In our 83rd episode, we had the pleasure of speaking with Geoff Jones, author of the adult thriller, The Dinosaur Four. Geoff has a degree in Creative Writing from the University of Colorado. And he has written for Star Wars, Indiana Jones, LEGO, Marvel, and other franchises. Learn more about Geoff at his website, geoffjoneswriter.com, or connect with him on Twitter @geoffjones.
Episode 83 is also about Velociraptor, a small dromaeosaurid often confused with Deinonychus or Utahraptor (because of Jurassic Park).
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In this episode, we discuss:
- The dinosaur of the day: Velociraptor
- Name means “swift seizer”
- Two valid species: Velociraptor mongoliensis (type species) and Velociraptor osmolskae (named in 2008, found skull in Inner Mongolia)
- Peter Kaisen found the first Velociraptor fossil in 1923 as part of an American Museum of Natural History expedition to the Gobi Desert in Mongolia. He found a crush, but complete skull and some second toe claws
- Henry Fairfield Osborn named the new genus Velociraptor
- The species name mongoliensis is after Mongolia
- Earlier in 1924, Osborn had called it Ovoraptor djadochtari in a press article, but it wasn’t a formal description or named in a scientific journal, so it’s a nomen nudum (naked name)
- In 2008, Pascal Godefroit and colleagues named bones found in 1999 by the Sino-Belgian Dinosaur Expeditions Velocirpator osmolskae (for Polish paleontologist Halszka Osmólska). They found it was Velociraptor but not similar enough to Velociraptor mongoliensis
- Previously recognized Velociraptor species include Velociraptor antirrhopus and Velociraptor langstoni (formerly Deinonychus antirrhopus and Saurornitholestes langstoni)
- More than a dozen skeletons have been described (more than any other dromaeosaurid)
- In 1990 a joint Mongolian American expedition in the Gobi found more Velociraptor skeletons. One is nicknamed “Ichabodcraniosaurus” because it was a fairly complete skeleton without a skull
- Two Velociraptor-like skulls were found in an oviraptorid nest in Mongolia, discovered in the 90s
- Dromaeosaurid theropod that lived in the Cretaceous
- Velociraptor was originally part of Megalosauridae (wastebasket taxon)
- Carnivore
- Probably intelligent, had a large brain in proportion to its body size
- Velociraptor may have been nocturnal
- Adults grew up to 6.8 ft (2.07 m) long, and weighed 33 lb (15 kg); skull could be up to 10 in (25 cm) long
- Had a long tail
- Had a long, low skull, with an upturned snout
- May have been able to run as fast as 24 mph (39 kph)
- Bipedal with feathers
- In 2007 paleontologists found quill knobs on a Velociraptor mongoliensis forearms, which confirmed it had feathers
- Turner, Norell, and Peter Makovicky said the feathers on Velociraptor was evidence against the idea that larger maniraptorans lost their feathers because they were bigger, and quill knobs aren’t really found in modern flightless birds, so the fact that Velociraptor had quill knobs probably means that their ancestors could fly, and Velociraptor and other relatives were secondarily flightless (though its ancestors may have used feathers for something other than flight too)
- Velociraptor arms were too short to fly or glide
- Velociraptor may have used feathers for display, to help brood, or to increase their speed when running up slopes
- Looked a lot like birds (like birds, had wishbones, they brooded nests, they had hollow bones, and had feathers)
- Kiwi birds are similar to Velociraptors (similar feather types, anatomy, bone structure, and narrow anatomy of nasal passages). Kiwi birds are very active and flightless, and so make a good model for the metabolism of dromaeosaurids (probably had a moderate metabolism)
- Jaws had 26-28 teeth on each side, and the back edges of the teeth were more serrated than the front
- Had three curved claws on each hand, similar to wing bones of modern birds (second digit was the longest, the first the shortest); had four toes, but only walked on its third and fourth toes (first toe had a small dew claw and second was held off the ground and had a large sickle-shaped claw)
- Had a large sickle-shaped claw on each hindfoot, probably used to tackle prey
- Sickle-shaped claw grew to over 2.6 in (6.5 cm) long
- May have been able to climb trees (with its toe claws)
- One skeleton is in a fighting position with Protoceratops
- In 1971 a Polish-Mongolian team found the Fighting Dinosaurs, a Velociraptor battling Protoceratops, in Mongolia
- At first, scientists thought the Fighting Dinosaurs had drowned, but they were preserved in ancient sand dune deposits, so now they think they were buried in sand, from a collapsing dune or in a sandstorm (probably happened quickly)
- In the Fighting Dinosaur, the Velociraptor’s sickle like claw is in the Protoceratops‘ throat, and the Protoceratops‘ beak is clamped on the Velociraptor’s right forelimb. So, Velociraptor may have used its claw to pierce the jugular vein or trachea instead of slashing and disemboweling
- Velociraptor in Fighting Dinosaurs was either starving or young and dumb, according to Hone, since the Protoceratops was 50% bigger than it
- A 2005 BBC documentary, called The Truth About Killer Dinosaurs, created an articifical Velociraptor leg with a sickle claw and tried to disembowel a pork belly, but it could not tear it open, which shows Velociraptor may not have been able to disembowel prey
- Phillip Manning, a British paleontologist oversaw the 2005 BBC experiment. He said, “Using the claw to slash would have been like me trying to disembowel you with a plastic spoon”
- In 2011, Denver Fowler and colleagues said that Velociraptor may have used a “raptor prey restraint” (RPR), where they leaped onto prey, pinned them, and held onto them with their sickle-shaped claws. Then they would start to eat their prey, which would die from blood loss and organ failure. Their tails would help them to counterbalance
