Don't call him a turkey.

Dakotaraptor is the "Ferrari of competitors" 

-Robert DePalma

I adore this concept art. Most things Saurian does is pretty amazing.

I wouldn't say Ferrari, I'd equate it more to psycho on a motorcycle wielding a big ass knife. 

There's a lot of things that make D-Rap (I can call him that, because we're cool) one of my new favorite dinosaurs to obsess about. 

For one thing, the paper about him was just published by Robert DePalma back in October of this year, so Dakotaraptor is a new rock star of the paleontology fan base. This was yet another fantastic find from the Hell Creek Formation of the US of A.

New dino discoveries happen all the time, several hundred are discovered every year, which not a lot of people know about. New papers are being published, new ideas coming to the table, new findings shaking the world of geology and paleontology happen almost daily. Each day, each new finding, paints a more accurate and amazing picture of what the world was like millions of years ago, and the animals that lived in it.

Along with dinos, anthropology, and other nerdy things I adore, one of my main hobbies is video games. So when the creators of Saurian was the first to announce Dakotaraptor's paper being published, I was a giggly mess of excitement. These guys actually hinted at this very hush-hush, advanced knowledge on I Know Dino's podcast a little while ago.
I cannot wait for that game to come out, but that's very far in the future. They have a ways to go before we can take on the Cretaceous as one of the natives.

Moving along~

Raptors have to be one of the coolest types of dinosaurs out there. They're fast, vicious, scary smart and look incredibly badass. They weaseled their way into my heart when I saw Jurassic Park as a kid. I never even knew about them before that point, and from there it was hard to shake this fascination. There are several amazing species of raptors that I'll write about in the future, including Trodons, which are very interesting little brainiacs.
D-Rap is a therapod, which means he is a saurician hipped, bi-pedal dinosaur. Most therapods are carnivores and this guy is very much a meat only killing machine. The "sickle claw" on each foot is the most iconic characteristic of these guys, making them deadly, stabbing, slicey psychos. Each claw could rip through their prey's skin and muscle, essentially gutting them or hooking on to their thick hides to bite and chomp at them.
Dakotaraptor's claw is a little bigger than his cousin's, and what's really unique about this particular fossil is the great preservation of said giant claw. Intact muscle indentations on the claw helped researchers determine that his "slice force" was stronger than most raptors researched so far.
So this asshole meant business.

Size chart for super cool dudes.

Another cool thing about this dude is that he's a giant raptor of the late Cretaceous, which means this badass stomped around with t-rex. That's pretty legit. 

Most of the raptors that people visualize are the cool hybrid creatures from Jurassic Park, which were more modeled off of Deinoychus than Velociratpor, two very different species, with some cool claw feet. Deinoychus was around in the early Cretaceous, and the turkey sized Velociraptor was around during D-Rap's time. Look how wittle he is! I remember how disappointed Alex was when he saw a skeleton of a Velociraptor for the first time. He was quite underwhelmed. Hehe!

The biggest, baddest raptor that I've seen is Utharaptor, which was around during the early Cretaceous, a couple million years before D-Rap, and was monstrously huge. 

I also plan on making a whole post about mircoraptor because LOOK HOW CUTE AND TINY. ;3;

What really makes D-Rap special, is the amazing preservation of his arm bones, which still had strong "quill knobs" visible, reinforcing the theory that dinosaurs, especially raptors, were feathery ninjas.

What the hell is a quill knob? 

Well, let me tell you! Those are little ridges on the outside of the radius (arm bone) that strong feathers are attached to. Now, it's not really known why these guys had big, long feathers on their arms, but there have been some good theories brought to the table. Some experts think they were used for display, like in mating or showing off like how birds tend to do. They most certainly were not meant for flight, as this big ass guy would not have been able to get himself off the ground. They're thinking it's more like how ostriches use their feathers to look fabulous and appear big to predators. 

Don't even lie. If a fucking goose runs up to you with wings out, screaming with it's honky death cry from hell, I know you run from the demon in tears.

We all do.

Another kinda weird idea is that the feathers were used to pin down it's prey, which is just...metal as hell. I guess it make sense, since the knobs are really pronounced, so these feathers were strong and thick. 

Kind of gives me the creeps though. 

I figured talking about raptors was appropriate for the holiday, considering that in Jurassic Park that dumb fat kid called them turkeys. I mean...he's not wrong...but if turkeys had butcher knives on their feet and sharp teeth, I think Thanksgiving would have a totally different meaning. We'd be giving thanks that the roles weren't reversed. 

Happy roasted dinosaur day!