Ornitholestes was about 6.5 feet (2 m) long (from snout to tail) and weighed roughly 25 pounds (12 kg).

DIET
Ornitholestes was a carnivore, a meat eater. It may also have been a scavenger. It may have hunted the newly evolved Jurassic period birds.

LOCOMOTION
Slightly built and long legged, Ornitholestes was a very fast bipedal runner. Dinosaur speeds are estimated using their morphology (characteristics like leg length and estimated body mass) and fossilized trackways.

DISCOVERY OF FOSSILS
Ornitholestes fossils have been found in Wyoming and Utah, USA. Ornitholestes was first described and named by the US paleontologist Henry F. Osborn in 1903.

CLASSIFICATION
Ornitholestes belonged to the:

• Kingdom Animalia (animals)
• Phylum Chordata (having a hollow nerve chord ending in a brain)
• Class Archosauria (diapsids with socket-set teeth, etc.)
• Order Saurischia - lizard-hipped dinosaurs
• Suborder Theropoda - bipedal carnivores
• Infraorder Coelurosauria - lightly-built fast-running predators with hollow bones and large brains
• Superfamily Maniraptoriformes - advanced coelurosaurs with a fused wrist bone
• Family Ornitholestidae
• Genus Ornitholestes
• species hermanni, found in Utah and Wyoming, USA is the type species of the genus Ornitholestes.