The perception of Velociraptors and their family, the dromaeosaurids, has dramatically evolved from their initial discovery to the present day, driven by scientific advancements that have transformed them from scaly, lizard-like predators into feathered, bird-like creatures.
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The Velociraptor has changed a lot.
In just the few decades
since Jurassic Park
made it
one of the most popular
dinos in the world.
There have been lots of scientific
discoveries that have changed
how we picture it.
Let's go on
a tour of the velociraptors family
glow up or glow down,
if you like the classic look.
Oh my goodness.
Oh, I forgot about this guy.
This is how velociraptors
went from bipedal
genius lizards
to giant killer chickens.
Hi, I'm Danielle Dufault,
and you're watching Animalogic.
Today
we're going to talk
about velociraptor
and some other dromaeosaurids
and how we perceive them
through time.
When you think of dinosaurs.
One of the first names
that comes to mind is Velociraptor.
Sharp teeth, dagger feet,
and probably a pretty bad attitude
if you're afraid of geese
or even cassowaries,
this was an animal
that would spook you
out of your undergarments.
And yet, despite their current fame,
their whole family,
the Dromaeosauridae
were basically ignored
for decades after their discovery.
So let's take a look
at the whole family
and see how our vision of them
has changed over time,
and how they have been
at the forefront of what
we think of dinosaurs as a whole.
All right, so let's take a peek
at the first fossils of Velociraptor
that were ever found.
Oh, what a beauty.
So I've only ever seen
a cast of this skull.
But this is like
the velociraptor skull
that you probably all imagine.
If you've ever seen
a Velociraptor skull.
Since then, there's
been others collected.
But this is the iconic one.
It's a little surprising
that this didn't make
a bigger splash at the time,
because look at this thing.
It doesn't really look familiar
like any other creature
that we have alive today.
Kind of bird like, kind of lizard.
All dromaeosaurid, baby.
The earliest
fossils of this family
go back to the 1920s.
Veolociraptor mongoliensis
was discovered in...
you guessed it, Mongolia.
It was described by
Henry Fairfield Osborn
in 1924 based on its skull and claws.
He was the same guy who named
the Tyrannosaurus rex
a real dino marketing genius.
At the time,
they just assumed
they were basically small versions
of more
well known theropods
like T-Rex and Allosaurus.
Those first fossils led
to the very first scientific
illustrations of a dromaeosaurid.
Oh, wow.
Okay,
so here's
a beautiful classic
scientific illustration of the skull
and the claw as described by Osborn.
Yeah, this is all the material
that they had at the time.
So it was probably
extremely difficult
to try and imagine
what kind of creature this came from.
You know, today
we have claws
that look similar to this.
There's cat claws, bear claws, even
eagle talons
look a fair bit like this.
But the size and shape of this is
basically unseen until now.
And this skull
if it belong to this skull.
Good luck filling in the blanks.
You know, other dinosaur
claws had been found,
but these are very, very distinctive.
Something only dromaeosaurids have.
is that sickle claw.
And, Oh.
At the time they thought,
well, this is just Dino Scissorhands.
And that made sense at the time.
You don't see a lot of modern animals
with feet daggers,
unless you look at birds.
But we were a few decades from that.
And that's basically
the story of Dromaesourids
and velociraptor until 1969.
Velociraptor didn't
have the rich history
of being a movie star
throughout the 1900s, like T-Rex did.
Really. It was.
It was definitely an underground
kind of star.
But don't worry,
his time is going to come.
In 1969, John Ostrom
described a new dino
called Deinonychus
based on fossils
his team had discovered
five years earlier.
This discovery
led to the first reconstruction
of the dromaesurids
we fell in love with.
Oh, now this,
this is the real deal.
Or at least it was back in 1969.
This illustration is by Robert Barker,
also known as Bob Barker,
who is one of the most famous
paleontologists in America.
So this here is a representation
of Deinonychus,
who was a cousin of Velociraptor
in the same family.
And it looks like they've definitely
filled in a lot of blanks
because we've got everything
from snout to tip of the tail.
You can see instead of being a big,
lumbering lizard down on all fours
and dragging its tail,
this one is up and alert
and sprightly and sprinting.
And that tail is just like
like a rod
that's that's
creating balance for its entire body.
And it is moving fast.
You can see
now we know what that big old
sickle claws doing.
Outstanding.
So I do have to say that
this is pretty typical of the time
as far as dinosaur
interpretations would go, because
instead of being covered in scales,
it's kind of got like,
a lot of like skin folds
and it looks like a naked chicken.
But at least we're
getting closer to chicken,
even see that
it's got a cloaca.
