Post by Delirious on Mar 6, 2015 0:15:05 GMT 2
Velociraptor
©2015 DeliriouStudios
Name Meaning: Swift Seizer
Diet: Carnivour
Size compared to Human: Just Over Knee Hight
Time: Late Cretaceous (84 - 80 million years ago)
Appearance
Velociraptor was a mid-sized dromaeosaurid, with adults measuring up to 2.07 m (6.8 ft) long, 0.5 m (1.6 ft) high at the hip, and weighing up to 15 kg (33 lb). Velociraptor, like other dromaeosaurids, had a large hands with three strongly curved claws, which were similar in construction and flexibility to the wing bones of modern birds.
The second digit on their foot, for which Velociraptor is most famous, was highly modified and held retracted off the ground. It bore a relatively large, sickle-shaped claw. This enlarged claw, which could grow to over 6.5 cm (2.6 in) long around its outer edge, was a predatory device used to pierce into the windpipe and restrain struggling prey.
Velociraptor are known to have had feathers covering their bodies and fully developed feathered wings. The fact that the ancestors of Velociraptor were feathered and possibly capable of flight had long suggested to paleontologists that Velociraptor bore feathers as well, since even flightless birds today retain most of their feathers.
Behaviour
It is likely that the Velociraptor would hunt in small packs of around 6 or 7 and would communicated through vocals and body movements, Its unclear if their feathers where just for warmth or if they used them to portray strength. Fossil evidence of pack behaviour is rare, so it probably depended on the amount of pray/predator ratio in different parts of the world where they lived decided whether or not these dinosaurs needed to live in packs. Though the Velociraptor would hunt for pray, they where small. So it is most likely that they scavenged for their pray as well as catching their own.
Jurrasic Park Velociraptor
Velociraptor is one of the dinosaur genera most familiar to the general public due to its prominent role in the Jurassic Park motion picture series. In the films it was shown with anatomical inaccuracies, including being much larger than it was in reality and without feathers. Some of these inaccuracies, along with the head's larger dome in the movies may suggest that the dinosaurs in the movies were actually modeled on Deinonychus. Velociraptor is also well known to paleontologists, with over a dozen described fossil skeletons, the most of any dromaeosaurid.
The filmmakers greatly increased the size of the Velociraptor and changed the shape of its snout to proportions more characteristic of Deinonychus. In real life Velociraptor, like many other maniraptoran theropods, was covered in feathers. Jurassic Park and The Lost World: Jurassic Park, were released before this discovery, so the creatures in both films are depicted as featherless with scales all over in the manner of modern reptiles. For Jurassic Park III the male Velociraptor was given quill-like structures along the back of the head and neck. While this was the extent to which CGI effects were able to render feathers at the time, the structures do not resemble the down-like feathers real-life dromaeosaurids bore or the fully developed arm feathers, akin to the wing feathers of modern birds, born by Velociraptor.
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