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That's Life!

That's Life! was a satirical consumer affairs programme on the BBC, at its height regularly reaching audiences of fifteen to twenty million, and receiving between 10,000 and 15,000 letters a week. The series was broadcast on BBC1 for 21 years, from 26 May 1973 until 19 June 1994.

Format
That's Life! was a magazine programme that blended light-hearted observations on everyday life, reports on consumer affairs (often blended with satire), and hard-hitting investigations in a studio-based format, with film inserts. Devised by Peter Chafer, John Lloyd and Esther Rantzen, it was presented and produced by Esther Rantzen with various teams of reporters and contributors. Special spin-off programmes concentrated on serious topics that were first aired on That's Life!, such as childbirth, mental health and child abuse. The programme's journalism relied on the skills of researchers many of whom went on to hold senior jobs both inside and outside the media industry.

The large audiences, regularly topping the ratings charts and reaching a maximum of 22.5 million viewers, resulted in several changes in laws and practice, such as the introduction of compulsory seat belts for children, support for transplantation and the installing of safe surfaces in children's playgrounds.

Origins
Bernard Braden, the Canadian actor and broadcaster, invented consumer programmes for British television with his ITV show On the Braden Beat. When in 1968 Braden and his wife Barbara Kelly agreed to transfer to the BBC, he starred with her in a situation comedy for the Entertainment Department, and he presented a consumer show which was produced in Desmond Wilcox's Features Department. John Lloyd was a freelance producer who had worked with Braden on the ITV consumer show, and in 1968 was hired to produce Braden's Week for the BBC. That show ran from 1968 to 1972 on Saturday nights on BBC1, featuring Esther Rantzen and John Pitman as reporters, and Ronald Fletcher, Chris Munds and Hilary Pritchard as humorous punctuation. It also featured Frankie Howerd, Victor Ross of Reader's Digest, and an expose of Robert Maxwell's company Pergamon Press.

The format was highly popular and included a studio audience, a regular music slot featuring singer/songwriter Jake Thackray, and sketches performed by Munds and Pritchard. It is sometimes wrongly thought that Braden was sacked by the BBC for making a commercial for Stork margarine in the summer of 1971, and although advertising a product was not felt compatible with Braden's role in a consumer show, Desmond Wilcox interceded for him with BBC senior executives, pointing out that at the time he was not under contract to the BBC, and he returned to make another series that autumn.

In 1972, however, Braden was hired by a Canadian network to create a similar programme there. After he left, producers Peter Chafer, John Lloyd and presenter Esther Rantzen were tasked by the BBC to create a replacement consumer programme without Braden. Rantzen invented the title, That's Life! When Bernard Braden returned to the UK having completed his contract to make a consumer programme in Canada, his show Braden's Week had been replaced in his absence, and Esther Rantzen was fronting That's Life! Braden's wife Barbara Kelly never forgave Rantzen, who she was convinced had stolen the role from Braden and had only been given the job because she was in a relationship with (and later married to) Features Department head Desmond Wilcox.

Launch of That's Life!
The first series of That's Life! broadcast in the summer of 1973 was written by John Lloyd, executive-produced by Peter Chafer and was presented by Bob Wellings (co-presenter of the nightly current affairs magazine programme Nationwide), George Layton, (actor, director and screenwriter) and Esther Rantzen. A regular feature was "Heap of the Week" filmed by Bill Nicholson, later a novelist and Oscar-nominated screenwriter. At the end of the run the Controller of BBC1 decided that the show had potential, but not with that presentation team, since only Rantzen was comfortable in the consumer role.

A second series was commissioned for which Rantzen was promoted to producer and presenter, a role she held for the next twenty years. Kieran Prendiville, a journalist who had worked on Man Alive (and who was part of the That's Life! production team at the beginning) and actor Glyn Worsnip, both joined the team as reporters and stayed for five years.

Production team
Throughout the programme's 21 years, research and investigative journalism were the backbone of the programme, since most material was based on the first-hand experience of viewers which had to be rigorously investigated. All the reporters were also involved in researching items, as part of a team many of whom went on to senior roles in broadcasting and elsewhere. Alumni of the That's Life! production team include, among many others:
 * BAFTA winning film-maker Adam Curtis
 * Helen Tumbridge executive producer of The Chase and Beat the Chasers
 * Shaun Woodward ex Secretary of State for Northern Ireland and Chair of LAMDA
 * Peter Bazalgette, chair of ITV and president of the Royal Television Society
 * Bryher Scudamore, editor of That's Life! editor in chief of BBC Online, channel editor of UK Horizons
 * Patricia Houlihan, series producer Holiday
 * Ian Sharp, film director Robin of Sherwood, second unit Bond films
 * Shaun Ley, journalist and news presenter
 * Robin Bextor, film director and author
 * Tim Knatchbull, author and film director
 * Chris Choi, consumer editor for ITV News
 * Alice Beer, consumer journalist and expert Watchdog and This Morning
 * Charlie Bunce, author, head of Factual Programmes, executive producer Grand Designs
 * Steve Havers, founder of Spark Media and creator of Escape to the Chateau
 * James Hawes, drama and factual film director
 * Laurence Rees, historian, ex-head of BBC Television History programmes and author

Swindles
During the programme's 21 years, many investigations highlighted dangers, swindles and injustices. Among the conmen were Peter Foster who was first exposed for selling a fake "slimming" tea called Bai Lin, various door-to-door salesmen selling double glazing, Coach House Finance based in Colchester in 1975 which resulted in a conviction for fraud, and many fake slimming aids.

Safety items
Including stories publicising dangerous cots, lifts, taxi doors, the introduction of safe playground surfaces, and inspiring the legal requirement for seat belts for children in cars.

Child abuse
This was regularly exposed on the programme. The launch of Childline by Esther Rantzen was inspired by a helpline for abused children set up after one episode of the programme.

Ben Hardwick
Ben Hardwick was a two-year-old toddler dying of biliary atresia, with only a few weeks to live. He was being treated by Professor Sir Roy Calne in Addenbrooks Hospital who told his mother Debbie that Ben's only hope would be a liver transplant, but transplantation had virtually ceased in the UK due to a Panorama documentary which implied that organs were being taken from patients who were still alive. Professor Calne suggested the only way to encourage organ donation would be to tell Ben's story on TV, Debbie therefore contacted That's Life!

The film of Ben captured the nation's imagination, a donor (Matthew Fewkes) was found and Ben lived for another year. On his death, Marti Webb recorded his favourite song, "Ben" to raise money for a charity founded in his name, and Shaun Woodward and Esther Rantzen wrote a book Story of Ben Hardwick by Shaun Woodward and Esther Rantzen which also raised money for the Ben Hardwick Fund which still exists. The impact of Ben's story doubled the number of transplants "

The Scandal of Crookham Court
A letter to Esther Rantzen which was forwarded to her by Childline came from a boy at the boarding school, Crookham Court School in Newbury, who had been sexually abused by the owner of the school and had discovered that his brother was also sexually abused by another teacher. A three-month investigation uncovered widespread abuse of the boys in the school; Rantzen, Woolfe and Hereward Harrison (a Childline executive) visited the school to speak to pupils. Paedophile Philip Cadman was the millionaire owner of the school who was later tried and convicted of abuse, as were teachers Bill Printer and Philip Edmonds.

A special programme, The Scandal of Crookham Court, reconstructed the court case at which the children gave evidence. Author Ian Mucklejohn assisted the investigation and has written a book based on his experience teaching at the school and the evidence of pupils who suffered abuse there.

Sir Nicholas Winton, the British Schindler
Sir Nicholas Winton was revealed for the first time on That's Life! as having rescued a generation of Czech children from the Holocaust. Unknown to him, or them, Sir Nicholas was placed in the audience next to three people and about twenty others around him who had been on the trains he organised and owed their life to him. Piers Morgan described it as the "best moment of television he had ever seen". It has been viewed on Facebook and YouTube more than forty million times. For his actions, Winton has been compared by the British press to Oskar Schindler.

A biography of Winton was written by his daughter, The Life of Sir Nicholas Winton by Barbara Winton, and documentaries were later made about his achievements. Other members of his team included Trevor Chadwick and Doreen Warriner.

Bullying
An anti-bullying campaign was inspired by the suicide of teenager Katharine Bamber, after a phone call to the programme from her mother Susan. It resulted in schools adopting anti-bullying policies.

Music on That's Life!
Although the Braden's Week comedy sketches were discontinued, music was still provided each week by a range of artists, including Alex Glasgow, Jake Thackray, Five Penny Piece, Richard Stilgoe and Victoria Wood. For many years the British drummer and composer Tony Kinsey was musical director and arranged the title song "That's Life!" for the Hanwell Brass Band. Eventually the musical interludes were provided by non-singers; staff of big companies sang "The Lay of the Week" to customers who complained, and unsuspecting members of the public became a choir in "Get Britain Singing" in which the team of reporters went undercover in gloomy locations such as service stations and hospitals in order to startle people with a cheerful blast of music that inspired them to burst into song.

Charity records introduced on That's Life! were Pie Jesu written by Andrew Lloyd Webber sung by Sarah Brightman and Paul Miles-Kingston; Wet Wet Wet "With a Little Help From My Friends"; Tom Jones and Dave Stewart "All You Need is Love".

In 1992, That's Life talent contest called Search for a Star discovered singer Alison Jordan, and record producer Simon Cowell who offered a contract as the top prize. The singer Jeremy Taylor invented the term Jobsworth in one of his songs, which prompted the creation of a That's Life Jobsworth Award, presented to anyone who insisted on imposing a stupid rule – such as the clamper who clamped the car in a hospital car park belonging to a husband attending the imminent birth of his baby. From there the term entered the Oxford Dictionary.

