Velociraptor:
Velociraptor was a small theropod that lived during the Cretaceous. Like all dromaeosaurs,
Velociraptor was clearly built for an active hunting lifestyle, and was well adapted for running and jumping. In addition,
Velociraptor and other “sickle claws” were almost certainly pack hunters that used the enlarged, retractable claws on their hindlimbs to slash at and disembowel prey. For dinosaurs, dromaeosaurs had rather large brains (but nowhere
near as large as the movie implies), and so were probably pretty smart, comparatively speaking.
The dromaeosaurs that menaced our heroes in all three
Jurassic Park movies were constantly referred to as “
Velociraptors.” That’s not quite accurate, though. Those critters were
much larger than real
Velociraptors, and were from the wrong part of the world. Remember how we were discussing “lumpers” and “splitters” earlier? Calling those critters “
Velociraptors” is a pretty blatant (and excessive, in my opinion) example of lumping.
Only one species is currently known from the genus
Velociraptor, namely
V. mongoliensis. As its name implies, it lived in what’s today China and Mongolia, not North America. So the raptor fossils Alan and Ellie were excavating near the beginning of
Jurassic Park were certainly not fossils of
Velociraptor mongoliensis. Besides,
V. mongoliensis was rather small — only about 6 feet (2 meters) long from snout to tip of tail and perhaps 40 pounds (18 kilograms) or so in weight. The closest match to the “
Velociraptors” of
Jurassic Park would be
Deinonychus antirrhopus, which was about the size of the movie “raptors” and did indeed live in what’s today Montana. So, I’d say that the raptors of
Jurassic Park weren’t
Velociraptor at all, but
Deinonychus.
Another reason to think that those were
Deinonychus instead of
Velociraptor is the shape of the animals’ skulls.
Velociraptor had a relatively long and narrow snout, as can be seen from this model.
Deinonychus had a relatively shorter, more rounded, and much more heavily-built skull than
Velociraptor, as you can see from this model. This skull shape
much more closely resembles the skulls of the “
Velociraptors” we saw in the
Jurassic Park movies than does the skull shape of
Velociraptor mongoliensis.
So why do they keep calling those raptors “
Velociraptors”? In the novel version of
Jurassic Park, Michael Crichton claimed that paleontologists now know that
Deinonychus “properly” belongs to the same genus as
Velociraptor, and so
Deinonychus antirrhopus is “properly” known as
Velociraptor antirrhopus. If I recall correctly, one character even uses this “fact” to demonstrate his superior knowledge of dinosaur taxonomy.
Rubbish.
To my knowledge, only
one prominent paleontologist, Gregory Paul, has suggested that
Velociraptor and
Deinonychus were sufficiently closely-related that they should be reclassified into the same genus. (Since the genus
Velociraptor was named before the genus
Deinonychus, if they were to be combined, the older name —
Velociraptor — would be the one used.) The overwhelming consensus of the paleontology community is that Paul is wrong.
Velociraptor and
Deinonychus were quite closely-related, to be sure, but the numerous morphological differences between them are sufficient to convince the general paleontology community that they should be considered separate genera.
I suspect that by claiming
Deinonychus should “properly” be referred to as “
Velociraptor,” Crichton was trying to show that his was “cutting edge” knowledge of dinosaur taxonomy. Unfortunately, he didn’t do his homework properly in this case, methinks. (Or maybe it’s that “Oh God, it’s a pack of raptors!” sounds more frightening than “Look out, it’s a pack of
Deinonychus!”)
Anyway, now that we know a bit about the dinosaurs, let’s look at the
Jurassic Park movies themselves, shall we? How much sense do they make?
Velociraptor
Linear Mode
