WDC DML 001

WDC DML 001, nicknamed “Lori”, is an as-yet undescribed, substantially complete, fossil of a small troodontid dinosaur from the Late Jurassic Morrison Formation of east – central Wyoming. The presence of this derived maniraptoran in Jurassic sediments is a strong refutation of the "temporal paradox" (see Temporal paradox (paleontology)) argument used by those who oppose the consensus view that birds evolved from dinosaurs. see Troodontidae.

"Lori" will be described by Scott Hartman, David M. Lovelace, and William Wahl, and accessioned by the Wyoming Dinosaur Center. Its discovery was announced at the 2003 annual meeting of the Society for Vertebrate Paleontology and a phylogenetic analysis which included it was presented in an abstract for the "Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology" in 2005. The phylogenetic analysis placed the specimen as a close relative of "Sinornithoides".Hartman, S., Lovelace, D., and Wahl, W., (2005). "Phylogenetic assessment of a maniraptoran from the Morrison Formation." "Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology", 25, Supplement to No. 3, pp 67A-68A]

In 2001, a field crew from the Tate Museum supervised by Wahl discovered the fossil in rocks of the Jimbo Quarry of the Morrison Formation, overlying the excavation site of "Supersaurus vivianae", near Douglas, Wyoming. The stratigraphic position of the site was carefully documented by the collectors and detailed in Lovelace, 2006.Lovelace, D.M. (2006). "An Upper Jurassic Morrison Formation fire-induced debris flow: Taphonomy and paleoenvironment of a sauropod (Sauropoda: "Supersaurus vivianae") locality, east-central Wyoming." Pp. 47-56 "in" Foster, J.R., and Lucas, S.G., eds. (2006), "Paleontology and geology of the Upper Jurassic Morrison Formation". New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science Bulletin 36.]

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