Humorous items on That's Life!
Rude vegetables sent in by viewers were notably memorable, cropping up in The Times more than 20 years after That's Life! ended. Also popular were the talented pets discovered by the show, which included dogs that played football, a cat who played ping-pong, dogs who caught soda water from a syphon and many others including a horse that could count. Besides the pets there were "talented tots", such as toddlers who could play the piano, snooker and golf.

Talented passers-by were also featured each week in the vox pops at the start of the show, including Annie Mizen, who was discovered in a street market in her eighties and became a star.

Esther Rantzen was arrested for obstruction when vox popping in the North End Road. The resulting film took pride of place in her edition of This Is Your Life in which the arresting officer P.C. A. Herbert was a surprise guest.

During its 21-year run That's Life! was broadcast three times on 1 April, and each time created a prank film to fool the viewers. The first directed by Nick Handel appeared to show a dog that could drive. The second was an animal in London Zoo called a Lirpa Loof. starring David Bellamy, which persuaded charabanc-loads of visitors to search the zoo for the non-existent animal with purple droppings. The third was a face cream made from rhinoceros spit that eradicated wrinkles from the face but transferred them to a backside.

"That's Life All Over!"
In 1994 the show ended with a 90-minute special recalling the most memorable moments and listing some of the changes inspired by the series. "That's Life All Over!" included a surprise section that Rantzen did not know about in advance, hosted by David Frost.

In April 2024 Kirsty Wark presented an edition of the BBC Radio 4 series The Reunion, with guests George Layton, Chris Serle, Paul Heiney, Bill Buckley, Adrian Mills, Sir Peter Bazalgette, Jane Elsdon Dew and Esther Rantzen.

Spin-offs
Special programmes were created on serious issues discussed on That's Life!, such as stillbirth, mental health, fire safety, and volunteers in their own time refurbishing the St Petersburg Children's Hospital.
 * Talented Pets compilations
 * A Christmas Special
 * Junior That's Life! a series for children, introducing Shaun Ley
 * That's Family Life! – an interview programme featuring family dilemmas
 * The One Show in 2013 created a "That's Life Special" celebrating 40 years from the launch, and also launching The Silver Line Helpline for lonely and isolated older people.

Esther Rantzen's House Trap and Do The Right Thing
In October 2018, it was announced that a consumer show, Do The Right Thing would air on Channel 5, with Rantzen presenting alongside Eamonn Holmes and Ruth Langsford. Another Channel 5 consumer programme, Esther Rantzen's House Trap was a production more in keeping with the format of the BBC's long-running Watchdog programme, with hidden cameras trying to trap rogue traders in the homes of a number of undercover actors. Unlike Watchdog, these actors were all people of an advanced age with each episode focusing on a different trade, such as locksmiths, where older people were likely to being preyed upon.

Esther Rantzen's House Trap was a four-part series produced by Karen Plumb and Grant Mansfield at Plimsoll Productions for Channel 5, who commissioned the show alongside other consumer-focused shows such as Shop Smart Save Money and Do the Right Thing.

title: That's Life!


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Ausona (ancient city)

Ausona (today Ausonia) was a 4th-century BC city in the central Italian region of Latium. It was one of the three cities possessed by the tribe of the Ausones and its name seems to imply that it was their chief city or metropolis (the others were Cales and Aurunca). It is only once mentioned in history: during the Second Samnite War (326–304 BC ), when—the Ausones having revolted against the Romans—all three of their cities were betrayed into the hands of the Roman consuls, and their inhabitants put to the sword without mercy. No subsequent notice is found of Ausona; but it is supposed to have been situated on the banks of the little river still called Ausente, which flows into the Liris near its mouth. The plain below the modern village of Le Fratte, near the sources of this little stream, is still known as the Piano dell'Ausente; and some remains of a Roman town have been discovered there.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Ausona (ancient city)


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Neuse River

The Neuse River (, Tuscarora: Neyuherú·kęʔkì·nęʔ ) is a river rising in the Piedmont of North Carolina and emptying into Pamlico Sound below New Bern. Its total length is approximately 275 mi, making it the longest river entirely contained in North Carolina. The Trent River joins the Neuse at New Bern. Its drainage basin, measuring 5630 sqmi in area, also lies entirely inside North Carolina. It is formed by the confluence of the Flat and Eno rivers prior to entering the Falls Lake reservoir in northern Wake County. Its fall line shoals, known as the Falls of the Neuse, lie submerged under the waters of Falls Lake. This River also creates the beauty of the Neuse River Trail, a 34.5 mi long greenway that stretches from Falls Lake Dam, Raleigh, North Carolina to Legend Park, Clayton, North Carolina.

Geography
The Neuse begins at the confluence of the Flat and Eno rivers near Durham, North Carolina. The river enters Pamlico Sound just east of Maw Point Shoal near Hobucken, North Carolina while en route to the Atlantic Ocean.

Typical of rivers in the Coastal Plain of North Carolina, the Neuse enters a basin of chocolate intermittent bottomland swamp on its journey towards its outlet. One interesting exception is the "Cliffs of the Neuse" area near Goldsboro, where the river cuts a narrow 30 m (90 ft) gorge through limestone and sandstone bluffs. The Neuse is prone to extremes in its flow carriage, often escaping its banks during wet periods, then reducing to a trickle that can be forded on foot during prolonged drought conditions. The Neuse flows through parts of seven counties. Major cities and towns in proximity to the Neuse are Durham; Neuse Township; Raleigh, the capital of North Carolina; Smithfield; Goldsboro; Kinston and New Bern.

History
For thousands of years before the Europeans arrived, different civilizations of indigenous peoples lived along the river. Many artifacts found along its banks have been traced to ancient prehistoric Native American settlements. Archaeological studies have shown waves of habitation. The river has one of the three oldest surviving English-applied placenames in the U.S. Explorers named the Neuse River after the American Indian tribe known as Neusiok, with whom the early Raleigh expeditions made contact. They also identified the region as the "Neusick". Two English captains, Arthur Barlowe and Phillip Amadas, were commissioned by Sir Walter Raleigh in 1584 to explore the New World. They landed on North Carolina's coast July 2, 1584 to begin their research. In their 1585 report to Raleigh, they wrote favorably of the Indian population in "…the country Neusiok, situated upon a goodly river called Neuse…", as it was called by the local population.

In 1865 during the American Civil War, the Confederates burned one of the last ironclad warships which they had built, the Ram Neuse, to prevent its capture by Union troops. The level of the river had fallen so that it prevented the ship from passing downriver. Nearly a century later, during another period of historically low water, the remains of the ship were discovered. It was raised in 1963. Later the ship was installed beside the river at the Governor Caswell Memorial in Kinston.

William Larry Stewart II, a.k.a. Billy Stewart (March 24, 1937 – January 17, 1970), an American rhythm and blues singer and pianist, died in a broad-daylight car accident in January 1970, just two months prior to his 33rd birthday. The accident happened when the Ford Thunderbird that Stewart was driving approached a bridge across the Neuse River near Smithfield, North Carolina. His car left the highway, ran along the median strip at a slight angle to the highway, struck the bridge abutment, and then plunged into the river, killing Stewart and his three passengers instantly.

The low-head Quaker Neck Dam was built in 1952 at Neuse River kilometer 225 to impound cooling water for a steam electric plant. A fish ladder was included. The dam was removed in May 1998, opening up access for anadromous fish to 127 km of the mainstem Neuse River.

Water quality
The Neuse has been plagued in recent years with environmental and public health problems related to municipal and agricultural waste water discharge, storm runoff, and other sources of pollution. Pollution was particularly bad in the aftermath of hurricanes Fran and Floyd in the late 1990s.

The dinoflagellate Pfiesteria piscicida  is present in the river, and has a bloom in growth when nutrient levels are increased due to too much runoff. This organism may be connected to fish kills as well as adverse health effects in grapes.

Tributaries

 * Eno River
 * Flat River
 * Little River
 * Stoney Creek
 * Crabtree Creek
 * Walnut Creek
 * West Bear Creek
 * Bear Creek
 * Contentnea Creek
 * Lefferts' Creek
 * Trent River

title: Neuse River


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Cenarth

Cenarth is a village, parish and community in Carmarthenshire, on the border between Ceredigion and Carmarthenshire, and close to the border with Pembrokeshire, Wales. It stands on the banks of the River Teifi, 6 mi east of Cardigan and 4 mi west of Newcastle Emlyn, and features the Cenarth Falls, a popular visitor attraction, and several other listed structures including an 18th-century corn mill incorporating the National Coracle Centre.

History and governance
The ancient parish extended south of the river, and included the town of Newcastle Emlyn. In 1934, it annexed the adjoining parish of East Cilrhedyn, and the enlarged parish corresponds with the modern community, which had a population of 1,022 in the 2001 census. With the community of Newcastle Emlyn, it makes up the Carmarthenshire electoral ward of Cenarth, which had a population of 1,995 in 2001, with 60 per cent Welsh language speakers. The ancient parish (less Newcastle Emlyn) had an area of 6420 acre. Its census populations were: 672 (1801); 897 (1851); 638 (1901). The percentage of Welsh-speakers was 98 (1891); 96 (1931).

The enlarged parish (post-1934) had an area of 12100 acre. Its census populations were: 1098 (1951); 1066 (1961); 926 (1971); 971 (1981). The percentage of Welsh-speakers was 92 (1951); 91 (1961); 82 (1971); 69 (1981).

The community is bordered by the communities of: Newcastle Emlyn; Llangeler; Cynwyl Elfed; and Trelech, all being in Carmarthenshire; by Clydau and Manordeifi in Pembrokeshire; and by Beulah, Pen-y-wenallt, and Llandyfriog in Ceredigion.

