A Hole In Our Entries

In an amazing turn of luck, or perhaps a lack of fore-planning, I noticed that what I intended to be a review week of another favorite and beloved dinosaur actually appears to be a first full week of dedicated posts to a Mongolian dinosaur that is well heard of, if not accurately known. Seeing as how I love all of the dromaeosaurs and the wonderful array of illustrative interpretations and the varied hypotheses from the time of discovery until now surrounding the animal known as Velociraptor mongoliensis, it is hard to believe that we have yet to cover the animal. I searched in all possible ways through all the entries and we mention Velociraptor plenty of times, but we have yet to dedicate a whole week to this dinosaur. I even searched the Facebook page. I find this oversight amazing, which is the only reason I continue to go on about it.

At any rate, Velociraptor is a misunderstood dinosaur by many and it certainly deserves its time in the highlights of this site. Velociraptor mongoliensis means "Swift thief from Mongolia" and, in a happy coincidence of taxonomy contains the word raptor, which additionally implies a bird of prey. Despite common misconceptions, this violent, terribly-clawed predatory machine that inspires nightmares was huge... only in the eyes of mouse sized mammals and tiny insects. Standing at approximately the same size as a modern Wild Turkey, Velociraptor was, without a doubt, fierce and feared in the eyes of its prey, but was likely a nuisance much like a small dog to the larger animals of its time (think about how odd it would be to see a Tarbosaurus trip over a Velociraptor suddenly running out of the bushes in front of it).

Wyoming Dinosaur Center display of Velociraptor mongoliensisPhoto by Ben Townsend