Raptor Finger Bone
Age: 80/74 Million Years Old
Cretaceous Era
Species: Saurornitholestes
Specimen: Metacarpal
Discovered: Montana, Two Medicine Formation
Finger Bone Measures 2.5' Long
 
Saurornitholestes ("lizard-bird thief") is a genus of carnivorous dromaeosaurid theropod dinosaur from the late Cretaceous of Canada (Alberta) and the United States (Montana, New Mexico, Alabama, North Carolina, and South Carolina).
Two species have been named: Saurornitholestes langstoni in 1978 and Saurornitholestes sullivani in 2015. Saurornitholestes was a small bipedal meat-eating dinosaur, equipped with a sickle-claw on the foot.
 
Saurornitholestes was about 1.8 m (5 ft 11 in) long and weighed approximately 10 kg (22 lb). At the hip it stood 60 cm (2 ft) tall. Like other theropods in the 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.