Dromaeosaurus

Scientific Classification

Kingdom: Animalia

Phylum: Chordata

Clade: Dinosauria

Clade: Saurischia

Clade: Theropoda

Family: Dromaeosauridae

Clade: Eudromaeosauria

Subfamily: Dromaeosaurinae

Genus: Dromaeosaurus

Type Species: Dromaeosaurus albertensis meaning "Running Lizard."

Described by William Diller Matthew and Barnum Brown, 1922

Current Park Population: (5; 3 adults, 2 adolescents; 2 male, 3 female)

Park Diet: Pre-killed cattle, sheep, goat, and thawed rats.

Natural Diet: Small mammals, insects, reptiles, amphibians, birds, and dinosaurs, and in groups medium-sized dinosaurs like Ornithomimus and Pachycephalosaurus and young dinosaurs of Ceratopsids and Hadrosaurs

Lifespan: 18 years

Habitat: Open Floodplain, Swamps, Open Canopy Forests, and Conifer Forests.

Native Ecosystem: Western North America, on what was then an island continent known as Laramidia. Dinosaur Park Formation, possibly Hell Creek Formation, Prince Creek Formation, Ojo Alamo Formation, Aguja Formation, and Javelina Formation, Alberta, Canada, Montana, Alaska, and possibly New Mexico and Texas, USA, 80-69.1 to possibly 66 Million Years Ago, Campanian-Maastrichtian Stage.

Breeding Season: Mat-August

Gestation Period: Two-Three Months

Eggs Laid: 8-20 eggs

Hatching Time: Two-Three weeks

Danger Level: 8 out of 10.

Summary: One of the most cunning and intelligent of Dinosaurs would be the Dromaeosaurs. This family of theropods commonly referred to as Raptors are known for their bird-like appearances, intelligence in hunting, and their infamous sickle claws. These include the famous Velociraptor, Deinonychus, Utahraptor, Dakotaraptor, and even some becoming more familiar to the public like Austroraptor, Kuru Kulla, Atrociraptor, and Pyroraptor. The Raptor that started it all was Dromaeosaurus the first one discovered and the namesake of the theropod family. Dromaeosaurus is the type genus of both Dromaeosauridae and Dromaeosaurinae, which include many genera with similar characteristics to Dromaeosaurus such as possibly its closest relative Dakotaraptor. Dromaeosaurus was heavily built, more so than other dromaeosaurs that are similar in size, like Velociraptor. This Dromaeosaur theropod plays an important role in Paleo Park history.

"Look, raptors like Dromaeosaurus get a bad rap because people don't understand that they are, and will always be, top predators. Our job is to help them... the raptors... understand that we are as well." -Charlie Yeager.

Discovery and Naming: Despite receiving widespread attention in popular books on dinosaurs, and the usage of a complete mounted skeleton cast in museums throughout the world, Dromaeosaurus is poorly known from actual fossils. The preparation of the popular cast by the Tyrrell Museum was only made possible by knowledge gained from other dromaeosaurids that have been discovered more recently.

The first known Dromaeosaurus remains were discovered by paleontologist Barnum Brown during a 1914 expedition to Red Deer River on behalf of the American Museum of Natural History. The area where these bones were collected is now part of Dinosaur Provincial Park in Alberta, Canada. The find, holotype AMNH 5356, consisted of a partial skull 24 cm (9+1⁄2 in) in length, a mandible, two hyoids, a first metacarpal, and some foot bones. The skull lacked most of the top of the snout. Several other skull fragments, and about thirty isolated teeth, are known from subsequent discoveries in Alberta and Montana.

In 1922 William Diller Matthew and Brown named and described the type species of Dromaeosaurus: Dromaeosaurus albertensis. The generic name is derived from the Greek δρομεύς (dromeus) meaning 'runner' and σαύρος (sauros) meaning 'lizard'. The specific name, "albertensis", refers to Alberta.

Another seven species of Dromaeosaurus were named: Dromaeosaurus laevifrons (Cope 1876) Matthew & Brown 1922; Dromaeosaurus cristatus (Cope 1876) Matthew & Brown 1922 (Troodon); Dromaeosaurus? gracilis (Marsh 1888) Matthew & Brown 1922; Dromaeosaurus explanatus (Cope 1876) Kuhn 1939; Dromaeosaurus minutus (Marsh 1892) Russell 1972 (an alvarezsaurid); Dromaeosaurus falculus (Cope 1876) Olshevsky 1979 and Dromaeosaurus mongoliensis (Barsbold 1983) Paul 1988 (Adasaurus). Most of them were based on fragmentary material, some belonging to other genera, and far less complete than that of Dromaeosaurus albertensis, and those that haven't been reclassified are considered nomina dubia today. Nevertheless, it has grown apparent that Dromaeosaurus albertensis is even rarer in its habitat than other small theropods, although it was the first dromaeosaurid of which reasonably good cranial material was described. The genus Chirostenotes was once considered to be synonymous with Dromaeosaurus at one point in time.

