Velociraptor was first found in 1923 at the Gobi dessert, which covers southern Mongolia and parts of northern China. It lived on the earth between 74-70 million years ago. But recently it has been discovered that a relative of raptor, a 3 feet long fluffy dinosaur called “Hesperornithoides miessleri”, lived in the late Jurassic period, about 164 to 145 million years ago.
The raptor looked very different from that shown in the film Jurassic Park (and in my drawing above). In fact it had a feathery body and a head similar to a modern day monitor lizard. It also had a wing in its hands and it was only 3 feet tall (and had a length of 6 feet), whereas in the movie it was shown 5 feet tall (probably they modelled it on the Deinonychus). Thus the raptor weighted only 7kgs, which is only twice as heavy as the modern day cat 🐈. Anyways, movies are all reel 🎞️, not real.
Velociraptor had an extremely good eyesight (just like the present day eagle 🦅) because it had to hunt down on prey smaller than a modern day squirrel 🐿️. It had a a big claw on it’s toe nail that was used to kill its prey instantly (remember that iconic scene from the movie where the raptor taps its toe in anticipation of catching the kids in the park kitchen).
However, its extremely unlikely that the raptor, despite its large brain (in proportion to its body), was an intelligent as a chimp or parrot 🦜. It only had the intellect as found in common birds of today.
Despite having feathers, however, the arms of Velociraptors were too short to allow them to fly, perhaps their ancestors could flown at some time. The raptor was very agile and could run at the speed of 25 kilometers per hour. The female raptors used its wings to keep it’s eggs warm.