Features
East of the village, the River Teifi emerges from a deep ravine over a ledge that produces a spectacular waterfall when the river is in full spate and this attracts many visitors throughout the year. A dramatic painting of the falls was made by Frank Miles and is now at Nottingham City Museum. Miles's father inherited Cardigan Priory from his father, Philip John Miles, but lived in Nottinghamshire as Rector of Bingham.

A dominant feature of the village is Cenarth Bridge over the Teifi west of the falls; the bridge was built in 1787 by William Edwards of Eglwysilan and his son David. The bridge features their trademark series of circular holes (perforated spandrels that allow the weight of the structure to be reduced without losing strength. The bridge is a Grade II*-listed structure and is partly in Carmarthenshire and partly in Ceredigion.

Other visitor attractions are a seventeenth-century flour mill and coracle museum. The village is home to the National Coracle Centre.

Worship
The parish church is dedicated to the local saint, St Llawddog. Although the present building is relatively modern, it is on an important ancient site, and was the "bishop house" of the cantref of Emlyn.

title: Cenarth


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Stephen Dodgson

Stephen Cuthbert Vivian Dodgson (17 March 1924 – 13 April 2013) was a British composer and broadcaster. Dodgson's prolific musical output covered most genres, ranging from opera and large-scale orchestral music to chamber and instrumental music, as well as choral works and song. Three instruments to which he dedicated particular attention were the guitar, harpsichord and recorder. He wrote in a mainly tonal, although sometimes unconventional, idiom. Some of his works use unusual combinations of instruments.

Biography
Stephen Dodgson was born in Chelsea, London in 1924, the third child of John Arthur Dodgson, who was a symbolist painter and nephew of Campbell Dodgson, and his wife, who was born Margaret Valentine Pease and also an artist. He was distant cousin of Lewis Carroll. He was educated at Berkhamsted School in Hertfordshire and at Stowe School in Buckinghamshire. In 1942, he was conscripted into the Royal Navy and took part in anti-submarine warfare escorting convoys in the Battle of the Atlantic.

On returning to London, he studied composition privately for a year with Bernard Stevens before enrolling at the Royal College of Music in 1946, officially to study the horn (under Frank Probyn), but in practice he was able to focus on composition under the guidance of R. O. Morris, Patrick Hadley and Antony Hopkins. While Morris instilled an interest in counterpoint and music from past centuries, such as that of the madrigalist Thomas Morley, Hadley and Hopkins provided more practical tuition.

Dodgson's early compositions won several prizes, including the Cobbett Competition for a Fantasy String Quartet (1948) and two Royal Philharmonic Society prizes: for his Variations for Orchestra (1949) and the Symphony in E Flat (1953). In 1949, he also won an Octavia travelling scholarship, which sent him to Rome. After returning to London in the spring of 1950, his music increasingly attracted performances and broadcasts by prominent players (including flautist Geoffrey Gilbert, oboist Evelyn Barbirolli, harpist Maria Korchinska, violinist Neville Marriner, violist Watson Forbes, the Philip Jones Brass Ensemble), and conductors such as Leslie Woodgate, Paul Steinitz and the composer Gerald Finzi. After initially making a living with teaching work in schools and colleges, in 1956 Dodgson was able to return to the Royal College of Music in a teaching capacity (where he also conducted the junior orchestra). In 1965 he was appointed professor of composition and music theory, a post he held until his retirement in 1982.

Two of the instruments which held special places in Dodgson's were the guitar and the harpsichord. His introduction to harpsichord writing came through one of the instrument's first twentieth-century exponents, the Czech player and musicologist, Stanislav Heller. In 1959, four years after writing his first pieces for the instrument he married Jane Clark, herself a harpsichordist and an authority on François Couperin. His wife fostered an increasing fascination with early and Baroque music.

He first came to write for the guitar—an instrument with which Dodgson is perhaps especially associated—in the early 1950s when Alexis Chesnakov, a Russian actor exiled in Britain, requested some folksong settings. Although Dodgson lacked any practical knowledge of the instrument, by the time of his Guitar Concerto No 1, completed in 1956, he had come to write for it idiomatically. This concerto was written for Julian Bream, but in his absence it was premiered by a 17-year-old John Williams (with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Walter Goehr), for whom he later wrote the Guitar Concerto No 2 (1972).

From 1957 onwards, he broadcast regularly on BBC Radio and wrote the music for many radio plays, often (from 1961 onwards) in friendly collaboration with the producer Raymond Raikes. In 1986 he became chairman of the National Youth Wind Orchestra of Great Britain, for which he wrote several pieces.

Recorder player John Turner remembers him as "Enthusiastic, ebullient and quick-witted... extremely voluble, with a strong, distinctive voice, an ever-present smile, much old-world courtesy, and an idiosyncratic gait."

Stephen Dodgson died on 13 April 2013, aged 89. He is said to have remained remarkably active until the last few months of his life.

Music
Dodgson's musical output covers most genres, ranging from opera, large-scale orchestral music and wind-band works to chamber and instrumental music, along with choral works and song. He deployed an unusually wide variety of solo instruments. One of the few recent composers to write idiomatically for the harpsichord, clavichord and harp, he may be the first since the eighteenth century to have written for baryton trio. He wrote concertos for instruments ranging from the viola da gamba to the bass trombone. Three instruments to which he dedicated particular attention were the guitar, harpsichord and recorder, and one of his works, High Barbaree (1999), is actually scored for all three.

Guitarists who had works dedicated to them by Dodgson include Julian Bream, Gabriel Estarellas, Angelo Gilardino, Nicola Hall, John Williams, the Eden-Stell Duo and the Fragnito-Matarazzo Duo. In addition to a large number of solo works, among which are six virtuoso piano sonatas, this includes ensemble pieces and two concertos. Dodgson also composed duet concertos for two guitars and strings, and for violin, guitar and strings. His works for the guitar call on many different instrumental combinations, ranging from two, three and four guitars to use of massed guitars with and without accompaniments. His contribution to the core solo guitar repertoire includes four well-known partitas and a popular set of Fantasy-Divisions.

Dodgson's first work for harpsichord, a set of Six Inventions, was written in 1955. Influenced by his wife Jane's scholarly and practical interest in the history of the instrument, he produced a further four sets of Inventions for harpsichord, dating from 1961, 1970, 1985 and 1993, a series of 30 pieces that charts a musical course from the early twentieth-century metal-framed instruments to replicas of antique instruments, with the introduction of stylistic features derived from historically informed performance practice.

Dodgson's many contributions to the recorder repertoire include "Shine and Shade", a jazzy virtuoso piece from 1975, written for one of his students, the composer Richard Harvey. Material from Dodgson's incidental music for a 1970 BBC Radio production of a John Ford play, Perkin Warbeck, in which David Munrow had played the recorder enthusiastically, re-emerged in 1972 in a follow-up work called Warbeck Dances for recorder and harpsichord. His later works for the instrument include the Concerto Chacony (2000) with string orchestra, and a Capriccio Concertante No. 2 (2005) for the unusual combination of recorder, harpsichord and string orchestra.

Dodgson loved the theatre and wrote both for the stage and for many BBC drama productions (see Incidental music). His one full-scale opera, Margaret Catchpole – Two Worlds Apart, is in four acts and features a heroine who has been dubbed a "female Dick Turpin". His two chamber operas, the farcical Cadilly and Nancy the Waterman, were first performed with puppets (at the Purcell Room in 1969) and have also been fully staged (in St Albans in 2002 and 2007).

His music for wind band includes a four-movement Wind Symphony (1974). His orchestral output features a set of nine Essays for orchestra (five of which were recorded on a Dutton CD by the Royal Scottish National Orchestra under David Lloyd Jones), each lasting around a quarter of an hour, in which Dodgson says he aimed "to treat the orchestra boldly, as an integrated body and with ideas concentrated and unified more than contrasted", in keeping with Francis Bacon's conception of the essay as "dispersed meditations". Other commercial recordings of cycles of Dodgson's works include the seven piano sonatas played by Bernard Roberts and the eight string quartets performed by the Tippett String Quartet.

Style
In The Oxford Companion to Music, Paul Griffiths notes that Dodgson "proved adept at producing likable, well-crafted music to order, often for unusual chamber ensembles". The critic Guy Rickards has summarized his style as follows: "Dodgson's music is written mostly in an agreeable if occasionally challenging modern tonal idiom, cosmopolitan rather than overtly British in style, influenced by early and Baroque music and Janáček as much as English pastoralism... His mature style was one of refinement, sitting somewhere between post-Romanticism and neo-classicism, but individual works often had quirky, even spectral sides to them."

Selected works
Note: For more extensive listings of works by this prolific composer, see.

