What's in a name ? Velociraptor mongoliensis

What’s in a name? Velociraptor mongoliensis – Fast robber from Mongolia

Mention the name Velociraptor and depending on your age one of two well-known movie trilogies immediately come to mind. Those who are older will picture snarling Velociraptors staring through kitchen windows and learning how to unlock doors, younger generations will think of packs of raptors charging through forests accompanying motorbikes. In contrast to the original movies, these more recent additions show them as protagonists rather than antagonists. In both cases the difference between fiction and reality is large.

The story of Velociraptor dates to the early 1920s when Peter Kaisen while working in the Outer Mongolian Badlands spotted signs of weathered bone emerging from a rock. This remains would ultimately be a crushed, almost complete predatory dinosaur skull and an iconic sickle claw.

Image Credit: Zil-fr & Poke2001, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

In 1924, Henry Fairfield Osborn named the finds Velociraptor mongoliensis meaning fast robber from Mongolia. Until the 1960’s, information on Velociraptor continued to remain limited. That was until the Polish -Mongolian expeditions started to reveal stunning finds including complete specimens and of course the world-famous battle between a Prototceratops and its Velociraptor enemy forever locked in time because of a sand dune collapse.


Image credit: By Eduard Solà Vázquez - File:Velociraptor skeleton.jpg, CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=38691471

Due to these specimens and further research, we know that Velociraptors were only as large as a turkey reaching up to seven feet in length and weighing between 15-20 kilograms. Someway short of the enormous six-foot-tall monsters shown in Jurassic Park!

 They were fast though, studies have estimated that for at least short periods they could reach up to 40kph, easily quicker than a human and more than quick enough to take down swift-moving prey. A long, stiff tail for balance would have been an excellent accompaniment to its powerful legs when reaching these speeds.

There are different ideas for why Velociraptor had feathers including warmth, display, and to attract mates. While at this stage there may be varying ideas as to why they had them, research in 2007 found quill knobs proved that they did have them and that they were located all over their bodies. 

Fred Wierum, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

Whether in fictional movies and books or through science, Velociraptor continues to be a dinosaur that captures the imagination of dinosaur enthusiasts young and old!

Further reading 

PROTHERO, D. R. (2021). Story of the dinosaurs in 25 discoveries: Amazing fossils and the  people who found them. COLUMBIA UNIV PRESS.

Vicious velociraptor: Tales of a Turkey-sized dinosaur. Natural History Museum. (n.d.). https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/velociraptor-facts.html

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