Velociraptor (novel canon)

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

Velociraptor is a genus of dromaeosaurid theropod dinosaur from the early cretaceous period which inhabited what is now the Mongolia China border. Because the yellow amber, which contained the Raptor-DNA was found in Mongolia, the Velociraptor species of Jurassic Park are called 'mongoliensis'.

Hunting
Many raptors may have hunted in packs. The most well known evidence of this are the fossilized remains of a group of Deinonychus eating a Tenontosaurus. Grant's theory is that if you were to stand still in front of a raptor, the raptor would just look back. Then the attack would come, not from the front, but from the side. The other raptors, you wouldn't even know were there. The raptors would typically pounce on their prey and scratch at the stomach. They could run 60-70 mph so they could outrun most dinosaurs. In the real world they could only run at no more than 35 mph. Real Velociraptors lived in Mongolia, there is also evidence that when prey was abundant they would gang up on an animal. Though they did not always get along; one raptor fossil shows fatal damage to the brain that came from the jaws of another Velociraptor.

In Jurassic Park
These vicious carnivores stand six feet tall and weigh around 200 pounds when fully grown. Pack hunters from the late-cretaceous, Velociraptors were genetically recreated by InGen using DNA trapped in fossilized mosquitos. They were bred on the island of Isla Sorna before being transported to Jurassic Park. InGen then did some more genetic manipulation to produce the V. nublarensis, realizing the animal was still dangerous, albeit a lot less than V. sornaensis. InGen, possibly already behind schedule from doing this, decided to introduce the animal with massive security precautions in place into the park on Isla Nublar. The difference between the two animals not only are in the coloration/physical features, but possibly the intelligence and their social structure. V. nublarensis's social structure was relatively brutal in comparison to their V. sornaensis counterparts because we can see them snapping and attacking each other in both JP and TLW. They still communicated with each other, possibly by eye communication and like chimpanzees do, but it wasn't as complex or as effective as the V. sornaensis. This, in addition to the brutality makes their pack far less organized than the V. sornaensis, and slightly scaled down in intelligence as the V. nublarensis does not take full advantage of their surroundings like the V. sornaensis male did in the Embryonics Administration with playing on Amanda Kirby's "fascination" of what was in the embryonic tank.

Initially, all the raptors were engineered as female to prevent unauthorized breeding. Apparently, only one known shipment to the island came, with the raptors being carried inside a large, maximum-security steel cage, and the loading process was a disaster. A large group of engineers, headed by Muldoon, watched as the raptors were being loaded into the pen, only for the creatures start an uprising in an attempt to escape. The animals were eventually quelled and loaded into their pen, but an engineer died in the process when a prominent female attempted to drag him into the cage.

In the park, the raptors were kept in a large pen with an electric fence, their food consisting of live cows via crane. Nonetheless, Muldoon, remained cautious around the creatures, with InGen considering them a security hazard, considering their high intelligence and nasty disposition. Within days, the aforementioned female took over the pack and had the other raptors attack the fence to test it for weaknesses. When this failed, she killed all the other raptors save two, solidifying her role as leader of the pack.

During Nedry's insurrection, the Raptor pen was, initially, left unharmed, but the power to the fence inevitably gave out, possibly as a result of the storm. The raptors then managed to bite their way out and patrolled the area to the electric bunker. Arnold eventually came through to turn the power back on, only to be killed and eaten inside the bunker by one of the raptors, leaving only his arm. Ellie Sattler and Muldoon eventually came through the same way in an attempt to finish Arnold's work, walking into a trap set by two of the raptors. Fortunately, Muldoon saw through the raptor's ruse and held a gun on one of them while Ellie ran ahead into the bunker. Muldoon then attempted to hunt the raptor in the bush, but he underestimated the creature's intelligence, and was ambushed by the alpha female, who had been using the other raptor as bait. Muldoon was killed. Meanwhile, Ellie managed to turn the power back on to the park, only to be attacked from behind by the third raptor. Fortunately, she managed to escape with only a hurt foot.