Opera

 * Cadilly (1969)
 * Nancy the Waterman (1969)
 * Margaret Catchpole (1979)

Choral

 * Te Deum, for soprano, tenor, bass, chorus, organ and orchestra (1972)
 * Magnificat, for soprano, mezzo-soprano, tenor, bass, chorus and orchestra (1974)

Song

 * Irishry (four poems of Joseph Campbell, 1949)
 * Tideways (four poems of Ezra Pound, 1950)
 * Four Poems of John Clare (1961)
 * Bush Ballads (first series, 1974)
 * Bush Ballads (second series, 1998)
 * Bush Ballads (third series, 2003)

Orchestral

 * Concerto No. 1 for Guitar and Orchestra (1956)
 * Russian Pieces for orchestra (1957)
 * Villanelle (1960)
 * Concerto for Viola da gamba and Chamber Orchestra (1961)
 * The Mikado (overture) (1962)
 * Concerto for Bassoon and Chamber Orchestra (1969)
 * Concerto No. 2 for Guitar and Orchestra (1972)
 * Last of the Leaves, for bass, clarinet and strings (1975)
 * Essay No. 1 (1980)
 * Essay No. 2 (1981)
 * Essay No. 3 (1982)
 * Essay No. 4 (1984)
 * Essay No. 5 (1985)
 * Symphony in One Movement (1988)
 * Sinfonia "Troia-Nova"
 * Duo Concerto for Violin, Guitar and Strings (1990)
 * Concerto for Flute and Strings (1991)
 * Concertino for 2 Guitars and Strings "Les Dentelles" (1998)
 * Concerto for Bass Trombone and Orchestra (1985)
 * Essay No. 6 (1991)
 * Essay No. 7, for string orchestra (1992)
 * The Rising of Job (1998)
 * Essay No. 8 (2000)
 * Essay No. 9

Incidental music

 * The Beaux' Stratagem by George Farquhar (1961)
 * Love for Love by William Congreve (1965)
 * The Legacy by Pierre de Marivaux (1965)
 * The Old Bachelor by Congreve (1966)
 * ''Mostellaria ("The Ghost of a Play") by Plautus (1969)
 * Perkin Warbeck by John Ford (1970)
 * Henry VI by William Shakespeare, in two parts (1970)
 * Le Morte d'Arthur by Thomas Malory (1970)
 * Women in Power by Aristophanes, translated by Patric Dickinson (1970)
 * Macbeth by Shakespeare (1971)
 * Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (1971)
 * The Silent Woman by Ben Jonson (1974)
 * The London Cuckolds by Edward Ravenscroft (1974)

Wind band

 * Wind Symphony (1974)
 * The Eagle, a tone poem (1976)
 * Matelot: a Diversion for Wind Band (1977)
 * Capriccio Concertante for clarinet and wind orchestra (1984)
 * Arlington Concertante (1986)
 * Bandwagon (1991)
 * Marchrider (1990)
 * Flowers of London Town, a symphonic sequence after William Blake (1990)

Guitar ensemble

 * Personent Hodie (1981)
 * Divertissement (1983) for violin and guitar ensemble
 * Hymnus de Sancto Stephano (1983) for soprano and guitar ensemble
 * The Selevan Story (1992) for flute, violin, guitar duo and guitar ensemble
 * Watersmeet (2002)

Chamber

 * Sonata for viola and piano (1952)
 * Pastoral Sonata for flute, cello and guitar (1953; rev. 1959 & 1998)
 * Suite for brass septet (1957)
 * Duo for flute and harp (1958)
 * Four Poems of John Clare for voice and guitar (1962)
 * Sonata for brass quintet (1963)
 * Four Fancies for viola and piano (1964)
 * String Trio No. 2 (1964)
 * Piano Trio No. 1 (1967)
 * Duo Concertante for guitar and harpsichord (1968)
 * Suite in D for oboe and harpsichord (1972)
 * Piano Trio No. 2 (1973)
 * Quintet for guitar and string quartet (1973)
 * Duo for cello and guitar (1974)
 * Shine and Shade for recorder and harpsichord/piano (1975)
 * Dialogues for guitar and harpsichord (1976)
 * Bagatelles for four clarinets (1977)
 * London Lyrics for voice and guitar (1977)
 * Caprice after Puck for viola solo (1978)
 * Circus Pony (1978)
 * Follow the Star for three guitars (1979)
 * Capriccio for flute and guitar (1980)
 * Quatre rondeaux de Charles d'Orléans for soprano and harpsichord (1982)
 * Sonata for Three for flute, viola and guitar (1982)
 * In Search of Folly for flute and guitar (1986)
 * Fantasia for Six Brass (1987)
 * Promenade I for two guitars (1988)
 * Pastourelle for two guitars (1992)
 * Riversong for two guitars (1994)
 * Five Penny Pieces (1995)
 * Daphne to Apollo for voice and guitar (1997)
 * Echoes of Autumn for viola and guitar (1998)
 * High Barbaree for recorder, guitar and harpsichord (1999)
 * Piano Trio No. 3 (2000)
 * Venus to the Muses for soprano, recorder, bassoon and harpsichord (2002)
 * Warbeck Trio for recorder, bassoon and harpsichord (2002)

Solo guitar

 * Partita No. 1 (1963)
 * Studies (1965)
 * Fantasy-Divisions (1969)
 * Partita No. 2 (1976)
 * Legend (1977)
 * Merlin (1978)
 * Etude-Caprice (1980)
 * Partita No. 3 (1981)
 * Stemma (1988)
 * Three Attic Dances (1989)
 * Partita No. 4 (1990)
 * The Midst of Life (1994)

Piano

 * Sonata for piano duet (1949)
 * Tournament for Twenty Fingers, vols. 1 and 2 for piano duet (1952, 1954)
 * Eight Fanciful Pieces (1956)
 * Piano Sonata No. 1 (1959)
 * Three Impromptus (1962, revised 1985)
 * Four Moods of the Wind (1968)
 * Piano Sonata No. 2 (1975)
 * Piano Sonata No. 3 (1983)
 * Piano Sonata No. 4 (1987)
 * Piano Sonata No. 5 (1992)
 * Piano Sonata No. 6 (1994)
 * Piano Sonata No. 7 (2003)

Other solo instrument

 * Inventions for harpsichord (1955)
 * The Faery Beam Upon You for alto flute (1994)
 * Bagatelles for Piano (1998)
 * Cor Leonis for solo French horn (1990)

title: Stephen Dodgson


text:
Cilgerran

Cilgerran (previously Kilgerran or Cil-Garon) is both a village, a parish, and also a community, situated on the south bank of the River Teifi in Pembrokeshire, Wales. It was formerly an incorporated market town.

Among Cilgerran's attractions are Cilgerran Castle and annual coracle races. Kilgerran Halt was a stop on the former Whitland and Cardigan Railway. There are a number of listed buildings, including the parish church.

Nearby are the hamlets of Llwyncelyn, Rhoshill, Cnwce, Pen-y-bryn, Carreg-wen and Pontrhydyceirt, and the villages of Llechryd and Boncath.

Cilgerran Hundred derives its title from the former town, which was once the headquarters of the commote of Emlyn is Cuch (Emlyn below the River Cych).

Slate quarrying was an important activity in the 19th century.

Location
Cilgerran lies 50 m above sea level on the southern bank of the River Teifi. The stream Afon Plysgog which rises on nearby Rhoshill runs under the road to the west of Cilgerran to join the Teifi. A mixture of woodland and pasture surrounds the town, which is strung out along a fairly level C-class road in an east–west orientation connecting with the A484 at Llechryd to the east and the A478 at Pen-y-bryn to the west.

History
Cilgerran Castle, strategically built in 1100 at "Cenarth Bychan", high above the River Teifi, is the castle from which Owain of Powys is said to have abducted Nest in 1109. Originally in Cantref Emlyn (Emlyn Is-Cych), Cilgerran came under Norman control with the building of the castle, from where the Lordship of Cilgerran was administered. The Welsh under the Lord Rhys regained control from 1164-65 (the date of the first recording of the name "Cilgerran" ) to 1223. By 1204 the town was beginning to grow, with 22 taxpayers recorded in 1292.

The Hundred of Cilgerran was established in 1536. It was a marcher borough; Owen, Lord of Kemes, described it in 1603 as one of five Pembrokeshire boroughs overseen by a portreeve. Cilgerran (as Kilgarren) appears on a 1578 parish map of Pembrokeshire. Although the town remained small it was considered one of the main market centres in Pembrokeshire in the early 17th century, with mainly Welsh demographics.

The principal occupations throughout Cilgerran's history were farming, salmon fishing and slate quarrying. In 1895 salmon of 38 and 43 1/2lb were caught in coracle nets. The town's market ended in the early 20th century, there was no further quarrying after 1936 and the castle had been allowed to become a ruin since the 16th century, partly as a result of nearby quarrying. At least since 1833 Cilgerran has been referred to as a village.

A rare visit by a white stork to the village was photographed in April 2016.

Worship
The parish church of St Llawddog is a grade II* listed building. The church's tower is mediaeval and the remainder, in decorated Gothic style, dates from 1855. The font and pulpit are carved Bath stone. The churchyard contains a megalithic standing stone or Ogham stone upon which Ogham writing can still be seen.

Penuel Baptist Chapel (a Grade II listed building) is on the main street, while Tyrhos Congregational Chapel (Grade II) is on the road linking Cilgerran and the hamlet of Rhoshill. Babell Calvinist Methodist Chapel dates from about 1763 and closed in 2011.

Education
Cilgerran County Primary School educates 139 (in 2013) children from nursery to 11 years old and serves several surrounding villages. Pupils are taught in English and Welsh with the aim of bilingualism by the age of 11.

Public houses
The Cardiff Arms (19th century) and Pendre Inn (18th century or earlier) are both Grade II listed buildings; the Masons Arms (known locally as the Ramp Inn) is in Cnwce, a settlement to the east of Cilgerran.

Amenities
Cilgerran has a post office, a cafe, a garage/petrol station and general stores. In and around the town are a number of small businesses including a pet food store. Rhosygilwen estate, near Rhoshill, is a venue for concerts and exhibitions, attracting international artists and musicians under the banner of Project Rhosygilwen, run by Dr Glen Peters. The estate is home to the first utility-scale solar park in west Wales, constructed in 2011 and generating enough electricity to power 300 homes.

Transport
The Whitland and Cardigan Railway closed in 1962; the section of old trackbed between Cardigan and Cilgerran is now a footpath and cycle track to the Teifi estuary woodlands and marshes and the Welsh Wildlife Centre. The only public transport serving Cilgerran is the local bus service.

Attractions
With much of Cilgerran Castle in ruins, its picturesque nature and setting have attracted many artists including J. M. W. Turner.

