Stenonychosaurus

Stenonychosaurus is a small, two-legged dinosaur from the Late Cretaceous Period of Canada. There are also some remains from Montana, USA, that might be Stenonychosaurus.

For a long time, scientists thought the Stenonychosaurus fossils belonged to a related dinosaur, Troodon. But now we know most of what we used to call Troodon was actually Stenonychosaurus.

This dinosaur resembled a big version of a modern bird. It laid eggs in nests in the same way birds do today.

Its back legs were very long, suggesting that it could run quickly.

Experts think Stenonychosaurus might have been quite intelligent by dinosaur standards. We can see from its skull that its brain was very large relative to its body size.

But although it was probably cleverer than most other dinosaurs, it wouldn't have been anywhere near as smart as a human.

In fact, it's likely that the most intelligent birds alive today, such as crows, are smarter than Stenonychosaurus.

Stenonychosaurus had good eyesight and hooked toe claws. So, we think it preyed on other animals. But its teeth are unusual compared to other meat-eating dinosaurs.

A lot of carnivorous dinosaurs had teeth with serrations - tiny saw-like edges along the sides of the teeth.

Most carnivores have very small serrations to help with cutting through flesh, but the serrations on Stenonychosaurus teeth are large. It's possible this helped Stenonychosaurus bite through tough plant material.

For this reason, some scientists think Stenonychosaurus was an omnivore - an animal that eats both meat and vegetation.

In recent years, researchers realised that a lot of the fossils they'd been calling Troodon really belonged to Stenonychosaurus.

This means most of what we used to think was true about Troodon is actually true for Stenonychosaurus.

Today, the only fossils we have for Troodon are some teeth. So, we don't know much about this dinosaur.

Some scientists think we should stop using the name Troodon altogether. They say the teeth aren't enough to justify a unique name and they might even turn out to belong to another already named dinosaur.

We'll have to wait for more research or new fossil finds to know for sure.