Stenonychosaurus

What it was like

Stenonychosaurus was a small, lightly built theropod, an omnivore that ate both plants and animals. It had unusually large eyes for its size, hinting at good eyesight, and a proportionally large brain, one of the biggest among dinosaurs relative to body size. Its narrow, curved claws gave the genus its name. It grew to about 2.5 meters (8 feet) long, walked on two long legs built for speed, and had grasping hands well suited to catching small prey.

Its world

Stenonychosaurus lived in what is now Alberta, Canada, and parts of Montana and Wyoming in the United States, from about 84 to 66 million years ago, right up to the end of the Cretaceous. It shared its habitat with the swift Struthiomimus, the sickle-clawed Dromaeosaurus, and much larger predators such as Tyrannosaurus, as well as the horned Triceratops and the thick-skulled Pachycephalosaurus.

How it was found

Sternberg named Stenonychosaurus in 1932, and it has had a complicated history since, at times classified as the same animal as Troodon before later studies restored it as its own genus. Around 14 fossil finds are known today, spread across the Dinosaur Park, Oldman, and Lance formations.