page_title: Hesperonychus
section_title: Description
hierarchical_section_title: Hesperonychus / Description
caption_attribution_description: English: Hesperonychus elizabethae, Late Cretaceous of Canada. Digital.
context_page_description: Hesperonychus was a small, carnivorous dinosaur. It was a member of the family Dromaeosauridae, along with its larger relatives Deinonychus and Velociraptor. There is one described species, Hesperonychus elizabethae. The type species was named in honor of Dr. Elizabeth Nicholls of the Royal Tyrell Museum of Paleontology who collected it as a student in 1982. It is known from fossils recovered from the lowermost strata of the Dinosaur Park Formation of Alberta, dating to the late Cretaceous about 76.5 million years ago. Though known from partial remains, Longrich and Currie estimated its total length at under one meter and weight at about 2 kilograms, making it the smallest carnivorous dinosaur known from North America.
context_section_description: Hesperonychus is known from one partial pelvic girdle, holotype specimen UALVP 48778, collected by  Dr. Elizabeth Nicholls in Dinosaur Provincial Park in 1982. The fossil remained undescribed, however, until Nick Longrich and Phil Currie published on it in 2009. A number of very small toe bones, including "sickle claws", in the collection of the Royal Tyrrell Museum may also belong to Hesperonychus. The gracile appearance of these toe bones makes it unlikely that they belonged to a member of Eudromaeosauria. Despite their small size, the pubic bones were fused, a characteristic of adult dinosaurs, indicating that the specimen does not represent a juvenile of a known species.
caption: Life restoration
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