The first Velociraptor fossil was discovered by Peter Kaisen on the first American Museum of Natural History expedition to the Outer Mongolian Gobi Desert in August 1923. (Image credit: Ross Toro, Livescience contributor) Fossil discoveries Learn about the horns, bones, habitat and other secrets of Velociraptor. The pterosaur had a wingspan of about 6.5 feet (2 m) and may have been a formable foe even if it were sick and injured, suggesting the Velociraptor most likely scavenged the pterosaur bone, Hone said.
In 2012, Hone and his colleagues also discovered that Velociraptors sometimes ate pterosaurs, when the team found a large pterosaur bone in the guts of a Velociraptor. Instead, it fed on the Protoceratops, which likely had little meat left on it (hence the bite marks on the herbivore's jaws and raptor's knocked-out teeth), according to the study, published 2010 in the journal Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology. In 2008, researchers unearthed Protoceratops fossils marred with marks and grooves matching raptor teeth, as well as two teeth that belonged either to Velociraptor or another dromaeosaurid.Īfter analyzing the remains, Hone and his colleagues determined that the raptor didn't kill the plant-eater. "Few predators ever take on prey bigger than 50 percent of their body mass," Hone told Live Science, adding that the Velociraptor could have been starving or simply "young and dumb."īut that's not to say Velociraptor didn't frequently eat Protoceratops carcasses. Preserved in sand deposits after being buried from a collapsing sand dune or sudden sandstorm, the pair proved that Velociraptors hunted for food, but an attack on such a large animal probably wasn't common. In 1971, a Polish-Mongolian team discovered the famous "Fighting Dinosaurs" specimen - fossils of a Velociraptor and Protoceratops locked in a death grip, in which the Velociraptor embedded one of its foot claws into the neck of the Protoceratops while the Protoceratops bit down on (and probably broke) one of the Velociraptor's arms. The fast predator also appears to have had a complicated relationship with Protoceratops, a sheep-sized herbivore and ancestor to Triceratops. (Image credit: Courtesy American Museum of Natural History) The Velociraptor may have been able to run up to roughly 40 mph (60 km/hr) for short bursts. Velociraptor, which means "speedy thief," had a sharp, deadly, sickle-shaped, retractable, 3.5-inch (9 cm) claw on each foot (located on each second toe). "It spent the vast majority of the time eating small things," which likely included reptiles, amphibians, insects, small dinosaurs and mammals, said David Hone, a paleontologist at Queen Mary University of London. Velociraptor was a carnivore that hunted and scavenged for food. They normally kept these talons off the ground like folded switchblades, and used them as hooks to keep their prey from escaping (similar to modern birds of prey), according to a study published in 2011 in the journal PLOS ONE. They also had a sickle-shaped talon on the second toe of each foot. Velociraptor, like other dromaeosaurids, had two large hand-like appendages with three curved claws. Velociraptor's tail of hard, fused bones was inflexible, but likely kept it balanced as it ran, hunted and jumped. These teeth were widely spaced and serrated, though more strongly on the back edge than the front.
Velociraptor had 13 to 15 teeth in its upper jaw and 14 to 15 teeth in its lower jaw. Additionally, its snout was long, narrow and shallow, and made up about 60 percent of the dinosaur's entire skull length. Velociraptor had a relatively large skull, which was about 9.1 inches (23 centimeters) long, concave on the upper surface and convex on the lower surface, according to a 1999 description of a Velociraptor skull, published in the journal Acta Palaeontologica Polonica. Velociraptor retained its feathers, and possibly used them to attract mates, regulate body temperature, protect eggs from the environment or generate thrust and speed while running up inclines. (Image credit: © Scott Hartman / All rights reserved) Artwork by Scott Hartman reveals the bone structure of Velociraptor.