Saurornitholestes

Saurornitholestes ("lizard-bird thief") is a genus of coyote-sized carnivorous dromaeosaurid dinosaur from the Upper Cretaceous (Upper Campanian stage) of Alberta, Canada. Several partial skeletons, dozens of isolated bones, and scores of teeth are known from the badlands of Dinosaur Provincial Park in Alberta; most of these are housed at the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Palaeontology, in Drumheller, Alberta.

Like other theropods in the family Dromaeosauridae, Saurornitholestes had a long, curving, blade-like claw on the second toe. Saurornitholestes was more long-legged and lightly built than other dromaeosaurids such as Velociraptor and Dromaeosaurus. It resembles Velociraptor in having large, fanglike teeth in the front of the jaws. Saurornitholestes most closely resembles Velociraptor, although the precise relationships of the Dromaeosauridae are still relatively poorly understood.

Saurornitholestes appears to have been the most common small theropod in Dinosaur Provincial Park, and teeth and bones are much more common than those of its more massive contemporary, Dromaeosaurus. Little is known about what it ate and how it lived, but a tooth of Saurornitholestes has been found embedded in the wing bone of a large pterosaur, probably a juvenile Quetzalcoatlus. Because the pterosaur was so much larger than Saurornitholestes, Currie and Jacobsen suggest that the theropod was probably scavenging the remains of an already dead animal.

Similar teeth are found in younger deposits, but whether they represent S. langstoni or a different, related species is unknown.