In Popular Culture
Velociraptor are well known for their role as vicious and cunning killers in the 1990 novel Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton and its 1993 film adaptation, directed by Steven Spielberg, in which they served as the main antagonists. The "raptors" portrayed in Jurassic Park were modeled after a larger relative, Deinonychus, which Gregory Paul at the time called Velociraptor antirrhopus. The paleontologists in the film and the novel excavate a so-called Velociraptor skeleton in Montana, far from the central Asian range of Velociraptor but well within the range of Deinonychus. A character in Crichton's novel also states that "…Deinonychus is now considered one of the velociraptors", indicating that Crichton used Paul's taxonomy, though the "raptors" in the novel are referred to as V. mongoliensis.
The filmmakers also increased the size of the film's Velociraptor and changed the shape of its snout. The forelimbs and tails of the film animals differed from those of real dromaeosaurids, directly contradicting fossil evidence. In real life, Velociraptor, like many other maniraptoran theropods, was covered in feathers. Jurassic Park and The Lost World: Jurassic Park, however, were released before this was known, and its raptors are shown with bare skin. In Jurassic Park III, the Velociraptor are depicted with quill-like structures along the back of the head and neck, although these do not resemble the down-like feathers known from real-life dromaeosaurids, and the quill knobs on some Velociraptor specimens show they had fully developed feathers akin to those of modern birds.
Due to the success of many Jurassic Park-related products, Velociraptor has become a ubiquitous representation of dinosaurs in popular culture. It has been featured in numerous toy lines, animated films, video games and television series for children, along with several television documentaries. In 1995, the city of Toronto was awarded a National Basketball Association expansion team, which was named the Toronto Raptors.
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