One of the most avian-like dinosaurs
ever discovered is the velociraptor. It was swift and minor, and
because of the sickle-shaped claw on each second toe, it was a dangerous
predator. It could fold its arm against its body like a bird thanks to a
unique bone in its wrist that allowed it to turn its wrist sideways while
flapping. This movement, which is crucial to contemporary birds' flying
strokes, allowed it to snap its arms forward to catch escaping prey.
After the Cretaceous
Period, between 85.8 and 70.6 million years ago, Velociraptors inhabited
the planet.
Velociraptor was given its name by Henry
Fairfield Osborn in 1924 while he was the president of the American
Museum of Natural History. Given its quickness and carnivorous diet, he gave
this dinosaur its name, which is a combination of the Latin words "Velox"
(swift) and "raptor" (robber or plunderer).
Osborn had referred to the dinosaur as Ovoraptor
djadochtari earlier that year in a piece for the popular press. Still, since the animal wasn't formally described there and the word "Oviraptor"
wasn't used in a scholarly publication, Velociraptor became the name
that was eventually adopted.
V. mongoliensis and V.
osmolskae are the two species of Velociraptor; the latter was first discovered
in 2008.
Velociraptor, a member of the Dromaeosauridae
family of tiny to medium-sized birdlike dinosaurs, was smaller than other
members of this group, including Deinonychus and Achillobator,
and around the size of a small turkey. Velociraptors could reach lengths
of up to 6.8 feet (2 metres), 1.6 feet (0.5 metres) at the hip, and 33 pounds
as adults (15 kilograms).
Velociraptors, like Tyrannosaurus
rex, played a significant role in the "Jurassic Park" films, although
scientists don't think it looked anything like how it was portrayed in
Hollywood, either in terms of size or appearance. In reality, the
Velociraptor from the movies was based on Deinonychus and shared
characteristics like size and snout.
While the Velociraptor was
depicted as being without feathers in the movies, palaeontologists
discovered quill knobs on a well-preserved Velociraptor forearm from
Mongolia in 2007. This proved the dinosaur had feathers.
Velociraptors had feathers, but
their arms were too short to allow them to glide or even fly. The discovery
shows that the dromaeosaurid progenitors of dinosaurs once could fly but
later lost it, according to a study published in the journal Science.
The velociraptor kept its
feathers, which it may have utilised to entice mates, control body
temperature, shield eggs from the elements, or gain impetus and
speed when sprinting up slopes.
According to a 1999 description
of a Velociraptor skull, which was printed in the journal Acta Palaeontologica
Polonica, the dinosaur had a reasonably massive skull about 9.1
inches (23 centimetres) long, concave on the upper side, and convex on the
lower surface. In addition, the dinosaur's snout was lengthy, thin, and
shallow; it took up nearly 60% of the length of its head.
The top jaw of the velociraptor
had 13 to 15 teeth, while the lower jaw had 14 to 15. Widely
spread and serrated, the back edge of these teeth was sharper than the front.
The rigid, fused-bone tail of
the velociraptor kept it balanced when it ran, hunted, and leapt.
Like other dromaeosaurids,
Velociraptors had two enormous appendages that resembled hands and three
curved claws. On the second toe of each foot, they also had a talon in the
form of a sickle. According to a 2011 study in the journal PLOS ONE,
these animals typically maintained their talons off the ground like folding
switchblades and used them as hooks to prevent their victims from fleeing.
What food is consumed by Velociraptors?
The carnivorous Velociraptor hunted
and foraged for food. According to David Hone, a palaeontologist at the
Queen Mary University of London, "it spent the vast bulk of the time
consuming little creatures," which most likely comprised reptiles,
amphibians, insects, small dinosaurs, and mammals.
A delicate connection between the
swift predator and Protoceratops, a herbivore the size of a sheep
and a Triceratops progenitor, also appears to have existed. The famous "Fighting
Dinosaurs" specimen was unearthed in 1971 by a Polish-Mongolian
team. It consisted of fossils of a Velociraptor and Protoceratops
that were impaled in a death grip with one of the Protoceratops'
teeth embedded in the Velociraptor's neck and one of the Velociraptor's
arms likely broken by the latter.
The two demonstrated that Velociraptors
searched for food, but an attack on such a massive animal certainly wasn't
usual. They were preserved in sand deposits after being buried by a
collapsing sand dune or unexpected sandstorm. According to Hone, "few
predators ever take on prey bigger than 50% of their body mass," the
Velociraptor might have been starving or just "young and foolish."
However, this does not imply that
Velociraptors didn't often consume Protoceratops carcasses. Two teeth
that belonged to either Velociraptor or another dromaeosaurid, as well as
fossils of Protoceratops, marked with grooves and markings like raptor teeth,
were discovered in 2008.
Hone and his colleagues
concluded that the raptor did not kill the plant eater after examining the
bones. According to the research, which was published in 2010 in the
journal Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology,
Palaeoecology, it instead fed on the Protoceratops, which probably
had little meat left on it (thus the bite marks on the herbivore's jaws and the
raptor's knocked-out teeth).
When the researchers uncovered a
sizable pterosaur bone within the stomach of a Velociraptor in 2012,
Hone and his colleagues also learned that Velociraptors occasionally consumed pterosaurs.
The Velociraptor most likely scavenged the pterosaur bone since the pterosaur
had a wingspan of around 6.5 feet (2 metres) and may have been a formable
foe even if it was sick and injured, according to Hone.
Discoveries of fossils
On the first American Museum of
Natural History mission to the Gobi Desert in Outer Mongolia in August 1923, Peter
Kaisen found the first Velociraptor fossil. The fossil comprised a
toe claw and a crushed but entire cranium.
Fossils of velociraptors have
been discovered in the Gobi Desert, which spans sections of northern
China and southern Mongolia. Only one Velociraptor mongoliensis fossil
has been found, and it is located in the Djadochta (Djadokhta) Formation in the
mnögovi province of Mongolia.
In Inner Mongolia, China, at the Bayan Mandahu Formation, Velociraptor osmolskae was found. Based on a portion of an adult skull, the species was described. Other Velociraptor fossils were discovered in arid dune habitats, similar to the "Fighting Dinosaurs."
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