How Jurassic Park got Velociraptors wrong

Friday, January 28th, 2011

Maggie Koerth-Baker shares one of the Great Moments in Pedantry — how Jurassic Park got velociraptors wrong:

Discovered and described by Yale paleontologist John Ostrom in the 1960s, Deinonychus had a large sickle-claw on each foot, long arms with grasping hands, and a stiffened tail that would have helped the animal keep its balance as it ran after prey. The genus changed how people thought about dinosaurs, suggesting that they were much more active and dynamic than had been supposed previously.

This new view of dinosaurs, in part, inspired the 1988 book Predatory Dinosaurs of the World by paleo-artist Gregory S. Paul. Not only was the volume chock-full of illustrations of feathered dinosaurs, but it also attempted to revise some dinosaur taxonomy. Paul noted the similarities between the skeletons of the Velociraptor from Mongolia and the Deinonychus skeletons from North America. They were so similar, in fact, that he decided to group the Deinonychus fossils under the name Velociraptor, as the older name took precedence according to the rules by which organisms are named.

Paleontologists did not agree with this change — Velociraptor was kept distinct from Deinonychus — but Paul’s book was a hit with the general public. And one of the people who read the book was author Michael Crichton.

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