And it's funny, actually,
because the one fossilized cloaca
that we have, it's
not from this group of dinosaurs.
It's a protoceratops.
And that's that's
the only fossilized cloaca,
cloaca we have.
But it actually looks a lot
like what you see here, including
okay,
I'm gonna start talking about its cloaca.
Okay.
I'm done.
Beyond telling
where the claws actually went.
Just the fact
that it looked like a sprinter
put our understanding of them
in overdrive.
Of sprinting takes
a lot of energy
and a high metabolism.
Does that mean that they were
warm blooded
and the posture and claws
were surprisingly birdlike,
so connections were being made.
So in 1993,
the best dinosaur movie to ever be
made was released,
and it had some pretty great
Deinonychus depictions.
Let's have a look.
And by the way,
this is called Carnosaur.
don't show your kids, but
you do need to see it.
Oh my God, that's amazing.
Like, yeah,
he's definitely
not just a guy in a suit.
Did you see how his, his lips
were, like, curling up at the sides?
So this might be a little bit
of a step back.
50 years
to the man in a suit
dinosaur depiction.
But, man, it's got 90s style
all across it.
And for that, I love it.
But also,
how many dinosaur movies
are depicting
Deinonychus specifically?
Props to this movie.
Seriously.
They did their research
and did nothing with it.
The same year,
Steven Spielberg
released Jurassic Park.
Do we really need to say
anything about it?
That movie is simply undeniable.
Crazy to think that that's the precursor
to what we all know and love.
And if you don't,
then why are you watching this video?
Now, who could possibly be
opening this door? Oh my God,
Looking a little less like a man
in a suit over here,
we've got Jurassic Park
now, these raptors, as you all know,
I don't need to tell you.
You already all know this.
That these are called velociraptors.
Despite
clearly being Utahraptor sized.
But when it comes to the movie,
you know where things get
a little changed
and edited and inflated.
So you've got a
Utah Raptor sized Deinonychus called
Velociraptor.
That's just how things go sometimes.
And you can kind of understand
why without even asking.
Velociraptor just sounds cool.
Go Raptors!
I can tell you,
and I know a lot of paleontologists,
because I've been working
in a paleontology lab
for over ten years
that a lot of dinosaur researchers
these days were indeed
inspired by Jurassic Park.
So say what you want
about their inaccuracies.
They've still inspired
an entire generation,
and I bet you own at
least one t shirt.
This look was iconic,
but the
next big development
in paleontology
was just around the corner.
In 1999,
we got the first definitive evidence
of many raptor and dinosaurs
having feathers.
And this does mean Velociraptor too.
So this is Sinusaurpteryx
It's a mouthful,
but it's also a feather full.
We've got this entire body
and it looks like it's just dancing.
But that is kind of
just a classic death pose
for for therapy pods.
Ugh,
it almost looks like
it was alive yesterday
and got run over by a truck.
Beyond showing us that some dinosaurs
had feathers,
this fossil proved
that they weren't
originally intended for flight,
but for insulation or as a display.
That meant that even larger
dinos that couldn't
fly could still have feathers.
And it was concrete proof
that birds are modern day dinosaurs.
And just one year later, in
the year 2000, we got micro raptor.
Now this was a four winged Dromaeosaurid dinosaur.
Oh, wow.
This this is just like,
what if angels were real,
but also a dinosaur?
That's how you get micro Raptor.
There is such an interesting
question of like,
how would this animal move?
Could they truly flap and fly?
There are a lot of like
physical demonstration and models
that have been developed
to test their flight abilities
and whether, you know,
they had to jump up or jump
from high up in a tree,
or if they could take off from land.
And, these guys in particular,
among the,
the dromaeosaurid family,
I think they're
extremely fascinating.
And not only were they
incredibly cool,
these fossils were also screaming
at us.
Oy, dinos could fly
and birds are dinos.
The feathers were asymmetrical,
which is something we see today
in birds.
They also had hollow bones
and iridescent black feathers
like a starling.
The bird connection was clear.
We don't have any other vertebrates
that have four wings.
This is something
that dinosaurs tried
and it ultimately failed,
but they're the only ones who did
try it.
So how did pop culture
react to these
groundbreaking discoveries?
Unenthusiastically.
All right,
we're going to watch a clip
from Jurassic Park 3.
Oh,
so you see,
he's got quills or spines,
I suppose, down his head.
And so these raptors are looking
more decorated.
You could say,
you know, I'm
a fan of some speculative biology
and speculative anatomy.
Like,
have you looked at a chicken
before their coverage
and all kinds of strange,
strange structures
that wouldn't preserve with the bones
anyway.
You'd never guess.
Yeah.
