Ornitholestes

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Ornitholestes hermanii (bird robber) was a small theropod dinosaur of the late Jurassic of Western Laurasia (the area that was to become North America). Almost everything known of this species comes from a single skeleton of Ornitholestes, found near Como Bluff in 1900, and described by Henry Osborn in 1903. A hand was later attributed to Ornitholestes, although this attribution is now in doubt.

Ornitholestes was a coelurosaur, similar in many ways to Compsognathus, though somewhat larger. It had small, sharp teeth and probably preyed on small animals such as lizards and mammals. Ornitholestes is sometimes illustrated with a crest on the snout (similar to that of Proceratosaurus); however this has recently been disproved by Carpenter et al, which indicated that the 'crest' was actually a broken nasal bone.

It appeared in the second episode of Walking with Dinosaurs as a main enemy of Diplodocus babies.

References

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