Velociraptor facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Velociraptor Temporal range: Upper Cretaceous
Velociraptor.
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Class:	Sauropsida
Superorder:	Dinosauria
Order:	Saurischia
Suborder:	Theropoda
(unranked):	Coelurosauria
Family:	Dromaeosauridae
Genus:	Velociraptor

The hands are not correct, but the model is still interesting

Half the total body length was the tail

Lightweight skull of Velociraptor: its brain was tucked away at the back
of the skull.

Relative sizes

Velociraptor was a small theropod dromaeosaur of the Upper Cretaceous, about 75–71 million years ago, and also a smaller relative of the famous Deinonychus.

It was a slender, lightly built carnivore. It was about two meters long (nearly seven feet) and 0.62 meters tall at the hip, bigger than the common chimpanzee.

Velociraptor had one sickle-shaped claw on its foot which measured 6.5 centimeters along its length, and a smaller one on each hand. Velociraptor was warm blooded and had feathers.

Fossils from China suggest that the whole clade had similar traits.

Fossils of Velociraptor were first found in the Gobi Desert of Mongolia in 1922. In 1988, scientists from China found Velociraptor skeletons in northern China.

A famous Velociraptor, discovered in 1971, was found attacking a Protoceratops in a fossil from Mongolia.

Feathers

In September 2007 researchers found quill knobs on the forearm of a Velociraptor found in Mongolia. These bumps on bird wing bones show where feathers anchor, and their presence on Velociraptor indicate it too had feathers.

Turner and colleagues interpreted the presence of feathers on Velociraptor as evidence that the ancestors of dromaeosaurids could fly, making Velociraptor and Deinonychus secondarily flightless. This idea has since been discarded; the unmodified forearms count against it. Therefore, the feathers in the ancestors of Velociraptor had another function. The feathers of the flightless Velociraptor may have been used for display, for covering their nests while brooding.

The majority view is that dinosaur feathers were primarily adaptations for temperature regulation, and that other uses came later.

Species

Specimens from two species have been found:

• V. mongoliensis in Mongolia
• V. osmolskae in Inner Mongolia, China

In both cases the ecology of the time was dry, with sand dunes with occasional streams.

Media

Films such as Jurassic Park and some of The Land Before Time films helped make Velociraptor popular. However, the raptors in Jurassic Park were far larger than the real thing. They were the size of Deinonychus, a larger member of the same clade. The films also exaggerated its probable intelligence.

Relevant pages

• Origin of birds

Images for kids

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  Specimen IGM 100/982

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  V. mongoliensis compared in size to a human

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  V. mongoliensis, showing large wing feathers as evidenced by the discovery of quill knobs

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  Mounted V. mongoliensis cast at Wyoming Dinosaur Center

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  Size of Velociraptor (2) compared with other dromaeosaurs

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  Diagram of the V. mongoliensis type skull and the associated claw from 1924

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  The "Fighting Dinosaurs" specimen of V. mongoliensis and Protoceratops andrewsi

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  V. mongoliensis restraining an oviraptorosaur with its sickle claws

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  Skull of the V. mongoliensis "Fighting Dinosaurs" specimen

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  V. mongoliensis in environment

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  Undescribed V. mongoliensis skull

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  2003 restoration by Raúl Martín showing a featherless Velociraptor battling Protoceratops. The creature continues to be rendered in this outdated way in many popular images.