Some time after, the three raptors migrated to the visitor's center, where the alpha female and one other followed the scent of the kids, Lex and Tim, into the kitchen. After a brief hunt around kitchen, the alpha managed to find Lex, only to attack a metal cabinet that showed her reflection. The second raptor then chased Tim into the freezer, but slipped on the ice, as Tim escaped and locked the door behind him. The alpha, however, managed to regain consciousness and followed the children, along with Alan and Ellie to the computer room. After a brief struggle, Lex managed to fix the locks and shut the door on the raptor. However, it broke through the glass and, when they climb into the vents, the second broke free from the freezer and chased them to the front of the visitor's center, where it jumped on the Brontosaurus skeleton, causing it to collapse as they climbed onto it. The humans attempted to escape, but are cornered by the alpha raptor. The alpha then took its opportunity and lunged for the humans, but is then seized out of the air by a Tyrannosaurus Rex. While the others escaped, the final raptor jumped on the rex's neck, only to slide into it's jaws and tossed violently into a decorative Tyrannosaurs Rex  model skeleton. It is unknown whether the third raptor escaped or not.



In The Lost World:Jurassic Park
The second film takes place on Isla Sorna, where the raptors, with the other animals, were initially bred. However, some incident has allowed the creatures to roam free, and a glitch in their genetic code has allowed some of them to be born males, allowing the animals to breed. Males appeared with orange skin and tiger-like stripes and orange eyes. On the island, the freed raptors are seen as having focused their numbers closer to the center of the island, with at least one pack of the creatures claiming the area around the central facility, and even the facility itself, as its territory. This makes it especially dangerous for anyone attempting to contact the outside world, as the facility is, supposedly, the only site on the island with the necessary equipment.

Three years after the incident at the first park, two groups of people; a small research team hired by John Hammond, and an enormous strike force hired by Peter Ludlow become stranded on the island when attacks by the local animals destroy most of their equipment. Despite Ludlow's warnings, the team embarks towards the central facility. However, after an attack by a pair of local Tyrannosaurs, the team becomes unorganized and seperated, and, upon nearing the facility, come across a field of tall grass that happens to be home to a pack of velociraptors, who promptly ambush the team, killing a fairly large number of men, including Arjay. Whether it is because they had eaten their fill or simply did not catch them in time, the raptors do not attack Hammond's team when they come through the grass, and photographer Nick van Owen manages to make it into the facility and call for help. But when Malcolm, Sarah, and Kelly enter the facility to find him, they are set upon by three raptors. While Ian distracts one the other two chase Sarah and Kelly inside the facility. Eventually, Ian evades the raptor and runs into the facility and is corered by one of the animals, but Kelly uses her gymnastic abilities to knock the raptor out of the window, where it is impaled and dies. As the Malcolms escape, Sarah tries to get out through the window, but is followed by the second raptor and cornered by the third. However, she manages to knock the raptor off the roof, causing it to fall on the third, provoking a violent fight between the two. She then joins up with the Malcolms and Nick and together they escape the island on a chopper.

In Jurassic Park III
At the start of the film, before Grant attends to the island, Billy creates a model "Velociraptor Resonation Chamber", a bony structure that allows the Velociraptors a complex language. Some fans have speculated that the raptors seen in JP3 are a different subspecies than those seen in the previous films. Either that or they are genetic mutants that were deemed too dangerous for the park, explaining their absence from Nublar. The raptors of the third film were much more bird like, with males having feather quills on the back of their heads. They were also brightly colored and the males had small, red eyes, whereas the females have yellow eyes. It is believed that V. sornaensis is the original Velociraptor that Grant has been digging up in both digs, or relatively close to this animal. InGen most likely cloned the V. sornaensis first and then realized that it's intelligence and social structure would be making it too dangerous for park viewing. To emphasize the point more so, V. sornaensis had a better understanding of the humans, probably better than V. nublarensis. V. sornaensis works together as a highly-communicable pack as there is no brutality in their social structure. The social structure is - from what we saw - mostly obeyed by all raptors. It should be noted though that when Grant introduced the call box though a Raptor did break rank, possibly confused by the noise coming from the human, but the female reminded it to get back into rank and the Raptor did. It's likely that had it been a V. nublarensis the female would've not only attacked it, but the other Velociraptor's attention would be focused on killing Grant, Amanda, Eric, and Paul for food instead of egg retrieval. Ultimately though from the V. sornaensis there was no "attacking" between each other whatsoever as it was only complex communication. The V. sornaensis communicated more with each other with coordinating their attacks better than we saw from the V. nublarensis do in the first two films and this is referenced by the acts of behavior between one another in the two sub-species.