The annual coracle races on the River Teifi were first held in 1950 and attract competitors from all over the world. The river flows slowly through a wooded gorge below the castle making it attractive for canoeists and kayakers.

Population and governance
The census population of the parish of Cilgerran was: 854 (1801): 1266 (1851): 1,033 (1901): 815 (1951): 703 (1981). The percentage of Welsh speakers was: 96 (1891): 94 (1931): 78 (1971). The population in 2001 was 1,931, with 53 per cent Welsh speakers, and in 2011 was 1,507. The village has its own elected community council; the community includes Bridell, Llantood and Rhoshill. The electoral ward of Cilgerran covers the communities of Cilgerran and Manordeifi. The ward had a population of 1,453 in 2001, increasing to 2,058 in the 2011 Census.

Slate quarrying
A substantial degree of slate quarrying was carried out in and near Cilgerran, mostly situated on the south side of the River Teifi's gorge. They played a significant role in Wales' slate industry, being the only significant quarries in South Wales apart from those around Rhoshill.

Most slate was transported to the port at Cardigan for export by sea. Some of the slate was used for buildings within the town, or exported directly by railway for use within Britain. Wharves were built east of the town on the River Teifi (at 52.05714°N, -4.61519°W), where slate could be loaded onto boats to take it to Cardigan.

Slate was first quarried at Cilgerran by John Edwards, in the late 1790s. He opened a quarry north of the town, in the land known as 'Forest' (near the Caernarfon Farm), called the Lower quarry or Forest quarry – at the site of what became Quarry Caernarvon. Later, with his two sons John and Thomas, Edwards opened another quarry slightly higher up the river, known as the Gigfran quarry ('Gigfran' is Welsh for 'Carrion crow'). Soon afterwards, John Bowen opened the Plain quarries, and around this time the Castle quarries and Moses' quarry were also opened, by George John and David John, and Moses Griffith, respectively. Upon the death of John Edwards (around 1830), Thomas Lloyd, of Coedmawr, and Oliver Lloyd, of Cardigan, acquired the Lower quarries, and began expanding them on a large scale. However, they sold the quarries soon afterwards, to James Stephens, of Llechryd.

In the late 1830s, another quarry was opened in the 'Forest' estate, by Mr. James Mathias of Cilgerran. It was called 'Quarry Forever', and situated adjacent to Gigfran quarry. About the same time, Gigfran quarry became exhausted and was thus given up. The industry peaked in the late 19th century, its continuance until that time supported by the coming of the railway in 1869.

There were two groups of quarries at Cilgerran – the ones north of the town, known collectively as the Forest quarries, and those to the east of the town, around Cnwcau, sometimes called the Town quarries. The Forest quarries were almost immediately opposite (the other side of the Teifi Gorge from) Rhoshill.

The major quarries were:

Notable people

 * Siôn Cent (ca.1367/1400 – ca.1430) a Welsh language poet and an important figure in Medieval Welsh literature, born at Cwm Tridwr near Egllwisilan or Kilgerran.
 * Admiral Sir Erasmus Gower (1742–1814), a Welsh naval officer and colonial governor. A memorial was erected in Cilgerran St Llawddog's Church by his brother, Abel Anthony Gower.
 * Titus Lewis (1773–1811), a Welsh Baptist minister and author, was born in Cilgerran.
 * Thomas Frederick Colby (1784–1852), geographer was brought up at Rhosygilwen mansion between Cilgerran and Rhoshill.
 * William Edmond Logan (1798 in Mount Logan, Canada – 1875 buried in Cilgerran), the first director of Geological Survey of Canada who mapped the coal mines of South Wales.
 * John Rowland Phillips (1844–1887), lawyer and antiquary.
 * Rhys Lloyd, Baron Lloyd of Kilgerran CBE, QC, JP (1907–1991), a Welsh Liberal Party politician.
 * Bernard Thomas (ca.1923–2014), of Llechryd, piloted a Welsh coracle across the English Channel in 1974 in $13 1/2$ hours, to demonstrate how the Bull Boats of the Mandan Indians of North Dakota could have been copied from coracles introduced by Prince Madog in the 12th century.

title: Cilgerran


text:
Guy of Thouars

Guy of Thouars (died 13 April 1213) was the third husband of Constance, Duchess of Brittany, whom he married in Angers, County of Anjou between August and October 1199 after her son Arthur of Brittany entered Angers to be recognized as count of the three countships of Anjou, Maine and Touraine. He was an Occitan noble, a member of the House of Thouars. He is counted as a duke of Brittany, jure uxoris, from 1199 to 1201.

Between 1196 and the time of her death in 1201, while delivering twin daughters, Constance ruled Brittany with her young son Arthur I, Duke of Brittany as co-ruler. Duke Arthur I was captured in 1202 by their uncle John, King of England and disappeared in 1203; with his full elder sister Eleanor, Fair Maid of Brittany captured along with him and imprisoned by John, he was succeeded by his infant maternal sister, Alix of Thouars. Guy served as Regent of Brittany for his infant daughter Alix from 1203 to 1206.

In 1204, Guy de Thouars as regent of Duchess Alix, vassal of Philip II, King of France, undertook the siege of the Norman island fortress of Mont Saint-Michel. Because the abbey would not surrender, he set fire to the village and massacred the population. He was obliged to beat a retreat under the powerful walls of the abbey. The fire which he himself lit extended to the buildings, and the roofs were engulfed in flames. Philip II paid Abbot Jordan for the reconstruction cost.

In 1206 Philip II took the regency of Brittany himself, much to the consternation of the Breton nobles.

Guy of Thouars died in 1213 in Chemillé in the county of Maine, and was buried with Constance at Villeneuve Abbey, now in the commune of Les Sorinières, outside of Nantes. 'Situated at Nantes south gate, Abbey de Villeneuve' was 'founded in 1201 by Constance de Panthièvre, the Duchess of Brittany ...'

Issue
Guy married Constance of Brittany in 1199. They had two or three daughters:
 * Alix of Thouars, succeeded her maternal brother in 1203 as suo jure Duchess of Brittany and Countess of Richmond;
 * Catherine of Thouars, Dame of Aubigné; married Andrew III, Baron of Vitré in 1212;
 * Margaret of Thouars.

Guy remarried Eustachie of Chemillé in 1203. They had two sons:
 * Peter, Lord of Chemillé (1204-1254/55), who married Eleanor of Porhoët.
 * Thomas of Chémillé (d. c. January 1246).

Portrayals in literature
Guy of Thouars is a secondary character in the novels Le Poids d’une couronne (légende bretonne) (1867-1868) by Gabrielle d’Étampes and A King’s Ransom (2014) by Sharon Kay Penman and is mentioned in the novel Dans l’Ombre du Passé (2020) by Léa Chaillou.

title: Guy of Thouars


text:
Dromaeosauridae

Dromaeosauridae is a family of feathered coelurosaurian theropod dinosaurs. They were generally small to medium-sized feathered carnivores that flourished in the Cretaceous Period. The name Dromaeosauridae means 'running lizards', from Greek ('), meaning 'running at full speed', 'swift', and  ('), meaning 'lizard'. In informal usage, they are often called raptors (after Velociraptor), a term popularized by the film Jurassic Park; several genera include the term "raptor" directly in their name, and popular culture has come to emphasize their bird-like appearance and speculated bird-like behavior.

Dromaeosaurid fossils have been found across the globe in North America, Europe, Africa, Asia and South America, with some fossils giving credence to the possibility that they inhabited Australia as well. The earliest body fossils are known from the Early Cretaceous (145-140 million years ago), and they survived until the end of the Cretaceous (Maastrichtian stage, 66 ma), existing until the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event. The presence of dromaeosaurids as early as the Middle Jurassic has been suggested by the discovery of isolated fossil teeth, though no dromaeosaurid body fossils have been found from this period.

Technical diagnosis
Dromaeosaurids are diagnosed by the following features: short T-shaped frontals that form the rostral boundary of the supratemporal fenestra; a caudolateral overhanging shelf of the squamosal; a lateral process of the quadrate that contacts the quadratojugal; raised, stalked, parapophyses on the dorsal vertebrae, a modified pedal digit II; chevrons and prezygapophysis of the caudal vertebrae elongate and spanning several vertebrae; the presence of a subglenoid fossa on the coracoid.

Size and general build
Dromaeosaurids were small to medium-sized dinosaurs, ranging from 1.5 - 2.07 m in length (in the case of Velociraptor) to approaching or over 6 m (in Utahraptor, Dakotaraptor and Achillobator). Large size appears to have evolved at least twice among dromaeosaurids; once among the dromaeosaurines Utahraptor and Achillobator, and again among the unenlagiines (Austroraptor, which measured 5 - 6 m long). A possible third lineage of giant dromaeosaurids is represented by isolated teeth found on the Isle of Wight, England. The teeth belong to an animal the size of the dromaeosaurine Utahraptor, but they appear to belong to velociraptorines, judging by the shape of the teeth.

The distinctive dromaeosaurid body plan helped to rekindle theories that dinosaurs may have been active, fast, and closely related to birds. Robert Bakker's illustration for John Ostrom's 1969 monograph, showing the dromaeosaurid Deinonychus in a fast run, is among the most influential paleontological reconstructions in history. The dromaeosaurid body plan includes a relatively large skull, serrated teeth, narrow snout (an exception being the derived dromaeosaurines), and forward-facing eyes which indicate some degree of binocular vision. Dromaeosaurids, like most other theropods, had a moderately long S-curved neck, and their trunk was relatively short and deep. Like other maniraptorans, they had long arms that could be folded against the body in some species, and relatively large hands with three long fingers (the middle finger being the longest and the first finger being the shortest) ending in large claws. The dromaeosaurid hip structure featured a characteristically large pubic boot projecting beneath the base of the tail. Dromaeosaurid feet bore a large, recurved claw on the second toe. Their tails were slender, with long, low, vertebrae lacking transverse process and neural spines after the 14th caudal vertebra. Ossified uncinate processes of ribs have been identified in several dromaeosaurids.

