from a single partial skeleton with a badly crushed skull found at the Bone Cabin Quarry near Medicine Bow, Wyoming, in 1900. It was described by Henry Fairfield Osborn in 1903. An incomplete hand was later attributed to Ornitholestes, although it now appears to belong to Tanycolagreus. The type (and only known) species is O. hermanni. The specific name honors the American Museum of Natural History preparator Adam Hermann.