These understandings were in the fact that a lone male was sent to hunt the group of humans in JP3 and used it's environment perhaps purposely hiding behind the tank and staying perfectly still to scare Amanda Kirby. In itself this implies that V. sornaensis is very understanding of human emotions of "curiosity". V. sornaensis again makes another play on human emotions when it comes to compassion, humans not wanting to leave another behind with Udesky.

In the genetics admissions lab, a male is seen hiding its head behind one of the incubator machines. As Amanda Kirby takes a closer look, it's eye moves and it pops out from behind the glass. It tries to bite Amanda, but is too big to fit through the machines. It finds another way and chases the survivors eventually trapping them in a maze of dinosaur cages. Billy Brennan and Amanda trap the raptor in one of the cages and it lets out a screeching, birdlike call. Dr. Alan Grant is amazed by it calling for help. Eventually, the raptor gets out and calls to other raptors. In the jungle, other raptors could hear the one from the building. During the stampede of Parasaurolophus and Corythosaurus, two males are seen running at speeds up to 50-60 mph. In the jungle, a female stabs its retractable claw in pilot Udesky's back and the pack uses him as bait to lure Billy, Amanda, and Paul Kirby. Meanwhile, after being split from the others, Dr. Grant sees a male and female talking to each other. He wonders what they are saying or what they are looking for. Then he is cornered by three males and the female. Just as the pack was closing in on him, Eric Kirby throws gas grenades, which drive the raptors away. They appear again near the end of the film, wanting their eggs back that Billy took earlier, which is the explanation for their earlier attack. They surround the survivors as they get down on their knees. The female walks slowly up to Amanda and sniffs around her, thinking she stole the eggs. Dr. Grant opens Billy's bag and hands both eggs to Amanda who places them in the sand gently. Grant then takes out the resonating chamber Billy gave him and blows through it to confuse the raptors. He then imitates their cry for help. One of the males tries to attack him,but is stopped by the female. She then hears helicopters coming and caws each male a command. While the they take off into the jungle, one stays with her. The female picks up the first egg and the male picks up the second. They then catch up with the pack. It is thought that the Velociraptors in Jurassic Park were good parents. Jurassic Park III proves that the raptors in this movie follow the group to get their eggs back. It is unknown if the raptors in the other movies did the same.

In Books
In the book, the raptors are the first to escape. They had found a hidden place to nest and the number of raptors rose quickly. Before every one on the island left they had to check how many raptors there were. But they "migrated" away before they could and the island was destroyed. Before this, after the backup generator failed, the captive raptors escaped and some of the raptors, after chasing Ellie Sattler and Robert Muldoon, killing Henry Wu and Arnold, they found the children in the computer room. Grant came to rescue the children, and they ran through the computer room and the nursery and into the hatching lab. The kids ran into another room and Grant had them lock the door. It was here Grant found a toxic liquid chemical and injected it into some dinosaur eggs, then rolled them in front of the raptors. One raptor ate it and started dying from the poison, the second tore it open and killed it. It ate one of the poisoned egg and died of poisoning; the last heard his radio as Sattler was trying to talk to him, but Grant was able to inject the syringe directly in the tail with the toxin. The raptors in the book could also change the color of their skin, much like a chameleon and like the Carnotauruses in the second novel.

In Video Games
The Raptors have appeared in almost every Jurassic Park video game made. Their most noticeable appearances are in the the PSX game The Lost World:Jurassic park and Jurassic Park Operation Genesis. In The Lost World game, They appear as they do in the movie,the raptor must escape an abandoned INGEN facility into a forest were a forest fire rages, while facing numerous dinosaurs and hunters. In JPOG, they are grey with black spots, most likely another subspecies like the female Jp III raptor. They lunge onto the prey and bite them numerous times. If they attack larger prey, like a Torosaurus they lunge onto it it and claw it to death. They can also climb over fences with ease if the fence is lower than Medium or is damaged. If the JPOG game is modified in the PC, the raptors can have fights with Tyrannosaurus Rex. It would take six raptors to kill the carnivore.