Foot
Like other theropods, dromaeosaurids were bipedal; that is, they walked on their hind legs. However, whereas most theropods walked with three toes contacting the ground, fossilized footprint tracks confirm that many early paravian groups, including the dromaeosaurids, held the second toe off the ground in a hyperextended position, with only the third and fourth toes bearing the weight of the animal. This is called functional didactyly. The enlarged second toe bore an unusually large, curved, falciform (sickle-shaped, alt. drepanoid) claw (held off the ground or 'retracted' when walking), which is thought to have been used in capturing prey and climbing trees (see "Claw function" below). This claw was especially blade-like in the large-bodied predatory eudromaeosaurs. One possible dromaeosaurid species, Balaur bondoc, also possessed a first toe which was highly modified in parallel with the second. Both the first and second toes on each foot of B. bondoc were also held retracted and bore enlarged, sickle-shaped claws.

Tail
Dromaeosaurids had long tails. Most of the tail vertebrae bore bony, rod-like extensions (called prezygapophyses), as well as bony tendons in some species. In his study of Deinonychus, Ostrom proposed that these features stiffened the tail so that it could only flex at the base, and the whole tail would then move as a single, rigid, lever. However, one well-preserved specimen of Velociraptor mongoliensis (IGM 100/986) has an articulated tail skeleton that is curved horizontally in a long S-shape. This suggests that, in life, the tail could bend from side to side with a substantial degree of flexibility. It has been proposed that this tail was used as a stabilizer or counterweight while running or in the air; in Microraptor, an elongate diamond-shaped fan of feathers is preserved on the end of the tail. This may have been used as an aerodynamic stabilizer and rudder during gliding or powered flight (see "Flight and gliding" below).

Feathers
There is a large body of evidence showing that dromaeosaurids were covered in feathers. Some dromaeosaurid fossils preserve long, pennaceous feathers on the hands and arms (remiges) and tail (rectrices), as well as shorter, down-like feathers covering the body. Other fossils, which do not preserve actual impressions of feathers, still preserve the associated bumps on the forearm bones where long wing feathers would have attached in life. Overall, this feather pattern looks very much like Archaeopteryx.

The first known dromaeosaurid with definitive evidence of feathers was Sinornithosaurus, reported from China by Xu et al. in 1999. Many other dromaeosaurid fossils have been found with feathers covering their bodies, some with fully developed feathered wings. Microraptor even shows evidence of a second pair of wings on the hind legs. While direct feather impressions are only possible in fine-grained sediments, some fossils found in coarser rocks show evidence of feathers by the presence of quill knobs, the attachment points for wing feathers possessed by some birds. The dromaeosaurids Rahonavis and Velociraptor have both been found with quill knobs, showing that these forms had feathers despite no impressions having been found. In light of this, it is most likely that even the larger ground-dwelling dromaeosaurids bore feathers, since even flightless birds today retain most of their plumage, and relatively large dromaeosaurids, like Velociraptor, are known to have retained pennaceous feathers. Though some scientists had suggested that the larger dromaeosaurids lost some or all of their insulatory covering, the discovery of feathers in Velociraptor specimens has been cited as evidence that all members of the family retained feathers.

More recently, the discovery of Zhenyuanlong established the presence of a full feathered coat in relatively large dromaeosaurids. Additionally, the animal displays proportionally large, aerodynamic wing feathers, as well as a tail-spanning fan, both of which are unexpected traits that may offer an understanding of the integument of large dromaeosaurids. Dakotaraptor is an even larger dromaeosaurid species with evidence of feathers, albeit indirect in the form of quill knobs, though the taxon is considered as chimeara by other researchers as even the dinosaurian elements with supposed traits diagnostic for dromaeosaurs also referrable to caenagnathids and ornithomimosaurians.

Relationship with birds
Dromaeosaurids share many features with early birds (clade Avialae or Aves). The precise nature of their relationship to birds has undergone a great deal of study, and hypotheses about that relationship have changed as large amounts of new evidence became available. As late as 2001, Mark Norell and colleagues analyzed a large survey of coelurosaur fossils and produced the tentative result that dromaeosaurids were most closely related to birds, with troodontids as a more distant outgroup. They even suggested that Dromaeosauridae could be paraphyletic relative to Avialae. In 2002, Hwang and colleagues utilized the work of Norell et al., including new characters and better fossil evidence, to determine that birds (avialans) were better thought of as cousins to the dromaeosaurids and troodontids. The consensus of paleontologists is that there is not yet enough evidence to determine whether any dromaeosaurids could fly or glide, or whether they evolved from ancestors that could.

Alternative theories and flightlessness
Dromaeosaurids are so bird-like that they have led some researchers to argue that they would be better classified as birds. First, since they had feathers, dromaeosaurids (along with many other coelurosaurian theropod dinosaurs) are "birds" under traditional definitions of the word "bird", or "Aves", that are based on the possession of feathers. However, other scientists, such as Lawrence Witmer, have argued that calling a theropod like Caudipteryx a bird because it has feathers may stretch the word past any useful meaning. At least two schools of researchers have proposed that dromaeosaurids may actually be descended from flying ancestors. Hypotheses involving a flying ancestor for dromaeosaurids are sometimes called "Birds Came First" (BCF). George Olshevsky is usually credited as the first author of BCF. In his own work, Gregory S. Paul pointed out numerous features of the dromaeosaurid skeleton that he interpreted as evidence that the entire group had evolved from flying, dinosaurian ancestors, perhaps an animal like Archaeopteryx. In that case, the larger dromaeosaurids were secondarily flightless, like the modern ostrich. In 1988, Paul suggested that dromaeosaurids may actually be more closely related to modern birds than to Archaeopteryx. By 2002, however, Paul placed dromaeosaurids and Archaeopteryx as the closest relatives to one another.

In 2002, Hwang et al. found that Microraptor was the most primitive dromaeosaurid. Xu and colleagues in 2003 cited the basal position of Microraptor, along with feather and wing features, as evidence that the ancestral dromaeosaurid could glide. In that case the larger dromaeosaurids would be secondarily terrestrial—having lost the ability to glide later in their evolutionary history.

Also in 2002, Steven Czerkas described Cryptovolans, though it is a probable junior synonym of Microraptor. He reconstructed the fossil inaccurately with only two wings and thus argued that dromaeosaurids were powered fliers, rather than passive gliders. He later issued a revised reconstruction in agreement with that of Microraptor

Other researchers, like Larry Martin, have proposed that dromaeosaurids, along with all maniraptorans, were not dinosaurs at all. Martin asserted for decades that birds were unrelated to maniraptorans, but in 2004 he changed his position, agreeing that the two were close relatives. However, Martin believed that maniraptorans were secondarily flightless birds, and that birds did not evolve from dinosaurs, but rather from non-dinosaurian archosaurs. In 2005, Mayr and Peters described the anatomy of a very well preserved specimen of Archaeopteryx, and determined that its anatomy was more like non-avian theropods than previously understood. Specifically, they found that Archaeopteryx had a primitive palatine, unreversed hallux, and hyper-extendable second toe. Their phylogenetic analysis produced the controversial result that Confuciusornis was closer to Microraptor than to Archaeopteryx, making the Avialae a paraphyletic taxon. They also suggested that the ancestral paravian was able to fly or glide, and that the dromaeosaurids and troodontids were secondarily flightless (or had lost the ability to glide). Corfe and Butler criticized this work on methodological grounds.

A challenge to all of these alternative scenarios came when Turner and colleagues in 2007 described a new dromaeosaurid, Mahakala, which they found to be the most basal and most primitive member of the Dromaeosauridae, more primitive than Microraptor. Mahakala had short arms and no ability to glide. Turner et al. also inferred that flight evolved only in the Avialae, and these two points suggested that the ancestral dromaeosaurid could not glide or fly. Based on this cladistic analysis, Mahakala suggests that the ancestral condition for dromaeosaurids is non-volant. However, in 2012, an expanded and revised study incorporating the most recent dromaeosaurid finds recovered the Archaeopteryx-like Xiaotingia as the most primitive member of the clade Dromaeosauridae, which appears to suggest the earliest members of the clade may have been capable of flight.

Taxonomy
The authorship of the family Dromaeosauridae is credited to William Diller Matthew and Barnum Brown, who erected it as a subfamily (Dromaeosaurinae) of the family Deinodontidae in 1922, containing only the new genus Dromaeosaurus.

