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''Bambiraptor'' is a Late Cretaceous, 72-million-year-old, bird-like dromaeosaurid theropod dinosaur described by scientists at the University of Kansas, Yale University, and the University of New Orleans. The holotype fossil is less than one meter long, although this specimen appears to be a juvenile,〔()〕 and it is possible that ''Bambiraptor'' is really just a juvenile ''Saurornitholestes''. Because of its small size, it was named ''Bambiraptor feinbergi'', after the familiar Disney movie character and the surname of the wealthy family who bought and lent the specimen to the new Graves Museum of Natural History in Florida. ==Discovery== The ''Bambiraptor'' skeleton was discovered in 1993 by 14-year-old fossil hunter Wes Linster, who was looking for dinosaur bones with his parents near Glacier National Park in Montana, United States. Linster told ''Time Magazine'' that he uncovered the skeleton on a tall hill and was amazed at his discovery. "I bolted down the hill to get my mom because I knew I shouldn't be messing with it", he said. The bones that Linster discovered on that hilltop led to the excavation of a skeleton that was approximately 95 percent complete. Because of its completeness Florida Paleontology Institute Director Martin Shugar compared it to the 'Rosetta Stone' that enabled archaeologists to translate Egyptian hieroglyphics. Yale paleontologist John Ostrom, who reintroduced the theory of bird evolution from dinosaurs after his 1964 discovery of ''Deinonychus'' in Wyoming, agreed, calling the specimen a "jewel", and telling reporters that the completeness and undistorted qualities of the bones should help scientists further understand the dinosaur-bird link. The fossil first was seen as the young of ''Saurornitholestes'' and in 1997 reported as belonging to a ''Velociraptor'' sp.〔Burnham, D.A., Derstler K.L. and Linster, W., 1997, "A new specimen of ''Velociraptor'' (Dinosauria: Theropoda) from the Two Medicine Formation of Montana", ''Dinofest International Proceedings''. pp 73-75〕 In 2000 it was named and described by David Burnham, Kraig Derstler, Phil Currie, Robert Bakker, Zhou Zhonge and John Ostrom as a separate species: ''Bambiraptor feinbergi''. The generic name is derived from Bambi, in reference to the young age of the specimen, and a Latin ''raptor'', "seizer". The specific epithet honours Michael and Ann Feinberg who acquired the specimen from a fossil dealer and made it available to science.〔Burnham, D.A., Derstler, K.L., Currie, P.J., Bakker, R.T., Zhou Z. & Ostrom J. H., 2000. "Remarkable new birdlike dinosaur (Theropoda: Maniraptora) from the Upper Cretaceous of Montana", ''University of Kansas Paleontological Contributions'' 13: 1-14〕 In 2000 George Olshevsky suggested the emended epithet "feinbergorum", the plural genitive, and this was followed by some authors but such emendations are no longer allowed by the ICZN. The holotype specimen AMNH FR 30556 (previously AMNH 001 and FIP 001, sometimes wrongly referred to as AMNH FR 30554), was uncovered in layers of the Upper Two Medicine Formation dating to the late Campanian. It is currently housed at the American Museum of Natural History, New York. It consists of a partially articulated largely complete skeleton with skull of a juvenile individual. Though the right side of the skeleton is damaged, most bones are uncompressed and well-preserved. The end of the tail is lacking. Also a paratype was assigned in 2000, FIP 002-136, consisting of thirty-four skeletal elements of at least two adult individuals found near the holotype. In 2004 an upper jaw bone was referred to the species, specimen MOR 553S-7-30-91-274. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Bambiraptor」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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