Attractions
The raptors appeared near the end of Jurassic Park: River Adventure, where they are shown to have recently escaped, and are now tearing up the area. During Universal's Annual Halloween Horror Nights which took place at Islands of Adventure for the first time in 2002, the Jurassic Park island became JP: Extinction, and of course, with all the dinosaurs unleashed out of their paddlocks, there were several scareactors dressed up as raptors, hiding in the bushes, waiting to scare the unsuspecting.

Depiction in the Films and Description in the Novels
The creature in the films and books were larger than the actual animal, at least double the size. This was probably an error because, at the time when Crichton was writing Jurassic Park, Deinonychus (a similar dinosaur his velociraptors were based on) was classified as a subspecies of "Velociraptor." In the books, the raptor's made only roaring, snarling and hissing noises, while they are shown to have a kind of "spoken language" in the films. The most notable difference is the behavior in the books; in the Jurassic Park novel, they cared for their young and only killed an infant that had been raised in the nursery, probably because it smelled like human scent. In The Lost World novel their behavior is somewhat different; they don't care for the young or each other, apparently because, as relatively intelligent creatures, they were created but had no predecessors to learn proper pack behavior from. It seems social dynamics beyond hunting are beyond them. The prion plague DX that was running rampant on Isla Sorna may be the reason these raptors behaved so differently. The film raptors have not been seen actually attacking each other except in the Lost World when Sarah slides roof tiling so the raptor on the roof will fall onto another one. It is only then that they start attacking each other. In the Jurassic Park franchise, Velociraptor bares more similarities to Deinonychus in size and shape, due to Deinonychus having been classified as a type of Velociraptor at the time Michael Crichton wrote the first novel. The raptor's size and shape in the films is extremely exaggerated; in fact most paleontologists involved in making the first film didn't want the raptors to be as big as they were portrayed, thinking it would be too unrealistic. In real life, Velociraptor was no bigger than a turkey and bore a more bird-like appearance. Since these raptors are so much bigger than the real animal it is suspected by some that gene splicing with their larger relative Deinonychus occurred, causing them to grow much larger and look more like Deinonychus. Either that or they actually were genetically altered Deinonychus called Velociraptors.

Ability Description
Attack Reasoning V. nublarensis is almost capable of the same things as V. sornaensis when it comes to memory, but V. sornaensis is more advanced and better at remembering as they play on human emotion and sets "better" traps than just simple pack coordination. Another reference of an advanced attack method was employed from a lone male V. sornaensis included: trailing the humans without them knowing and entering another way into the Embryonics Administration and remaining perfectly still while waiting for Amanda Kirby to get to close and using her curiosity of the tanks to get the best of her. It's also possibly that V. nublarensis employed eye contact to eliminate Muldoon and these are also known to be able to open doors, but this is likely not an attack reasoning ability. Intelligence This category goes under attack-reasoning for the most part. V. nublarensis is more akin to very intelligent wolves in their intelligence, example: opening doors, digging, etc. While V. sornaensis is more organized like early humans in their intelligence. Example of a V. sornaensis is when it fooled Amanda by playing on an illusion, using Udesky as bait. Pack Functionality V. nublarensis is more brutal than the V. sornaensis. Evidence of the brutality can be seen in JP & TLW when the V. nublarensis attacks each other. V. sornaensis does not show such brutality to date. We see this in Jurassic Park and The Lost World when V. nublarensis snap each other when they first enter the kitchen and again in The Lost World while Sarah makes her escape. At present there are no examples of V. sornaensis brutality. Communication Both animals communicate with one another, although V. nublarensis communication with one another is far less as opposed to V. sornaensis, which communicate more with each other. Example: V. nublarensis calling for her hunting partner in JP, but there is no verbal communication while they were stalking Muldoon. There is a lot of verbal communication while V. sornaensis are seen "talking" to each other in Jurassic Park 3 in what could be attributed as a language.