What is the current state of dromeosaurid research, and does any new research contradict John Ostrom's studies?
from DW, age ?, ?, ?, ?; July 8, 2001

TOM: Dromaeosaur research is going very well!! Several of the new feathered dinosaurs from China are dromaeosaurs, including a very complete one being studied at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City (see the photographs at the website at: http://research.amnh.org/vertpaleo/dinobird.html).

Actually, most of the research actually supports rather than contradicts John Ostrom's insightful studies of the 1960s and 1970s. Among the main points:
* Dromaeosaurs seem to be the dinosaurs most closely related to modern birds
* Contrary to the thoughts of some paleontologists in the 1980s, Deinonychus and Velociraptor are distinct genera, and new specimens show that (as Ostrom originally thought) Deinonychus had a deep snout without Velociraptor's "dip" in it
* The "Fighting Dinosaurs" specimen of Velociraptor from Mongolia confirmed Ostrom's idea that the sickle claw was a killing weapon, because that specimen showed the claw deep inside the neck of a Protoceratops. (To be fair to the plant-eater, the Protoceratops had one arm of the Velociraptor in its poweful beak, and would have snapped it clean off as its last act if the two dinosaurs hadn't both been covered by a sand dune collapse).