Deinonychus

"The point is, you are alive when they start to eat you."

- Dr. Alan Grant

Deinonychus was the first of the raptors (technically called "") 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.

The skeleton of Deinonychus were first to show the now infamous sickle-shaped retractable foot claw (8 inch), used for ripping open the guts of its prey. Deinonychus also had a nasty bite, with over 60 knife-like teeth.

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.

More real-life information: Deinonychus at Wikipedia.

Classification
At the time Michael Crichton wrote the first novel Deinonychus was included in the Velociraptor genus. The type-species Deinonychus antirrhopus was sometimes called Velociraptor antirrhopus. This reclassification is mentioned by Alan Grant in the first novel:

"Although Deinonychus is now considered one of the Velociraptors..."

Because Deinonychus was classified as a Velociraptor, the raptors from the three films were based more on Deinonychus than Velociraptor, probably because Deinonychus was much larger and thus more dangerous.

Jurassic Park Series
Raptors named Deinonychus appear in a couple of Jurassic Park inspired games.

About the Raptors named Velociraptors in the films Dr. Holtz and Dr. Brett-Surman wrote:

"The genetically recreated Velociraptors in the Jurassic Park movies are closer in size to a very large Deinonychus than to the true Velociraptor, which was much smaller".

Jurassic Park novel
At the dig site in Montana Alan Grant discovers a fossilized raptor hatchling. He classifies it as Velociraptor antirrhopus, which is in modern insight a Deinonychus species.

Jurassic Park inspired games

 * In The Lost World: Jurassic Park video game Deinonychus is an enemy in various level. It bears a resemblance to the Velociraptor mongoliensis 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.
 * In Jurassic Park III: Park Builder, Deinonychus is a carnivore that can be recreated from paleo-DNA. Ironically the Velociraptor can also be created.


 * It was planned to appear in JPOG, but was scrapped, possibly in favor of the Velociraptor. However, since Deinonychus is virtually identical to Jurassic Park's depiction of Velociraptor, it's possible to create one by simply copying and renaming the Velociraptor file, as well as re-coloring the existing raptor model.Deinonychus_by_wolflinx-d4rh7lg.png

Toylines
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 (thus possibly making it another Velociraptor repaint). 

The same paint job was later used for Jurassic Park: Dinosaurs‘ Ornithosuchus.