Carnegie Museum of Natural History is home to one of the world's finest collections of dinosaurs and other fossils.

The museum's association with fossils dates back nearly to its founding in 1895. For more than a century, the museum's curators and field collectors, including such legendary paleontologists as Earl Douglass, Jacob Wortman, and John Bell Hatcher, have mounted expeditions that have unearthed some of the world's most famous dinosaurs, including Diplodocus, Apatosaurus, Triceratops, Stegosaurus, and Allosaurus. Today, paleontological research continues to flourish at Carnegie Museum of Natural History. CMNH scientists are currently studying the bones of the oviraptorosaur so that we may learn more about this amazing creature. Questions our scientists hope to answer with their study include:

* What did caenagnathid dinosaurs look like? CMNH's oviraptorosaur is by far the most complete North American oviraptorosaur, and the most complete member of Caenagnathidae in the world - its study will reveal the anatomy of these unusual dinosaurs for the first time.

* How did a seven-foot tall, toothless theropod with wicked claws live? Did it eat meat, plants, or both? Study of the Carnegie oviraptorosaur may help clarify issues such as the diet and behavior of caenagnathids and other oviraptorosaurs.

* Where do oviraptorosaurs fit on the evolutionary tree of life? Study of the CMNH oviraptorosaur has the potential to help settle questions surrounding oviraptorosaur relationships, which may affect our understanding of the origin and early evolution of birds.