The subfamilies of Dromaeosauridae frequently shift in content based on new analysis, but typically consist of the following groups. A number of dromaeosaurids have not been assigned to any particular subfamily, often because they are too poorly preserved to be placed confidently in phylogenetic analysis (see section Phylogeny below) or are indeterminate, being assigned to different groups depending on the methodology employed in different papers. The most basal known subfamily of dromaeosaurids is Halszkaraptorinae, a group of bizarre creatures with long fingers and necks, a large number of small teeth, and possible semiaquatic habits. Another enigmatic group, Unenlagiinae, is the most poorly supported subfamily of dromaeosaurids and it is possible that some or all of its members belong outside of Dromaeosauridae. The larger, ground-dwelling members like Buitreraptor and Unenlagia show strong flight adaptations, although they were probably too large to 'take off'. One possible member of this group, Rahonavis, is very small, with well-developed wings that show evidence of quill knobs (the attachment points for flight feathers) and it is very likely that it could fly. The next most primitive clade of dromaeosaurids is the Microraptoria. This group includes many of the smallest dromaeosaurids, which show adaptations for living in trees. All known dromaeosaurid skin impressions hail from this group and all show an extensive covering of feathers and well-developed wings. Like the unenlagiines, some species may have been capable of active flight. The most advanced subgroup of dromaeosaurids, Eudromaeosauria, includes stocky and short-legged genera which were likely ambush hunters. This group includes Velociraptorinae, Dromaeosaurinae, and in some studies a third group: Saurornitholestinae. The subfamily Velociraptorinae has traditionally included Velociraptor, Deinonychus, and Saurornitholestes, and while the discovery of Tsaagan lent support to this grouping, the inclusion of Deinonychus, Saurornitholestes, and a few other genera is still uncertain. The Dromaeosaurinae is usually found to consist of medium to giant-sized species, with generally box-shaped skulls (the other subfamilies generally have narrower snouts). The following classification of the various genera of dromaeosaurids follows the table provided in Holtz, 2011 unless otherwise noted.
 * Family Dromaeosauridae
 * Nuthetes
 * Pamparaptor
 * Variraptor
 * Pyroraptor
 * Zhenyuanlong
 * Daurlong
 * Subfamily Halszkaraptorinae
 * Halszkaraptor
 * Mahakala
 * Hulsanpes
 * Natovenator
 * Subfamily Unenlagiinae
 * Ornithodesmus
 * Austroraptor
 * Rahonavis
 * Unenlagia
 * Buitreraptor
 * Neuquenraptor
 * Unquillosaurus
 * Ypupiara
 * Diuqin
 * Subfamily Microraptorinae
 * Shanag
 * Tianyuraptor
 * Graciliraptor
 * Changyuraptor
 * Hesperonychus
 * Microraptor
 * Sinornithosaurus
 * Wulong
 * Zhongjianosaurus
 * Node Eudromaeosauria
 * Deinonychus
 * Dineobellator
 * Vectiraptor
 * Subfamily Saurornitholestinae
 * Bambiraptor
 * Saurornitholestes
 * Atrociraptor
 * Acheroraptor?
 * Subfamily Velociraptorinae
 * Luanchuanraptor?
 * Linheraptor?
 * Velociraptor
 * Tsaagan?
 * Adasaurus?
 * Shri
 * Kansaignathus
 * Kuru
 * Subfamily Dromaeosaurinae
 * Achillobator?
 * Itemirus?
 * Dromaeosaurus
 * Dakotaraptor?
 * Dromaeosauroides?
 * Utahraptor?
 * Yurgovuchia?

Phylogeny
Dromaeosauridae was first defined as a clade by Paul Sereno in 1998, as the most inclusive natural group containing Dromaeosaurus but not Troodon, Ornithomimus or Passer. The various "subfamilies" have also been re-defined as clades, usually defined as all species closer to the groups namesake than to Dromaeosaurus or any namesakes of other sub-clades (for example, Makovicky defined the clade Unenlagiinae as all dromaeosaurids closer to Unenlagia than to Velociraptor). The Microraptoria is the only dromaeosaurid sub-clade not converted from a subfamily. Senter and colleagues expressly coined the name without the subfamily suffix -inae to avoid perceived issues with erecting a traditional family-group taxon, should the group be found to lie outside dromaeosauridae proper. Sereno offered a revised definition of the sub-group containing Microraptor to ensure that it would fall within Dromaeosauridae, and erected the subfamily Microraptorinae, attributing it to Senter et al., though this usage has only appeared on his online TaxonSearch database and has not been formally published. The extensive cladistic analysis conducted by Turner et al. (2012) further supported the monophyly of Dromaeosauridae.

The cladogram below follows a 2015 analysis by DePalma et al. using updated data from the Theropod Working Group.

Another cladogram constructed below follows the phylogenetic analysis conducted in 2017 by Cau et al. using the updated data from the Theropod Working Group in their description of Halszkaraptor.

Senses
Comparisons between the scleral rings of several dromaeosaurids (Microraptor, Sinornithosaurus, and Velociraptor) and modern birds and reptiles indicate that some dromaeosaurids (including Microraptor and Velociraptor) may have been nocturnal predators, while Sinornithosaurus is inferred to be cathemeral (active throughout the day at short intervals). However, the discovery of iridescent plumage in Microraptor has cast doubt on the inference of nocturnality in this genus, as no modern birds that have iridescent plumage are known to be nocturnal.

Studies of the olfactory bulbs of dromaeosaurids reveal that they had similar olfactory ratios for their size to other non-avian theropods and modern birds with an acute sense of smell, such as tyrannosaurids and the turkey vulture, probably reflecting the importance of the olfactory sense in the daily activities of dromaeosaurids such as finding food.

Feeding
Dromaeosaurid feeding was discovered to be typical of coelurosaurian theropods, with a characteristic "puncture and pull" feeding method. Studies of wear patterns on the teeth of dromaeosaurids by Angelica Torices et al. indicate that dromaeosaurid teeth share similar wear patterns to those seen in the Tyrannosauridae and Troodontidae. However, microwear on the teeth indicated that dromaeosaurids likely preferred larger prey items than the troodontids they often shared their environment with. Such dietary differentiations likely allowed them to inhabit the same environment. The same study also indicated that dromaeosaurids such as Dromaeosaurus and Saurornitholestes (two dromaeosaurids analyzed in the study) likely included bone in their diet and were better adapted to handle struggling prey while troodontids, equipped with weaker jaws, preyed on softer animals and prey items such as invertebrates and carrion.

Claw function
There is currently disagreement about the function of the enlarged "sickle claw" on the second toe. When John Ostrom described it for Deinonychus in 1969, he interpreted the claw as a blade-like slashing weapon, much like the canines of some saber-toothed cats, used with powerful kicks to cut into prey. Adams (1987) suggested that the talon was used to disembowel large ceratopsian dinosaurs. The interpretation of the sickle claw as a killing weapon applied to all dromaeosaurids. However, Manning et al. argued that the claw instead served as a hook, reconstructing the keratinous sheath with an elliptical cross section, instead of the previously inferred inverted teardrop shape. In Manning's interpretation, the second toe claw would be used as a climbing aid when subduing bigger prey and also as a stabbing weapon.

Ostrom compared Deinonychus to the ostrich and cassowary. He noted that the bird species can inflict serious injury with the large claw on the second toe. The cassowary has claws up to 125 mm long. Ostrom cited Gilliard (1958) in saying that they can sever an arm or disembowel a man. Kofron (1999 and 2003) studied 241 documented cassowary attacks and found that one human and two dogs had been killed, but no evidence that cassowaries can disembowel or dismember other animals. Cassowaries use their claws to defend themselves, to attack threatening animals, and in agonistic displays such as the Bowed Threat Display. The seriema also has an enlarged second toe claw, and uses it to tear apart small prey items for swallowing.

Phillip Manning and colleagues (2009) attempted to test the function of the sickle claw and similarly shaped claws on the forelimbs. They analyzed the bio-mechanics of how stresses and strains would be distributed along the claws and into the limbs, using X-ray imaging to create a three-dimensional contour map of a forelimb claw from Velociraptor. For comparison, they analyzed the construction of a claw from a modern predatory bird, the eagle owl. They found that, based on the way that stress was conducted along the claw, they were ideal for climbing. The scientists found that the sharpened tip of the claw was a puncturing and gripping instrument, while the curved and expanded claw base helped transfer stress loads evenly. The Manning team also compared the curvature of the dromaeosaurid "sickle claw" on the foot with curvature in modern birds and mammals. Previous studies had shown that the amount of curvature in a claw corresponded to what lifestyle the animal has: animals with strongly curved claws of a certain shape tend to be climbers, while straighter claws indicate ground-dwelling lifestyles. The sickle claws of the dromaeosaurid Deinonychus have a curvature of 160 degrees, well within the range of climbing animals. The forelimb claws they studied also fell within the climbing range of curvature.

Paleontologist Peter Mackovicky commented on the Manning team's study, stating that small, primitive dromaeosaurids (such as Microraptor) were likely to have been tree-climbers, but that climbing did not explain why later, gigantic dromaeosaurids such as Achillobator retained highly curved claws when they were too large to have climbed trees. Mackovicky speculated that giant dromaeosaurids may have adapted the claw to be used exclusively for latching on to prey. In 2009 Phil Senter published a study on dromaeosaurid toes and showed that their range of motion was compatible with the excavation of tough insect nests. Senter suggested that small dromaeosaurids such as Rahonavis and Buitreraptor were small enough to be partial insectivores, while larger genera such as Deinonychus and Neuquenraptor could have used this ability to catch vertebrate prey residing in insect nests. However, Senter did not test whether the strong curvature of dromaeosaurid claws was also conducive to such activities.

