Dinosaurs A to Z
Dromaeosauridae

Velociraptor mongoliensis vuh-LOSS-ih-RAP-tor

"Swift thief"

Velociraptor silhouette
You 1.8 m (5.9 ft) tall
Velociraptor 2 m (6.6 ft) long
as long as 2 people standing fingertip to fingertip
silhouette · Gareth Monger (CC-BY) via PhyloPic
Length
2 m (6.6 ft) — About 2 m long, 0.5 m tall at the hip, ~15 kg — turkey-sized.
Period
Late Cretaceous (75–71 Mya)
Place
Asia · Mongolia · China
Food
Carnivore — Small prey — lizards, mammals, juvenile dinosaurs, possibly Protoceratops.
Clade
Dromaeosauridae Dinosauria Saurischia Theropoda Coelurosauria Sickle-clawed raptors: Velociraptor, Deinonychus, Utahraptor.

A turkey-sized, feathered Mongolian predator made famous, and oversized, by the movies.

Velociraptor was small. The size of a turkey. The big scaly killer from Jurassic Park was actually based on Deinonychus — its bigger American cousin — and modern science says even Deinonychus had feathers. We know real Velociraptor had feathers because the bones in its arms show quill knobs, the attachment points where flight feathers anchor.

More about Velociraptor

Discovery

Named by Henry Fairfield Osborn · 1924 · The Djadochta Formation at the Flaming Cliffs (Bayn Dzak), Gobi Desert, Mongolia

On 11 August 1923, Peter Kaisen of an American Museum of Natural History expedition found the first known fossil, a crushed but complete skull with a hand claw (AMNH 6515). In 1924, museum president Henry Fairfield Osborn designated it the type specimen of his new genus.

From the Latin words for "swift" and "robber" or "plunderer," referring to the animal's running ability and carnivorous diet.

Henry Fairfield Osborn. President of the American Museum of Natural History who in 1924 named and described the genus and its type species, V. mongoliensis.

How sure are we that Velociraptor had feathers?
Quill knobs, the attachment sites for wing feathers, were reported on the forearm of one specimen, though its referral to Velociraptor may require reevaluation pending further study. Even so, there is strong phylogenetic evidence from feathered dromaeosauridA 'raptor' — a feathered theropod with a big sickle claw on each foot. relatives such as Microraptor and Zhenyuanlong that indicates Velociraptor was feathered.
For the curious → Is Velociraptorinae really its own group?
Velociraptorinae was first erected to contain only Velociraptor, and later analyses often added genera like Deinonychus and Saurornitholestes. Several studies in the 2010s failed to recover it as a distinct group, suggesting instead that it may be a paraphyletic grade. Dromaeosaurid classification is described as highly variable.

What we know

  • Quill knobs on the arm bones prove Velociraptor had real feathered wings.
  • Famous 'Fighting Dinosaurs' fossil shows one locked in combat with Protoceratops, buried by a sandstorm.
  • Sickle-shaped claw on the second toe, used for pinning prey.
  • About the size and weight of a large turkey — not the Jurassic Park monster.

What we guess

  • Color of the feathers — possibly dark and iridescent, like modern crows, but no melanosome study yet confirms this.
  • Whether it hunted in packs. The fossil evidence is thin and most researchers now think it was a solo predator.
  • How exactly it used the sickle claw — pinning prey while biting, or kicking, is the leading idea.