Description: Adults are normally six feet long with short, muscular arms, a grayscale snout that is black-tipped, and covered with dark gray feathers, the head was black, with white stripes running down the sides of the necks from the eye region to the belly which was white, iridescent aqua green spots dotted the body, a dark gold eyering, the front portion of the leg is black grading down with white with black-barred stripings, the wings were black with black tips with a row of white spots on the primary feathers, with three grasping fingered curved claws, that looked vicious. The three-toed feet were featherless and gray; the second toe was tipped with the large iconic, sickle-shaped claw, and its long tail with gray black tipped feather coverts, ringed with white plumes tipped with black on the tail feathers.

Males have two long tail plumes normally used for courtship.

Juveniles are identical to the adults but are covered in dark brown feathers.

Chicks are completely covered with dark brown downy fluff.

Dromaeosaurus was a medium-sized carnivore, about 2 m (6 ft 7 in) in length and 16 kg (35 lb) in body mass. Its mouth was full of sharp teeth, and it probably would have had a sharply curved "sickle claw" on each foot. It lived during the Campanian stage of the Late Cretaceous. However, some fragmentary remains such as teeth that may belong to this genus have been found from the late Maastrichtian age Hell Creek and Lance Formations, dating to 66 million years ago. Teeth have also been found in the Aguja Formation.

Skull: Dromaeosaurus had a relatively robust skull with a deep snout. Its teeth were rather large and were shaped like a curved cone with a coat of enamel covering the crown. It had only nine teeth in each maxilla. Dromaeosaurus also had a vein at the back of the head, the vena capitis dorsalis, that drained the front neck muscles through two long canals running to the posterior surface of the brain. The Meckelian groove of Dromaeosaurus is rather shallow and does not have much depth.

Classification: Matthew and Brown originally placed Dromaeosaurus to its own subfamily, the Dromaeosaurinae, within the "Deinodontidae" (now known as Tyrannosauridae) based on some similarities in the general proportions of the skull. In 1969, John H. Ostrom recognized that Dromaeosaurus shared many features with Velociraptor and the newly discovered Deinonychus, and assigned these forms to a new family: Dromaeosauridae. Since then, many new relatives of Dromaeosaurus have been found.

The exact relationships of Dromaeosaurus are somewhat unclear. Although its rugged build gives it a primitive appearance, it was actually a very specialized animal. In an analysis of the clade Dromaeosaurinae, species such as Utahraptor, Achillobator, and Yurgovuchia have been recovered. The genus Dakotaraptor has been classified as the sister taxon to Dromaeosaurus, but more recent analyses do not recover such a close relationship.

Paleobiology: Dromaeosaurus differs from most of its relatives in having a short, massive skull, a deep mandible, and robust teeth. The teeth tend to be more heavily worn than those of its relative Saurornitholestes, suggesting that its jaws were used for crushing and tearing rather than simply slicing through flesh. Therrien et al. (2005) estimated that Dromaeosaurus had a bite nearly three times as powerful as that of Velociraptor and suggested it relied more on its jaws than on the sickle claw to kill its prey.[18] In a study predominantly centered around Shuvuuia, Dromaeosaurus was compared to the former and also to Tyrannosaurus, in which both Dromaeosaurus and Tyrannosaurus were discovered to be diurnal predators.

Social Behavior: They live alone or in family packs led by the dominant pair, their offspring, and rare cases, the dominant pair's parents or siblings. Although dromaeosaurs are depicted as being social, they are more opportunistically gregarious rather than closely knit, somewhat like modern coyotes and birds of prey.

Diet: They normally prey on small animals ranging from Small mammals, insects, reptiles, amphibians, birds, and dinosaurs, and in family groups, they can team up to take down medium-sized dinosaurs like Ornithomimus and Pachycephalosaurus and young dinosaurs of Ceratopsids and Hadrosaurs.

Feeding Strategies: Dromaeosaurus' feeding habits were also discovered to be typical of coelurosaurian theropods, with a characteristic "puncture and pull" feeding method. Studies of wear patterns on the teeth of this animal by Angelica Torices et al. in a study regarding theropod feeding habits indicate that dromaeosaurid teeth share similar wear patterns to those seen in the tyrannosauridae and troodontidae, respectively. However, micro-wear on the teeth indicated that Dromaeosaurus likely preferred larger prey items than the troodontids it shared its environment with. Such differentiations in its diet likely allowed the theropod to inhabit the same environment as its more distant maniraptoran relatives. The same study also indicated that both Dromaeosaurus and Saurornitholestes (also analyzed in the study) likely included bone in their diet and were better adapted to handle the stresses associated with attacking struggling prey while troodontids, equipped with weaker jaws, preyed on softer animals and prey items such as invertebrates and carrion. This feeding strategy and ability to handle struggling prey was also a feature that the theropod also shared with tyrannosaurids such as Gorgosaurus, which was also analyzed in the said study alongside these smaller theropods.

