Microvenator

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Microvenator Fossil range: Late Cretaceous
Conservation status
Extinct (fossil)
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia Phylum: Chordata Class: Sauropsida Superorder: Dinosauria Order: Saurischia Suborder: Theropoda (unranked) Oviraptorosauria Genus: Microvenator
Binomial name
Microvenator celer Ostrom, 1970

Microvenator (meaning "tiny hunter") was a genus of dinosaur from the Early Cretaceous Cloverly Formation in what is now present-day Montana. Microvenator was the most primitive known oviraptorid theropod. Like other small theropods it probably had a carnivorous diet. Fossils most likely representing a juvenile member of the genus indicate a living length of about four feet. It is estimated that an adult animal would be closer to 10 feet long.

Barnum Brown collected the type specimen of this animal in 1933. Interestingly, he included what are now known to be Deinonychus teeth with the specimen, and thought that his new animal had a small body with an unusually large head. Thus, he informally dubbed it "Megadontosaurus" ("big-toothed lizard"). He had illustrations made of it, but never published the name, a fate shared with several other Cloverly dinosaurs which were studied and named by John Ostrom in the 1960s (Deinonychus, Sauropelta, Tenontosaurus).

[edit] References

• Norell, M.A., Gaffney, E.S., and Dingus, L. 1995. Discovering Dinosaurs in the American Museum of Natural History. Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.:New York, 204 p.
• http://www.bowdoin.edu/~dbensen/Dinosaurs/Microvenatorceler.html
• http://www.dinoruss.com/de_4/5a678eb.htm