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"The point is, you are alive when they start to eat you."
Dr. Alan Grant(src)


Deinonychus was the first of the raptors (technically called "Dromaeosaurs") to be known from a nearly complete skeleton. Velociraptor had been discovered forty years earlier but was known only from a skull and a few bones of its hands and feet.[1]

The skeleton of Deinonychus were first to show the now infamous sickle-shaped retractable foot claw (8 inch), used for ripping open the skin of a victim, causing the preys guts be ripped and with a considerable amount of damage. Deinonychus also had a nasty bite, with over 60 knife-like teeth. Although with a deadly bite its arms and legs would be most powerful and could rear on one leg and kick an opponent.[1]

Dr. John Ostrom discovered Deinonychus in 1964. Dr. Ostrom believed that this dinosaur was an agile, swift predator, more like a warm-blooded mammal or bird than a cold-blooded crocodile.[1]

Wikipedia
Wikipedia has a more detailed and comprehensive article on Deinonychus


Story

Deinonychus is seen on the Holoscape screen in the Innovation Center of Jurassic World, though it is currently unknown if any reside within the park itself.

Story

In the novel canon, Deinonychus was considered to be a species of Velociraptor.[2]

At a Montana dig site, Dr. Alan Grant discovers a hatchling of a dromaeosaurid that he classifies as Velociraptor antirrhopus, which is the reclassified Deinonychus.

The Lost World: Jurassic Park (console game)

In the video game The Lost World: Jurassic Park Deinonychus is an enemy in various levels. It bears a resemblance to the Velociraptor that appeared in the game as well, only different in colors. Oddly, it's a bit smaller than the Velociraptor, instead of being bigger. In the game they're also called "Deinon-Raptor", likely to differentiate them from the Veloci-Raptors.They are grey and have yellow spots.

Jurassic Park III: Park Builder

In Jurassic Park III: Park Builder, Deinonychus is a carnivore that can be recreated from paleo-DNA.

Jurassic Park: Operation Genesis

It was planned to appear in Jurassic Park: Operation Genesis, but was scrapped,[3] possibly in favor of the Velociraptor.

The Lost World Series 1

There had initially been plans to produce a Deinonychus toy for The Lost World Series 1. It was to be a repaint of the Jurassic Park Series 1 Velociraptor.[4]

Behind the scenes

Jpdeinonconceptart

Concept art of Mark "Crash" McCreery for Jurassic Park of Deinonychus, which would later be renamed to Velociraptor later in the film's production.

Deinonychus was the basis for novel canon's Velociraptors and in turn the raptors seen in the films.

Jurassic Park novel author Michael Crichton visited John Ostrom—the discoverer of Deinonychus—when doing research for the novel. Ostrom said that Crichton's Velociraptor was based on Deinonychus in "almost every detail" and Crichton had even called him to inform him that he had renamed the Deinonychus in his novel to Velociraptor because he felt it sounded "more dramatic".[5]

During the production of the Jurassic Park film, Steven Spielberg's production contacted John Ostrom and requested copies of all the technical papers that Ostrom had done of Deinonychus.[5] Unlike the novel, the raptors seen in the film were to be properly named Deinonychus and Mark "Crash" McCreery had even made concept art of this raptor in 1991.[6] But later in pre-production it was renamed to Velociraptor like in the novel and McCreery's concept art was later attributed to the newly named dromaeosaur.

Notes and references

  1. 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 Dinosaur Field Guide, page 63.
  2. In page 131 of Jurassic Park, Dr. Alan Grant says: "Although Deinonychus is now considered one of the Velociraptors..."
  3. Dinosaurs cut from Jurassic Park: Operation Genesis.
  4. JPToys.com
  5. 5.0 5.1 Cummings, Mike. (June 18 2015) Yale’s legacy in ‘Jurassic World’. Yale News.
  6. icollector.com - Mark “Crash” McCreary conceptual artwork for Deinonychus from Jurassic Park
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