DEINONYCHUS SKULL

Deinonychus skull. Replica. From the vicious raptor killer of herbivore dinosaurs of Cretaceous Montana and Wyoming. 1:1 Scale, 12.5-in/32cm.Deinonychus was a genus of carnivorous dromaeosaurid dinosaur. There is one described species, Deinonychus antirrhopus. This 3.4 metre (11 ft) long dinosaur lived during the early Cretaceous Period (Aptian - Albian stages, 121 to 98.9 million years ago). Fossils have been recovered from the U.S. states of Montana, Wyoming and Oklahoma, though teeth that may belong to Deinonychus have been found much farther east in Maryland.

“Terrible claw” refers to the unusually large, sickle-shaped talon on the second toe of each hind foot, which was probably held retracted while the dinosaur walked on the third and fourth toes. It was commonly thought that Deinonychus would kick with the sickle claw to slash at its prey but recent tests on reconstructions of similar Velociraptor talons suggest that the claw was used to stab, not slash. The species name antirrhopus means “counter balance”, which refers to John Ostrom's idea about the function of the tail. As in other dromaeosaurids, the tail vertebrae have a series of ossified tendons and super - elongated bone processes. These features seemed to make the tail into a stiff counterbalance, but a fossil of the very closely related Velociraptor mongoliensis (IGM 100/986) has an articulated tail skeleton that is curved laterally in a long S – shape. This suggests that, in life, the tail could swish to the sides with a high degree of flexibility. In both the Cloverly and Antlers Formation, Deinonychus remains have been found closely associated with those of the ornithopod Tenontosaurus. Teeth discovered associated with Tenontosaurus specimens imply it was hunted or at least scavenged upon by Deinonychus.