So this is as far as they went
with velociraptor,
with trying to represent
the presence of feathers
in this group of dinosaurs,
I think, like,
it would have been
a little more interesting,
at least to me.
And I think to a lot of people,
if they had tried to reflect
some of the current knowledge,
because in the first Jurassic Park,
they really did
try and reflect
what was known at the time.
But,
you know,
cinema.
But then in the year 2007,
quill-knobs, little bumps in the bone
where some feathers attach to
were found
in a fossil of a Velociraptor.
That's it.
Velociraptor and its cousins
had feathers.
There was no longer any controversy,
right?
In 2013, walking with dinosaurs 3D
showed Troodon
a close relative of the dromaeosaurids
in a very birdlike fashion.
Oh my goodness.
Oh, I forgot about this guy.
Oh, look at him.
He's just a little chicken.
Oh he's beautiful and I love him
walking with dinosaurs 3D.
I love this depiction.
Honestly, it's it's so fun.
And they actually covered
trodoon in feathers, is beautiful.
Still wet with a scaly snout,
but hey, vultures
are naked on the front.
Why not?
So we don't know exactly why
dromaeosaurids
had these big,
big feathers on their arms.
But at least we know at this point
now that they had them.
And that's cool.
I love it.
Okay, so
was it time for the Jurassic Park
franchise to catch up
to dromaeosaurids research?
Jurassic World 2015.
The originator of everybody's
favorite velociraptor meme format.
And these velociraptors
are looking as lizardy as ever,
but now they're just leaning into it
like they've established
their universe
and decided, well,
this is what we're running with.
Let's just get weirder.
They're definitely
leaning into the idea
that these animals are intelligent.
And, you know,
this is more of a mammalian
kind of behavior.
That's kind of interesting
because, you know, the idea is that
dromaeosaurids were pretty
smart as far as dinosaurs go.
Why wouldn't
they have been
a little bit social.
In 2022
they would course correct a little.
Finally showing a feather,
dromaeosaurid
But it was unfortunately
not a velociraptor.
This was Jurassic Park Dominion.
All right, Jurassic World,
now we've got everybody's
favorite feathered
depiction of raptors
in the Jurassic World.
And this scene, like,
I'm not gonna lie,
I ended up
laughing pretty intensely
because pyroraptor
just, like, digs into the ice
and comes
bursting through it
like it was fluid.
Oh my goodness.
This is basically like,
okay, we gave it
feathers,
but now it's
going to be a killer penguin.
This is great movie monster
stuff though, like except for that.
Also the name Pyroraptor.
Sounds even better than Velociraptor.
Raptor of fire.
Except this is like Raptor of ice,
so I don't know, I don't know,
it's fine.
I'm just happy
that the franchise decided
to actually do a feathered
a feathered dinosaur.
But the same year
we got treated to possibly
the greatest velociraptor
ever put on screen.
Oh, wow.
Now that is a killer claw.
To this day,
I still think this might be
the most scientifically accurate
velociraptor ever depicted.
And I am a huge fan of it.
It is beautiful,
but also the fact that,
we've kind of discovered
the extent of keratin that sheaths
around the bone of that killer claw
and in claws in general,
there's been a lot of discoveries
that show
just how much bigger
the claw would have been
on top of that bone.
I've seen some of myself.
Sometimes it's
like an extra
third of the length is just keratin.
And I think that
this is actually showing
that really nicely,
that thick layer of keratin
that tapers towards the point.
Absolutely terrifying.
And finally,
we have 2025’s
walking with dinosaurs.
This is Utah Raptor versus Gastonia.
And finally Utah Raptor.
gets to be the star.
Not only is it
the biggest,
dromaeosaurid that we know
about right now.
I love that it's not moving its head
like its body is moving,
but it's keeping its head
perfectly stable,
which is a very birdlike thing to do.
You ever seen
or have you ever held a chicken
and done this with its body?
But its head stays in exactly
one place?
This Utah Raptor
is doing the same thing,
and that's really cool.
So Utah Raptor is
estimated to be up to 500kg.
And yeah, that is huge
and really big.
But Gastonia
is estimated to be around 2000kg.
So it's four times its weight
and it has the bonus of being low
to the ground,
supported by four legs
instead of two legs.
So I don't know.
if I'm buying
Utah Raptor pushing over a Gastonia.
So there you have it.
This is the history
of how we've seen dromaeosaurids
and Velociraptor through time.
Pop culture has given us
a little bit of everything,
but science and new discoveries
get us closer and closer
to what
they probably looked like every day.
So what do you think
I should talk about next?
Please let me know
in the comments
and don't forget to subscribe
for new episodes every week.
Thanks for watching. See ya!
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