Ornitholestes, the "bird-robber," is a small theropod commonly shown with a small crest on its nose. However, what appeared to be a flat projection from the skull of this 2-meter-long theropod was actually the result of crushing. Don't be crestfallen, because there is still more to this dinosaur than meets the eye! Specifically, the eye socket: the eye socket on its skull is so large that paleontologists think Ornitholestes may have been nocturnal! Don't sleep on this carnivore; its arms had a wide range of motion that allowed it to snatch its prey with both hands. Ornitholestes was originally thought to have hunted Jurassic birds (hence the meaning of its name), but it's more likely that it ate a range of small critters. Ornitholestes was found in the Morrison Formation, a famous Jurassic rock formation from the western United States. The Morrison was a floodplain where water and sediment flushed in from the mountains to the west. This made it a very fertile landscape where many popular dinosaurs roamed. Sauropods like Diplodocus and Brachiosaurus stomped past Ornithischian dinosaurs like Stegosaurus and Dryosaurus. Carnivores like Allosaurus and Ceratosaurus terrorized the land during the day, while Ornitholestes prowled around at night.