Velociraptor mongoliensis vuh-LOSS-ih-RAP-tor
"Swift thief"
You 1.8 m (5.9 ft) tall
Velociraptor 2 m (6.6 ft) long
2 people holding hands
- 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.
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.
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.