page_title: Timeline of dromaeosaurid research
section_title: 2000s
hierarchical_section_title: Timeline of dromaeosaurid research / 21st century / 2000s
caption_attribution_description: English: Buitreraptor displayed at the Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto, Canada.
context_page_description: This timeline of dromaeosaurid research is a chronological listing of events in the history of paleontology focused on the dromaeosaurids, a group of sickle-clawed, bird-like theropod dinosaurs including animals like Velociraptor. Since the Native Americans of Montana used the sediments of the Cloverly Formation to produce pigments, they may have encountered remains of the dromaeosaurid Deinonychus hundreds of years before these fossils came to the attention of formally trained scientists.
  In 1922 Matthew and Brown named the new genus and species Dromaeosaurus albertensis, considering it a new type within the family Deinodontidae, a now-defunct family name that once applied to the tyrannosaurs. Not long after, Velociraptor was discovered in Mongolia by the Central Asiatic Expedition. Dromaeosaur research was fairly quiet until the 1960s, when John Ostrom described the new genus and species Deinonychus antirrhopus. This discovery played a major role in setting off the Dinosaur Renaissance because Deinonychus was obviously a vigorous, active animal, and exhibited characteristics linking it to the origin of birds.
context_section_description: 2000
  Burnham and others described the new genus and species Bambiraptor feinbergorum.
  Xu, Zhou and Wang described the new genus and species Microraptor zhaoianus.
  Allain and Taquet described the new genus and species Pyroraptor olympius.
  2001
  A. R. Jacobsen published a description of a dentary referred to Saurornitholestes with tooth marks. The specimen was preserved in the Dinosaur Park Formation. Although a specific identification cannot be made, the shape of the preserved serration marks implicate a juvenile individual of one of the formation's tyrannosaurids, like Gorgosaurus, Daspletosaurus, or Aublysodon. All of the marks on the jawbone seem to have been left by the same animal because the serration marks all share the same morphology.
  Kevin Padian, Ji Qiang and Ji Shu-an published a review of known feathered dinosaurs and their implications for the origin of flight. The authors observed that many aspects of the distribution of feather homologues in the dinosaur family tree met the expectations of earlier phylogenetic hypotheses, including a gradual transition from primitive filaments in Sinosauropteryx to the shared filaments and "rudimentary" true feathers in Caudipteryx and Protarchaeopteryx, to flight feathers in Archaeopteryx. However, they also noted, only filamentous protofeathers had been observed in dromaeosaurs like Sinornithosaurus, when Caudipteryx-style true feathers would be expected due to the family's phylogenetic position. Also noted were the lack of known integumentary structures among troodontids. The authors proposed that either science's understanding of coelurosaur evolution is faulty or feathers evolved multiple times.
  2002
  Hwang and others performed a cladistic analysis of the Dromaeosauridae.
  Xu and others performed a cladistic analysis of the Dromaeosauridae.
  Czerkas and others described the new genus and species Cryptovolans pauli.
  2003
  Christiansen and Bonde described the new genus and species Dromaeosauroides bornholmensis.
  2004
  Currie and Varricchio described the new genus and species Atrociraptor marshalli.
  Xu and Wang described the new genus and species Graciliraptor lujiatunensis.
  2005
  Makovicky, Apesteguía and Agnolin described the new genus and species Buitreraptor gonzalezorum.
  Novas and Pol described the new genus and species Neuquenraptor argentinus.
  2006
  Norell and others described the new genus and species Tsaagan mangas.
  2007
  Lü and others described the new genus and species Luanchuanraptor henanensis.
  Turner and others described the new genus and species Mahakala omnogovae.
  A. S. Turner, S. H. Hwang, and M. A. Norell described the new genus and species Shanag ashile.
  2008
  Novas et al. described the new genus and species Austroraptor cabazai.
  2009
  Longrich and Currie described the new genus and species Hesperonychus elizabethae.
caption: Skeletal mount of Buitreraptor
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