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 Mongolia. Because the yellow amber, which contained the Raptor-DNA was found in Mongolia, the Velociraptor species of Jurassic Park are called 'mongoliensis'. 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.

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 also lived in Mongolia, which was desert, and could not support a pack because if there were too many mouths to feed they would all starve. There is evidence that when prey was abundant they would gang up, but did not always get along: one raptor fossil shows fatal damage to the brain that came from the jaws of another Velociraptor.

Jurassic Park
These vicious carnivores stand six feet tall and weigh around 200 pounds when fully grown. They have big green eyes with vertically slit pupils. The first raptors, all females, had dark brown skin. Females in the second film however were brownish green with dark blue stripes. 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 acutally were genetically altered Deinonychus called Velociraptors. The three female raptors from the first film escaped from their pin and escaped into the island jungle. Robert Muldoon went after the animals, while Dr. Ellie Sattler went to restore the power. She found out that a raptor was hidden in the power shed, and managed to kill Ray Arnold. She managed to escape, thinking she contained the animal. Robert Muldoon went after another raptor, thinking he's about to kill the animal, when a second raptor appeared to his side. Muldoon is killed when the animal pounces on him. Lex and Tim are dropped off by Dr. Alan Grant when they eventually reach the abandoned Visitor Center. Dr. Grant left to get help. Lex and Tim are eating when they see a raptor and hide in a nearby kitchen. The raptor eventually gets in by opening the door. As the raptor inches into the kitchen, it calls, and another raptor appears. They both take forces down the aisles of the kitchen. The raptors almost catch Tim as a fallen ladle attracts the animals to him, but Lex distracts them by banging another ladle on the ground. The raptors see her climb into an oven and try to close the oven door. One raptor goes after her, but instead of the real Lex, it goes after a reflection of her on another metal cabinet. It lunges full speed into the cabinet and falls to the ground, stunned. While the first raptor watches the first lunge after Lex, Tim sees a chance and runs for the freezer. The second raptor sees Tim and lunges after him. Tim makes it and locks the raptor in the freezer.

The first raptor chases Tim, Lex, Dr. Grant, and Dr. Sattler into the Visitor's Center where they're cornered by the second raptor. Just as soon as the raptors are ready to attack, the Tyrannosaurus breaks in and kills one of the raptors by grabbing it in its jaws and biting into it, damaging the raptor to its death beyond repair. While Dr. Grant and the others have a chance to escape, the second raptor attacks the T-Rex and the T-Rex fights back. Eventually the T-Rex catches the raptor in its mouth and throws it into a skeleton, violently killing it, and roars with victory. The female raptors in this film are defeated for good. The Third Raptor is unknown if it is still alive or dead (there are probably more raptors on Isl Nublar that were not in the film).

The Lost World:Jurassic Park
In the second film, males appeared with orange skin and tiger-like stripes and orange eyes. A pack is seen in a field of long grass stalking the hunters. The raptors attack the hunters with most of them being wiped out. When Dr. Ian Malcolm hears their calls, he, Sarah Harding, Kelly Curtis Malcolm, and Nick Van Owen make a run through the field. While Nick calls for help, Ian, Sarah, and Kelly come across a raptor. It leaps onto Sarah, rips off her backpack, chews on it, then turns to the survivors. While Ian distracts it, Sarah and Kelly run inside an old building just as two more raptors enter the scene. As the first raptor goes after Ian, the other two are digging underground to get Sarah and Kelly who are still inside. Sarah and Kelly start digging their own hole out but are trapped by one of the raptors trying to dig its way in from their hole. Ian eventually runs inside where he sees the second raptor still trying to get in. Ian starts climbing to the top just as soon as the raptor gets in. It then leaps to the top and is about to pounce on Ian and eat him when Kelly, using her gymnastics, kills it by kicking it out a window and sending it landing on a stake. It is stabbed to death by the stake. As she and Ian run out, Sarah climbs outside of the roof where the third raptor leaps in front of her. The first raptor waits below her. Sarah creates a slide causing the top raptor to fall on top of the one below. The two raptors then start biting and clawing each other while Sarah makes a clear getaway to catch up with the others.

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. Also, they were smarter with more pack-behavior structure. 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 miles. In the jungle, a male 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 grenedes, 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 threw it to confuse the raptors. He then imitates their cry for help. One of the males make a move, 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.

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, 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. Two raptors ate them 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.

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 movies 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 on the other one.They start atacking each other.