Not a Velociraptor

Earlier this year, I learned that the Velociraptors in Jurassic Park are not actually Velociraptors. Their size, characteristics, and behavior were modeled on a real dinosaur, but "Velociraptor" was a cooler name. *Mind explosion noises*

Ceci n'est pas une Velociraptor

My eldest son loves dinosaurs, so when we had a family visit to New England earlier this year, we took a day at The Dinosaur Place in Montville, Connecticut. If you're in the area, I recommend it: they have walking paths with statues of dinosaurs along them in mini-dioramas and little explanatory descriptions. The photo above is not from the Dinosaur Place, but it looks similar.

One of the first dinosaurs we saw on the path was the Deinonychus. They looked like Velociraptors (I thought) including the prominent middle-toe claw. They were described as intelligent pack-hunters. Later, we saw the Velociraptor models along the path and they did not meet my Jurassic Park expectations.

More accurate Deinonychus (feathers!)

This discrepancy caused me to dig a bit into the two dinosaurs' background regarding Jurassic Park. It turns out that Jurassic Park author Michael Crichton consulted heavily with paleontologist Professor John Ostrom on dinosaurs. Crichton thought that Deinonychus was a really cool dinosaur for his story of scientific hubris, but per Ostrom, "Crichton, in an apologetic way, explained that in the novel he decided to use the name Velociraptor, that I had said was the closest relative to the animal that I had found." Crichton's preferred reference was Predator Dinosaurs of the World by Gregory S. Paul (1988), which improperly lumped together Velociraptor and Deinonychus (calling their family names "synonyms" - see page 366 linked below), so Crichton had an authoritative (if inaccurate) source backing him up. The story Velociraptors were modeled directly on the Deinonychus, and the movie team also used Deinonychus as their model...with the exception of size. Even though it was bigger than Velociraptor, Deinonychus was still only 0.87 meters tall at the hip, so maybe half the height of the movie Velociraptors. While the movie was in development, Utahraptor was discovered which is actually just about the right size.

Size comparison between Dromaeosaurs; Velociraptor #2 (bottom-left), Utahraptor #5 (second-tallest, middle), Deinonychus #6 (far right)
Credit Fred Wierum, CC license behind link

I never thought that Jurassic Park was an accurate depiction of dinosaurs, but I never suspected that Velociraptors were misnamed!