Dino card No. 1876 of 2,015

Velociraptor

Say it: vel-OSS-ee-rap-tor

Name means: “quick plunderer”1

Ate: MeatRaptorsLate Cretaceous

Velociraptor was a small, fast dinosaur that used a huge sickle-shaped claw on each foot to hunt. It lived in the late Cretaceous period, about 74 to 70 million years ago, in what is now Mongolia. Despite what you see in movies, real Velociraptor was only about the size of a turkey and probably had feathers.1 2

Lived

90 to 66 million years ago3

Late Cretaceous

Fossils found in

Mongolia, China, Canada (Alberta), and Kazakhstan3 1

Food

Meat1 3

Length

1.8 m1 2

Weight

7 kg to 45 kg1 2

Artist's life restoration of Velociraptor — How Velociraptor may have looked, by Fred Wierum. CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. Scientists still argue about colours and details.

When did it live?

Triassic

Jurassic

Cretaceous

252 million years ago20114566, the asteroid

How big was it?

cool stuff

Fun facts

Velociraptor had a large, sickle-shaped claw on the second toe of each foot, which it used to slash at prey.2

The Velociraptor in Jurassic Park movies was made much larger than the real animal and was actually based on a different dinosaur called Deinonychus.1

Velociraptor is now thought to have been covered in fine, feather-like structures, making it look more like a bird than a scaly reptile.1

The largest Velociraptor grew to about 1.8 metres (6 feet) long, which is about the height of an adult man, but weighed only up to 45 kg (100 pounds).2

Velociraptor lived during the Late Cretaceous period, about 74 to 70 million years ago, and went extinct before the big asteroid hit Earth.1 2

The name Velociraptor means 'quick plunderer', because it was a fast hunter.1

Myth buster

Myth: Velociraptor was a huge, scaly dinosaur as big as a human.

Truth: Real Velociraptor was only about 1.8 metres long and weighed 7 to 45 kg, and it probably had feathers. The movie version was based on a larger relative, Deinonychus.1 2

For dino experts

Scientific name: Velociraptor
Named by: Osborn 19243
Group: Raptors
Family / clade: Dromaeosauridae3
Classification: Theropoda > Dromaeosauridae3
Age of the rocks: 90 to 66 million years (Coniacian to Maastrichtian)3
Rock formations: Djadokhta, Baruungoyot, Dinosaur Park3
Countries: Mongolia, China, Canada, Kazakhstan3
Fossil records: 20 in the Paleobiology Database3
Discovery: Velociraptor was named by Henry Fairfield Osborn in 1924, based on fossils found in the Gobi Desert of Mongolia.3 1
Still debated: Scientists are still debating exactly how Velociraptor used its sickle claw, whether for slashing or climbing.2

Where the facts come from

Velociraptor | Natural History Museum (nhm.ac.uk)
Velociraptor | Description, Size, Diet, & Facts | Britannica (britannica.com)
Velociraptor in The Paleobiology Database (CC BY 4.0): age, places, rock formations, classification.

Every fact on this page has a number that points to its source. If we got something wrong, sorry, we are dino fans, not a science journal. Tell us at [email protected] and we will fix it.