"This big ball of dirt rolled over, and I saw black bones in it," recalls Wes Linster, describing his astonishing discovery in 1994 at age 14. "Then I saw this little jaw. Then I saw the teeth. I bolted down the hill to get my mom, because I knew I shouldn't be messing with it." Linster, who had been digging on a ranch near Choteau, Montana, had found a new dinosaur species! Last week the new species, named Bambiraptor feinbergi, was unveiled to the public at the Graves Museum of Archaeology and Natural History in Dania Beach, Florida.
The Linsters had nicknamed the three-foot-long fossil Bambi because it is so small and because they are fans of the Disney movie. But this meat-eating dinosaur was hardly cute and cuddly. Says paleontologist David Burnham: "It may even have stolen baby duck-billed dinosaurs out of their nests."
The fossil itself is the skeleton of a baby that lived 75 million years ago. It belongs to a dinosaur family called dromeosaurs. Most scientists believe that dinosaurs similar to dromeosaurs are the ancestors of birds.
What makes this dinosaur skeleton especially interesting to scientists is its excellent condition. Says paleontologist John Ostrom, who first inspected the bones in 1995: "I couldn't believe what I was seeing. The skeleton is a jewel. It's virtually complete, unbroken, untwisted. I could look at structures I've never seen before and understand what they were. I think it's one of the most valuable scientific specimens ever found in North America."