- Hawks do the same thing where they pin down prey and start eating them alive
- Not really any evidence that Velociraptor was a pack hunter (like in Jurassic Park), many isolated fossils have been found, none closely associated with other specimens
- Probably ate small animals, like reptiles, amphibians, insects, small dinosaurs, and mammals
- Velociraptor may have been a scavenger. In 2010 Hone and colleagues published a study of teeth they found in 2008 near a Protoceratops jaw bone. It was probably “late-stage carcass consumption by Velociraptor” because normally it would eat other parts of a Protoceratops, like go for the throat, as seen in the Fighting Dinosaurs
- Ate pterosaurs (found a large pterosaur bone in a Velociraptor gut in 2012), probably scavenged it, since the pterosaur had a large wingspan of 6.5 ft (2 m) and would have been formidable
- Velociraptor may have fought each other. One skull shows two rows of small punctures the same size and spacing of Velociraptor teeth, and there’s no signs of healing, so it probably died of these wounds
- Velociraptors in Jurassic Park were modeled after Deinonychus
- Apparently Michael Crichton met John Ostrom, who discovered Deinonychus, to talk about its behavior and appearance, and then apologetically told Ostrom he used the name Velociraptor instead because it sounded more dramatic
- Utahraptor was discovered while Jurassic Park was in production (see episode 34, talked to Jim Kirkland)
- Raptor sounds in Jurassic Park were tortoise mating sounds (used when Raptors are barking at each other to talk to each other)
- An article in Slate points out that Jurassic World has a strong female lead–the Velociraptor, Blue
- Blue chooses her ally at the end (Indominus Rex or humans), and has a close relationship with Owen Grady
- Discover Magazine contemplated if Velociraptors could be trained, the way Owen Grady trains them. Assuming they were pack hunters (based on a group of dromaeosaur tracks found in 2007 in China), that means they were intelligent. According to Jack Horner, like in falconry, where you train through positive reinforcement by rewarding them with food and protection, you could probably train them. Also, by asserting dominance and becoming the alpha, and by imprinting (whoever is there when they hatch is seen as the mother, as seen with geese and other modern birds). Of course, in Jurassic World they may have just tweaked the Velociraptor DNA to make them more docile
- The website, velociraptors.info, is for the American Society for Velociraptor Attack Prevention, which the website says is “a bi-partisan group of professionals, dedicated to the diffusion of knowledge concerning velociraptor attack prevention”. According to them, June is “National Velociraptor Awareness Month! The American Society for Velociraptor Attack Prevention, along with the North American Velociraptor Defense Association and the United Velociraptor Widows Fund, will be providing free velociraptor safety seminars at local Red Cross centers across the nation. Contact your local center for more information.” It also gives a description of Velociraptors, home buyer tips so you’re prepared in case of Velociraptor attacks, and a quiz to find out if your neighbors are Velociraptors
- Thingiverse lets you download a Velociraptor business card, which gives you parts to 3D print so you can assemble into a Velociraptor
- In late May of this year, Paultons Park near Romsey, Hampshire in the UK had an incident where 15 passengers were stuck 45 ft in the air for 40 minutes on the new Velociraptor ride. There was a hissing sound and then the brakes locked the car onto the beginning of one of the drops. Eventually all the riders were evacuated.
- Part of Dromaeosauridae
- Also part of the subfamily Velociraptorinae (all dromaeosaurs more closely related to Velociraptor than Dromaeosaurus)
- Other genera in Velociraptorinae include Deinonychus and Saurornitholestes, and Tsaagan
- Dromaeosaurids are carnivorous theropods closely phylogenetically related to Aves (a clade that includes birds)
- Probably originated before the Late Jurassic, but fossil record so far is only of Cretaceous
- Lived all over the world, but there are not that many fossils
- Dromaeosaurids from the Late Cretaceous in North America have a poor fossil record, mostly known from isolated teeth
- In North America, only 8 species named, based on incomplete fossil remains
- Often referred to as raptors (because of Jurassic Park)
- Dromaeosaurids had S-curved necks, long arms and large hands with large claws
- Feet had a recurved claw on the second toe (sickle claw)
- Claw may have been used for slashing, climbing, or even clawing through insect nests
- At least some may have lived in groups
- Most, if not all, had feathers
- Bipedal, but held their second toe off the ground when walking
- Had long tails, that may have been used to help counterbalance when running or in the air
- Generally small to medium sized (though Utahraptor was large)
- Some could fly or glide (like Changyuraptor yangi)
- Very birdlike (behavior and having feathers)
- Fun fact: The ZW chromosome scheme that some animlas (including birds) have that determines the gender of their offspring from the mother’s egg alone. Remember ZW is a female, and ZZ is a male… It turns out that Komodo dragons have long given birth in captivity and the wild without mating. Weirdly Boa constrictors can also reprodoce asexually, but in a scientific study one female produced 22 young which were all female and had WW chromosomes (when males are ZZ and females are usually ZW)… So maybe some female dinosaurs could reproduce without needing a male. Which really made it a bad idea in Jurassic Park to make all of the dinosaurs female…
For those who may prefer reading, see below for the full transcript of our interview with Geoff Jones:Continue Reading …