A pack of Dromaeosauruss would intimidate and spook a herd of hadrosaurs like Edmontosaurus crossing a rushing river in hopes a victim would drown from the crossing for the Dromaeosaurs to feed upon on.

Interactions with other species: They prey on small animals including mammals like Didelphodon although these mammals can pack a bite and are fearless.

They prey on small dinosaurs like Leptoceratops, Thescelosaurus, and Trierarchuncus, in packs they would hunt Pachycephalosaurus and Ornithomimus, and the young of Triceratops, Torosaurus, Edmontosaurus, Alamosaurus, and Ankylosaurus.

These Herbivores do have defenses against Dromaeosaurus, Leptoceratops, and Thescelsoaurus and retreat to their burrows to hide. Leptoceratops are tough would bite back with their sharp teeth and their frills as a shield and a plug when hiding in their burrows. Thescelosaurus would claw the Dromaeosaurs with their forearm spurs, kick with their legs, bite with their sharp beaks, and dig out dirt at the Dromaeosaurus while in the burrow.

Pachycephalosaurus and Ornithomimus would run off as their main defense their secondary defense Pachycephalosaurus would use their dome heads to ram their opponents and bite with their sharp beaks while Ornithomimus would fight back with their claw arms and a blow kick from their strong legs.

Triceratops, Torosaurus, Edmontosaurus, Alamosaurus, and Ankylosaurus will trample and charge at the Dromaeosaurs to defend their young, the Dromaeosaurus must be careful from being gored by the horns of a Triceratops or Torosaurus, the Forelimbs punches and whipping tails of Edmontosaurus and Alamosaurus, and the Ankylosaurus club-tail.

Tyrannosaurus see them as a food source, a nuisance when scavenging their kills, and a threat to their young same as Acheroraptor and Pectinodon. Acheroraptor are seen as a source of food while Pectinodons are competitors towards Dromaeosaurus although they avoid one another way depending on what time of day they hunt Dromaeosaurus are diurnal predators while Pectinodon are nocturnal.

Extinction: Dromaeosaurus would have become extinct due to new predators that compete with them, changing climate-altering their environment, and armored herbivores that can counter their attacks. Although there are teeth remains from Hell Creek Formation meaning if they did survive the K-PG Mass Extinction. It would have been one of the last dinosaurs to go extinct as the lack of prey due to the lack of vegetation would lead to predators like Dromaeosaurus and Tyrannosaurus starving to death.

Danger Tip: Of course, these are dangerous predators. Their round pupil eyes, sickle claws, sharp teeth, clawed arms, intelligence, and group hunting make them very dangerous animals to work with despite their medium size. They are very wary of strangers except those they trust like their handlers who also must be careful.

Significant Events: On the third day of the Team's First Rescue Mission while escaping a male T. Rex, Charlie Yeager meets a Dinilysia Snake and a Male Dromaeosaurus who are hiding from the Tyrannosaurus. The Male Dromaeosaurus runs out of the log prompting the T. Rex to chase the raptor as a distraction allowing Charlie and the Dinilysia to escape. On the fourth and final day, the Rescue Team encounters the same male Dromaeosaurus and his family pack including his mother, mate, and two juveniles. Charlie used beef jerky to lure the pack to the portal and they now reside in one of the two Hell Creek Carnivore Paddocks alongside T. Rex Kingdom and planned to be trained for Security Reasons.

Hell Creek Carnivore Paddock: The Dromaeosaurus paddock consists of bushes, trees, shrubs, a pond, and a few bare clearings. There is a separate training demonstration paddock in which Charlie is training the Dromaeosaurus for security purposes for the park.

Security Raptor Squad Program: Due to their medium size, intelligence, trust towards Charlie, and easier to handle, Charlie is now experimenting with using the Dromaeosaurus as another form of security to capture escaped animals or spies. Right now, He is clicker training them to follow his commands.

Notable Individuals:

Jim: An male Dromaeosaurus of the pack, and forms a bond with Charlie Yeager and is part of the Raptor Squad security Team alongside his pack.

Larisa: A Female Dromaeosaurus and mate to Jim.

Fury: A young female Dromaeosaurus and daughter of Jim and Larisa.

Dante: A young male Dromaeosaurus and son of Jim and Larisa and brother to Fury.

Jules: An elderly Female Dromaeosaurus, mother of Jim, and grandmother of Fury and Dante

Conclusion: The Dromaeosaurus are a species that plays a very important role in Paleo Park. They serve as the park's second form of security dealing with escapes and hopefully sabotages. Dromaeosaurus will remain the namesake that started the raptor family and they may not share the icon status as Velociraptor, they are cunning and deadly additions to Paleo Park.

The Field Guide might take a long time, like structuring and writing descriptions of the creatures, but also my time in college and spending time with my family. So you can suggest additional information quotes, descriptions, and natural or speculative behaviors for the prehistoric animals that I can edit and you send your suggestions either in reviews or Private Messages.

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