Dino profile
Velociraptor
the little feathered hunter
Velociraptor was a small meat-eating dinosaur that walked on two legs. In real life, it was much smaller than people often imagine, and it probably had feathers.
Its ID card
- Where
- In Asia: mostly in Mongolia, in the Gobi Desert. A second species, still debated, was found in China. [1][2]
- Its size
- About 1.5 to 2 meters long and 50 cm tall at the hips: roughly the size of a turkey. [1][2]
- Its family
- The dromaeosaurids, a family of small meat-eating dinosaurs that walked on two legs. [1]
As big as a turkey, with feathers
In movies, it has been shown twice as big as it really was. Those big “raptors” looked more like a bigger cousin, Deinonychus. In real life, Velociraptor was roughly the size of a turkey. [1][2]
In 2007, scientists from the American Museum of Natural History and the Field Museum studied a forearm bone found in Mongolia in 1998. They saw six small bumps on it: in birds, these are where the big wing feathers attach. [2][3]
Since then, some researchers have asked for this fossil to be checked again. But its close cousins had feathers: so Velociraptor very probably had them too. [1][2]
Its arms were too short for flying. Its feathers were maybe used for showing off, protecting its nest or keeping warm. [2][3]
A sickle-shaped claw
On the second toe of each foot, it had a big curved claw. It could be more than 6.5 cm long. [2]
It probably used it to hold its prey down on the ground. It also had lots of pointed teeth. [1][2]
It hunted, but tooth marks show that it also sometimes ate animals that were already dead. A bone from a pterosaur, a flying reptile, has even been found in a Velociraptor's belly. [2]
Its discovery
On August 11, 1923, Peter Kaisen, a member of an American Museum of Natural History expedition, finds a crushed but complete skull and a hand claw in the Gobi Desert, in Mongolia. [2]
In 1924, Henry Fairfield Osborn gives it its name: Velociraptor mongoliensis. [1][2]
In 1971, a Polish and Mongolian team discovers a famous fossil: a Velociraptor and a Protoceratops frozen together, in the middle of a fight. This fossil is considered a national treasure of Mongolia. [2]
Sources
The information on this page comes from these sources:
- Velociraptor, Dino Directory, Natural History Museum, London (accessed November 5, 2026).
- Velociraptor, Wikipedia (English), and the publications it cites: Osborn 1924, Turner et al. 2007, Godefroit et al. 2008, Hone et al. 2010 and 2012, Fowler et al. 2011, Napoli et al. 2021 (accessed November 5, 2026).
- Velociraptor had feathers, Phys.org, September 20, 2007, on the study by Alan Turner, Mark Norell and their colleagues published in Science (accessed November 5, 2026).