Official Derailed thread... Wait, what?

also how they did the raptors in the original Jurassic Park movie

I want one of these suits.

 

Damon Howe, on the job.

 

looks to me like two of a kind, they're both fly and mosquito killers.

 

Webs are for bitches. He's moving up in the world.

 

And a fine job he is doing.

 

And DAMN do I look good with that beard.

 

I'm still angry at Spielberg. The bullshit with kids never ends and this...



Such scare.

 

Sorry that's just a big duck...

From what I know the raptors in the movie are more base off of the North American raptor Deinonychus.

 

apparently, they were based off the Deinonychus, and at the time the book was written, Deinonychus was classified as a genus Velociraptor. There was also mention of the Utahraptor, which is an even larger similar species, though Hollywood being Hollywood I imagine there's going to be some fudge in the scale of things. The ones in the movie seemed much larger than the wolf-sized Deinonychus

 

I think appearance it was deinonychus but size was taken from utah. Going for the most feirce look without being factual.

 

Deinonychus:



Utahraptor:




I'd say, deinonychuses were essentially like being attacked by wolves. One isn't going to get you killed but the real problem comes when you're getting attacked from multiple directions simultaneously.

Utahraptor is one mean beast. Note that dinosaurs have really good reflexes and because of their light avian like bone structure they are a lot mobile than their size leads to suspect. Still they are estimated to have weighed up to 500kg (1000+ lb) so it would be like fighting a bear with really fast reflexes and mean set of 22cm (9 inch) claws.

Essentially you're already crippled once it jumps you, you're going to have several bones broken as you fall to ground beneath that thing coming at you full speed. To be honest I think those feathers and such don't take anything out of it's menacing nature. It's not like we needed to take off the fluffy fur off of a bear to make them more menacing.

Edit:
Basically it looks like it can just jump at you and sink those 9 inch claws onto your chest/neck area and lean to the claws with all it's weight while taking into account that with that mass if it's running and jumping at you, there would be no survival rate and you could not physically block the claws.

 

Makes me wonder if they were actually just Ratites of that period in time or what evolved into what is now ratites.



claw of a cassowary.





the dinosaurs could have just been standing next to us this whole time....

 

Well, birds are a theropod dinosaurs, or more accurately a group of theropods. Birds and dinosaurs share a closer bond than either group has with alligators.

If it weren't that direct 'within family' link then it would be a case of evolutionary convergence - if two species have sharp claws and they both need to impale shit then they both will benefit from having larger claw to impale deeper into vital organs and leaving wider&deeper bleed channels. There are a ton of species that arrive at same destination from different starting points because mechanics, if some structure works then it works.

 

Sort of looks like a tiny elephant.

 

Looks more like a rat

 

Elephant rat.

 

Relephat? Elephrat? Ralphelant?

 

the sloth could be a real predator, if only it could break free of it's natural torpidity.

 

Actually, it reads 'sloth bear'


:edit
though yea, sloths have nice claws too