Bambiraptor

***Bambiraptor*** (meaning "Bambi thief") is one of the most important fossils found in North America. This little bird-like dinosaur was a very quick hunter, and it may have been an important step in dinosaurs' evolution into birds. Scientists believe that feathers and fuzz covered its body. The fuzz would have been like the downy covering on baby birds.

*Bambiraptor* had quite a few features in common with modern birds. It had a wishbone, something all modern birds have that allow them to flap their wings, and its arms and hands were very long for its body size. In fact, the length of its arms and hands approached the lengths needed for flight. It also had an ossified sternum, a bone that is essential for birds to be able to move their wings for flying. Even with these similarities, however, there is no doubt that *Bambiraptor* was still a dinosaur from the raptor family. It had the killer claw on its foot like *Velociraptor*, and it had a mouth full of sharp teeth. It is considered by many to be the North American version of *Archaeopteryx*.

Clearly a short step away from its European relative, this specimen is an exceptionally important piece of the bird/dinosaur puzzle. With more than 90 percent of the animal discovered, along with the remains of what may be a second individual, this specimen will continue to provide insight into the evolution of birds.

## Description

While adult specimens are known, only the type specimen, a juvenile, has been described. This juvenile *Bambiraptor* has a preserved length of 90 centimetres (3.0 ft), and an estimated total length of one metre. It perhaps weighed only two kilograms (4.4 lb). In 2010 Gregory S. Paul estimated the adult length at 1.3 metres (4.3 ft), the weight at five kilogrammes. It had long hindlimbs, indicating it could have been a fast runner. It also had very long arms and a well-developed wishbone.

### Forelimbs

Research done by Phil Senter of the Lamar State College in Orange, Texas has indicated that *Bambiraptor* may have had mutually opposable first and third fingers and a forelimb maneuverability that would allow the hand to reach its mouth. This would have given the animal the ability to "hold" food in its front limbs and place it in its mouth, in a similar manner to some modern-day small mammals.

### Brain

*Bambiraptor* had a brain size in the lower range of modern birds. Because of its enlarged cerebellum, which may indicate higher agility and higher intelligence than other dromaeosaurs, David A. Burnham has hypothesized that *Bambiraptor feinbergi* may have been arboreal. Life in the trees may have required evolutionary pressure that resulted in a larger brain. Burnham also offers an alternative hypothesis that a larger brain could be selected for as a result of hunting more agile prey items such as lizards and mammals. The *Bambiraptor* holotype had with 14 cm³ the largest brain for its size of any dinosaur yet discovered, although the brain size may be due to its age, because juvenile animals tend to have larger brain-to-body ratios compared to adults.

### Feathers

During the conference where *Bambiraptor* was first introduced, the dinosaur reconstruction specialist Brian Cooley portrayed *Bambiraptor* as having feathers, despite the fact that no feathers were found with the fossil itself. His decision was influenced by the fact that because *Bambiraptor* within a cladistic analysis was a member of a group, Paraves, that contained feathered true birds and that was the sister taxon of Oviraptorosauria, a group that also had feathered forms (e.g. *Caudipteryx*), *Bambiraptor* most likely had feathers too due to phylogenetic bracketing. Most paleontologists support Cooley's view, and subsequent discoveries confirmed that small dromaeosaurid dinosaurs like *Bambiraptor* were fully covered in feathers (see Dromaeosauridae for more information).

## *Bambiraptor* in The Amazing Dinosaur Adventure

A trio of *Bambiraptor* from the opening narration to *The Time of the Great Giving*