Velociraptor

Velociraptor (Pronounced: Vell-oss-ee-rap-tore)

Velociraptor means “Quick Hunter” – these dinosaurs were speedy, pack hunters that were around one third of the size of a full-grown human. Velociraptor lived around 80 million years ago during the Late Cretaceous period.

This dinosaur first became well-known thanks to its starring role as the villain of hit 1990s movie Jurassic Park, with their hunting in packs being the stuff of nightmares.

There is one major problem with how Velociraptor was portrayed in the movie, that being its size, which was exaggerated for the benefit of the big screen to make it more terrifying. Another reason for this is that Velociraptor’s larger cousin – the Utahraptor – had yet to have been discovered.

Quick and agile, these mini carnivores were able to run down slow-moving, larger plant eating dinosaurs with ease. Once caught, they would grab with their front claws and then use their powerful back legs and long, curved rear claw to tear at their victims.

It was typical for packs of velociraptor to be ambitious when hunting, often taking on much larger, tougher dinosaurs. Once such discovery of fossils found in Mongolia back in 1972 shows a Protoceratops and Velociraptor, the latter been crushed to death while holding on to and attempting to rip open the former’s chest.

For its size, Velociraptor also had a very large brain, indicating that it would have been a very smart dinosaur – smart enough to co-ordinate and manage complicated attacks between multiple other Velociraptors.