In 2011, Denver Fowler and colleagues suggested a new method by which dromaeosaurids may have taken smaller prey. This model, known as the "raptor prey restraint" (RPR) model of predation, proposes that dromaeosaurids killed their prey in a manner very similar to extant accipitrid birds of prey: by leaping onto their quarry, pinning it under their body weight, and gripping it tightly with the large, sickle-shaped claws. Like accipitrids, the dromaeosaurid would then begin to feed on the animal while still alive, until it eventually died from blood loss and organ failure. This proposal is based primarily on comparisons between the morphology and proportions of the feet and legs of dromaeosaurids to several groups of extant birds of prey with known predatory behaviors. Fowler found that the feet and legs of dromaeosaurids most closely resemble those of eagles and hawks, especially in terms of having an enlarged second claw and a similar range of grasping motion. The short metatarsus and foot strength, however, would have been more similar to that of owls. The RPR method of predation would be consistent with other aspects of dromaeosaurid anatomy, such as their unusual dentition and arm morphology. The arms, which could exert a lot of force but were likely covered in long feathers, may have been used as flapping stabilizers for balance while atop a struggling prey animal, along with the stiff counterbalancing tail. Dromaeosaurid jaws, thought by Fowler and colleagues to be comparatively weak, would have been useful for eating prey alive but not as useful for quick, forceful dispatch of the prey. These predatory adaptations working together may also have implications for the origin of flapping in paravians. In 2019, Peter Bishop reconstructed the leg skeleton and musculature of Deinonychus by using three-dimensional models of muscles, tendons, and bones. With the addition of mathematical models and equations, Bishop simulated the conditions that would provide maximum force at the tip of the sickle claw and therefore the most likely function. Among the proposed modes of the sickle claw use are: kicking to cut, slash or disembowel prey; for gripping onto the flanks of prey; piercing aided by body weight; to attack vital areas of the prey; to restrain prey; intra- or interspecific competition; and digging out prey from hideouts. The results obtained by Bishop showed that a crouching posture increased the claw forces, however, these forces remained relatively weak indicating that the claws were not strong enough to be used in slashing strikes. Rather than being used for slashing, the sickle claws were more likely to be useful in flexed leg angles such as restraining prey and stabbing prey at close quarters. These results are consistent with the Fighting Dinosaurs specimen, which preserves a Velociraptor and Protoceratops locked in combat, with the former gripping onto the other with its claws in a non-extended leg posture. Despite the obtained results, Bishop considered that the capabilities of the sickle claw could have varied within taxa given that among dromaeosaurids, Adasaurus had an unusually smaller sickle claw that retained the characteristic ginglymoid—a structure divided in two parts—and hyperextensible articular surface of the penultimate phalange. He could neither confirm nor disregard that the pedal digit II could have loss or retain its functionally.

A 2020 study by Gianechini et al., also indicates that velociraptorines, dromaeosaurines and other eudromaeosaurs in Laurasia differed greatly in their locomotive and killing techniques from the unenlagiine dromaeosaurids of Gondwana. The shorter second phalanx in the second digit of the foot allowed for increased force to be generated by that digit, which, combined with a shorter and wider metatarsus, and a noticeable marked hinge‐like morphology of the articular surfaces of metatarsals and phalanges, possibly allowed eudromaeosaurs to exert a greater gripping strength than unenlagiines, allowing for more efficient subduing and killing of large prey. In comparison, the unenlagiine dromaeosaurids had a longer and slender subarctometatarsus, and less well‐marked hinge joints, a trait that possibly gave them greater cursorial capacities and allowed for greater speed. Additionally, the longer second phalanx of the second digit allowed unenlagiines fast movements of their feet's second digits to hunt smaller and more elusive types of prey. These differences in locomotor and predatory specializations may have been a key feature that influenced the evolutionary pathways that shaped both groups of dromaeosaurs in the northern and southern hemispheres.

Group behavior
Deinonychus fossils have been uncovered in small groups near the remains of the herbivore Tenontosaurus, a larger ornithischian dinosaur. This had been interpreted as evidence that these dromaeosaurids hunted in coordinated packs like some modern mammals. However, not all paleontologists found the evidence conclusive, and a subsequent study published in 2007 by Roach and Brinkman suggests that the Deinonychus may have actually displayed a disorganized mobbing behavior. Modern diapsids, including birds and crocodiles (the closest relatives of dromaeosaurids), display minimal long-term cooperative hunting (except the aplomado falcon and Harris's hawk); instead, they are usually solitary hunters, either joining forces time to time to increase hunting success (as crocodilians sometimes do), or are drawn to previously killed carcasses, where conflict often occurs between individuals of the same species. For example, in situations where groups of Komodo dragons are eating together, the largest individuals eat first and might attack smaller Komodo dragons that attempt to feed; if the smaller animal dies, it is usually cannibalized. When this information is applied to the sites containing putative pack-hunting behavior in dromaeosaurids, it appears somewhat consistent with a Komodo dragon-like feeding strategy. Deinonychus skeletal remains found at these sites are from subadults, with missing parts that may have been eaten by other Deinonychus, which a study by Roach et al. presented as evidence against the idea that the animals cooperated in the hunt. Different dietary preferences between juvenile and adult Deinonychus published in 2020 indicate that the animal did not exhibit complex, cooperative behavior seen in pack-hunting animals. Whether this extended to other dromaeosaurs is currently unknown. A third possible option is that dromaeosaurids did not exhibit long-term cooperative behaviour, but did show short-term cooperative behaviour as seen in crocodilians, which display both true cooperation and competition for prey.

In 2001, multiple Utahraptor specimens ranging in age from fully grown adult to tiny three-foot-long baby were found at a site considered by some to be a quicksand predator trap. Some consider this as evidence of family hunting behaviour; however, the full sandstone block is yet to be opened and researchers are unsure as to whether or not the animals died at the same time.

In 2007, scientists described the first known extensive dromaeosaurid trackway, in Shandong, China. In addition to confirming the hypothesis that the sickle claw was held retracted off the ground, the trackway (made by a large, Achillobator-sized species) showed evidence of six individuals of about equal size moving together along a shoreline. The individuals were spaced about one meter apart, traveling in the same direction and walking at a fairly slow pace. The authors of the paper describing these footprints interpreted the trackways as evidence that some species of dromaeosaurids lived in groups. While the trackways clearly do not represent hunting behavior, the idea that groups of dromaeosaurids may have hunted together, according to the authors, could not be ruled out.

Flying and gliding
The forearms of dromaeosaurids appear well adapted to resisting the torsional and bending stresses associated with flapping and gliding, and the ability to fly or glide has been suggested for at least five dromaeosaurid species. The first, Rahonavis ostromi (originally classified as avian bird, but found to be a dromaeosaurid in later studies ) may have been capable of powered flight, as indicated by its long forelimbs with evidence of quill knob attachments for long sturdy flight feathers. The forelimbs of Rahonavis were more powerfully built than Archaeopteryx, and show evidence that they bore strong ligament attachments necessary for flapping flight. Luis Chiappe concluded that, given these adaptations, Rahonavis could probably fly but would have been more clumsy in the air than modern birds.

Another species of dromaeosaurid, Microraptor gui, may have been capable of gliding using its well-developed wings on both the fore and hind limbs. A 2005 study by Sankar Chatterjee suggested that the wings of Microraptor functioned like a split-level "biplane", and that it likely employed a phugoid style of gliding, in which it would launch from a perch and swoop downward in a U-shaped curve, then lift again to land on another tree, with the tail and hind wings helping to control its position and speed. Chatterjee also found that Microraptor had the basic requirements to sustain level powered flight in addition to gliding.

Changyuraptor yangi is a close relative of Microraptor gui, also thought to be a glider or flyer based on the presence of four wings and similar limb proportions. However, it is a considerably larger animal, around the size of a wild turkey, being among the largest known flying Mesozoic paravians.

Another dromaeosaurid species, Deinonychus antirrhopus, may display partial flight capacities. The young of this species bore longer arms and more robust pectoral girdles than adults, and which were similar to those seen in other flapping theropods, implying that they may have been capable of flight when young and then lost the ability as they grew.

The possibility that Sinornithosaurus millenii was capable of gliding or even powered flight has also been brought up several times, though no further studies have occurred.

Zhenyuanlong preserves wing feathers that are aerodynamically shaped, with particularly bird-like coverts as opposed to the longer, wider-spanning coverts of forms like Archaeopteryx and Anchiornis, as well as fused sternal plates. Due to its size and short arms it is unlikely that Zhenyuanlong was capable of powered flight (though the importance of biomechanical modelling in this regard is stressed ), but it may suggest a relatively close descendance from flying ancestors, or even some capacity for gliding or wing-assisted incline running.

Paleopathology
In 2001, Bruce Rothschild and others published a study examining evidence for stress fractures and tendon avulsions in theropod dinosaurs and the implications for their behavior. Since stress fractures are caused by repeated trauma rather than singular events they are more likely to be caused by regular behavior than other types of injuries. The researchers found lesions like those caused by stress fractures on a dromaeosaurid hand claw, one of only two such claw lesions discovered in the course of the study. Stress fractures in the hands have special behavioral significance compared to those found in the feet, since stress fractures in the feet can be obtained while running or during migration. Hand injuries, by contrast, are more likely to be obtained while in contact with struggling prey.

Swimming
At least one dromaeosaurid group, Halszkaraptorinae, whose members are halszkaraptorines, are most likely to have been specialised for aquatic or semiaquatic habits, having developed limb proportions, tooth morphology, and rib cage akin to those of diving birds.

Fishing habits have been proposed for unenlagiines, including comparisons to attributed semi-aquatic spinosaurids, but any aquatic propulsion mechanisms have not been discussed so far.

Reproduction
In 2006, Grellet-Tinner and Makovicky reported an egg associated with a specimen of Deinonychus. The egg shares similarities with oviraptorid eggs, and the authors interpreted the association as potentially indicative of brooding. A study published in November 2018 by Norell, Yang and Wiemann et al., indicates that Deinonychus laid blue eggs, likely to camouflage them as well as creating open nests. Other dromaeosaurids may have done the same, and it is theorized that they and other maniraptoran dinosaurs may have been an origin point for laying colored eggs and creating open nests as many birds do today.

In popular culture
Velociraptor, a dromaeosaurid, gained much attention after it was featured prominently in the 1993 Steven Spielberg film Jurassic Park. However, the dimensions of the Velociraptor in the film are much larger than the largest members of that genus. Robert Bakker recalled that Spielberg had been disappointed with the dimensions of Velociraptor and so upsized it. Gregory S. Paul, in his 1988 book Predatory Dinosaurs of the World, also considered Deinonychus antirrhopus a species of Velociraptor, and so rechristened the species Velociraptor antirrhopus. This taxonomic opinion has not been widely followed.

title: Dromaeosauridae