Everything I Thought I Knew About Velociraptors Was a Lie

Today I found out everything I thought I knew about Velociraptors was a lie. Now to be fair, everything I “knew” about Velociraptors came from the Jurassic Park movies and so I shouldn’t really be surprised it was all wrong. So if, like me, you thought that Velociraptors were slightly bigger than a human; reptilian looking; hunted in packs; were found in what is now the United States; and were ridiculously intelligent. Well, literally none of that is true.

Velociraptors were actually only about the size of a domesticated Turkey, being only about 3 feet tall and 6 feet long, with most of the length coming from the tail and weighing in at around 20-30 pounds full grown. More than that, they also looked somewhat like a Turkey as well, but with a long tail obviously. It turns out, Velociraptors were very similar to birds in a lot of ways. They had hollow bones, feathers, built nests for their eggs, and are thought to have behaved very similar to birds.

Were they intelligent? Well, for a dinosaur, it is thought they were somewhat intelligent due to their brain size relative to body size. But it turns out, that’s basically just saying they were slightly more intelligent than a board with a nail in it. For reference, the dinosaur that is thought to have been the smartest of all dinosaurs was the Troodon; it is thought to have been around as smart as a primitive opossum. So there goes the whole Philosraptor thing out the window. The deepest thoughts a Velociraptor ever thought were probably on the level of the Seagulls in Finding Nemo. “Mine?” Hardly the “smarter than dolphins, whales, and some primates” that Dr. Alan Grant in Jurassic Park III suggests.

So what were they thinking in Jurassic Park? Well basically, they modeled what they called the “Velociraptor” in the movie after the Deinonychus. The Deinonychus were also raptors, but were significantly bigger than the Velociraptors, coming in at about 12 feet long, about 6 feet tall, and weighing about 150 pounds full grown. Pretty much picture the “Velociraptor” in Jurassic Park and you get a pretty good idea of what the Deinonychus were thought to have looked like (although there still is some debate over whether they too had feathers, with many researchers leaning that way; so really, picture the “Velociraptor” in Jurassic Park and add feathers and you get the Deinonychus).

The Deinonychus also were thought to have occasionally hunted in packs to bring down larger prey and were thought to have been very fast. Their habitat was in the forests of North America. Now on the intelligence bit, they too weren’t really thought to have been very intelligent. Although, clearly they were at least smart enough to work together to bring down larger prey when the need arose.