What Did Velociraptor Really Look Like? Smaller, Feathered and Nothing Like the Films

Thanks to Jurassic Park, Velociraptor became one of the most famous dinosaurs in the world: a scaly, human-sized, super-intelligent pack hunter that could open doors. The real animal, revealed by its fossils, was rather different, and in many ways even more interesting.

Film versus fossil

Velociraptor mongoliensis was named in 1924 from fossils found in the Gobi Desert. Its name means “swift seizer”. Since then, many more skeletons have been found, giving a clear picture of the animal:

• Size: about 2 metres long, most of it tail, about half a metre tall at the hip, and roughly 15 kilograms: about the size of a large turkey or a coyote.
• Time and place: it lived about 75 to 71 million years ago, in the Late Cretaceous, in the dry, sandy landscapes of what is now Mongolia and northern China.
• Head: a long, low skull with a slightly upturned snout and around 26 to 28 sharp, serrated teeth on each side of the upper jaw.

The raptors in the film were much bigger, closer to the size of Deinonychus, a relative from North America that grew to about 3 metres long. Michael Crichton, author of the novel, borrowed the more famous name.

Covered in feathers

The biggest difference between film and reality is the feathers. Many close relatives of Velociraptor have been found in China with fossilised feathers preserved around their bodies. But was Velociraptor itself feathered?

In 2007, palaeontologists Alan Turner, Peter Makovicky and Mark Norell examined a Velociraptor forearm bone, the ulna, and found a row of small bumps called quill knobs. In living birds, these are the points where the large wing feathers are anchored to the bone by ligaments. Their presence showed that Velociraptor had large feathers on its arms, forming wing-like structures.

Velociraptor could not fly; its arms were too short and its body too heavy. Its feathers may have been used for display, keeping warm, brooding eggs and helping with balance while running or pinning prey. Its ancestors may once have been able to glide or fly.

The sickle claw

Each foot had a large, curved claw on the second toe, about 6.5 centimetres long along its curve, held off the ground while walking. For a long time it was imagined as a slashing weapon for disembowelling large prey. Studies of similar claws now suggest it worked more like the talons of modern birds of prey, used to grip and pin down smaller animals while the raptor tore at them with its jaws.

The Fighting Dinosaurs

In 1971, a Polish–Mongolian expedition in the Gobi Desert found one of the most famous fossils in the world. A Velociraptor and a Protoceratops, a sheep-sized plant-eater, are locked together. The raptor’s sickle claw is lodged in the Protoceratops’s neck, while the Protoceratops has clamped its beak on the raptor’s right arm. Both were probably buried alive, mid-fight, perhaps when a sand dune collapsed or a sandstorm struck. It is one of the clearest pieces of evidence that Velociraptor actively hunted.

In short

• The real Velociraptor was about 2 m long and 15 kg, roughly turkey-sized.
• It lived 75–71 million years ago in today’s Mongolia and China.
• Quill knobs on its arm bone show it had large feathers.
• It could not fly; feathers were probably for display, warmth and balance.
• Its sickle claw likely pinned prey, like a bird of prey’s talon.
• The 1971 “Fighting Dinosaurs” fossil shows it locked in combat with a Protoceratops.