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Deinonychus ("terrible claw") is a genus of theropod dinosaur that lived during the Aptian and Albian stages of the Cretaceous period (115-108 million years ago) in North America. It was first discovered by Barnum Brown in 1931, and informally named Daptosaurus agilis. In 1964, more material was found by paleontologist John Ostrom and his team in an expedition from Yale's Peabody Museum of Natural History. In 1969, he named his fossils - and Brown's "Daptosaurus" - Deinonychus antirrhopus ("counterbalanced terrible claw"), after the "terrible claw" on the animal's inner toes, and the use of its long, stiff tail for counterbalance.
Deinonychus appears in the third episode of Jurassic Fight Club, "Gang Killers".
In episode 3, "Gang Killers", a pack of 9 Deinonychus ambushed a migrating herd of Tenontosaurus, seperating a lone Tenontosaurus from the group. Like a pack of wolves, these raptors are attacking the Tenontosaurus, but he fights back and kills 2 Deinonychus. Subsequently, the Deinonychus retreat, following the Tenontosaurus's blood trail as it looks for cover. The Tenontosaurus needs to rely on his sheer size and strength. The Raptors encountered with stealth, speed, numbers, and one more advantage: “night vision.” At night, the pack of Deinonychus finds the lone and weak Tenontosaurus so these guys move in for the final assault. They’re able to use and dig their claws to cut deep in his side, using their hand claws they’re hanging on. But its the killing claws on their foot allows them to dig deep on flesh. As he fights for his own life through his assault, the Tenontosaurus retaliates and kills four more Deinonychus, but eventually the Tenontosaurus loses his consciousness and falls to the ground. The Alpha Male Raptor grabs his prey by the throat and begins to crush its windpipe while two remaining raptors take advantage and begin to feast on the internal organs of the Tenontosaurus. Just like a pack of wolves, these Deinonychus are fighting for the carcass. The alpha male raptor settled his dominance and he begins to push away from his rivals and taste his morsels. Tenontosaurus was bigger and heavier because he didn’t necessarily make a mistake. It was a pack of raptors that took him down.
Description[]
These raptors stood 5 feet tall, measured 8-10 feet long, and weighed up to 150 pounds. It had It had a flexible neck, a big head, a well-developed brain and large eyes to hunt at night similar to the characteristics of the Tasmanian Devil, Wolverine, and American eagle. Like all modern predators, Deinonychus was armed with 70 curved serrated teeth on its mouth. It had 3 inch claws on each hand. It also had the 4 inch raptorial claw on their foot.
Fighting style[]
In Jurassic Fight Club, Deinonychus fights using hit-and-run tactics, as well was leaping onto opponents and mauling them with their teeth and claws. These tactics are made more effective by Deinonychus to hunt in packs; mauling and overwhelming their prey with vicious bites and scratches.
Diet[]
Deinonychus likely fed on anything it could catch; mainly small vertebrates. But in a pack, they could hunt larger prey like Tenontosaurus.
Trivia[]
- Deinonychus is the dinosaur that sparked the "dinosaur renaissance" of the 1960s. Paleontologist John Ostrom described the animal as an active and birdlike predator, which was completely different from how dinosaurs were viewed prior: sluggish, swamp-dwelling brutes waiting to become extinct. The dinosaur renaissance was a complete reimagining of dinosaurs as active, intelligent, complex animals. Deinonychus's birdlike anatomy led to the now-accepted hypothesis that birds evolved from theropod dinosaurs.
- Jurassic Park's Velociraptors were modelled after Deinonychus. The name change comes from Predatory Dinosaurs of the World by Gregory S. Paul; a book that was used as a scientific reference for Michael Chrichton's Jurassic Park novel. In which Deinonychus was classifed as a species of Velociraptor (Velociraptor antirrhopus). Despite Ostrom and others telling him otherwise, Crichton used the name Velociraptor because it sounded more dramatic.
- In the episode "T-Rex Hunter," a pack of Deinonychus was shown in the same time as T-Rex despite being long extinct before Tyrannosaurus. A possible explanation is that they were actually meant to be Dromaeosaurus , or the newly discovered, but larger Dakotaraptor, who was almost as big as Utahraptor. A similar error occurs in "Hunter Becomes Hunted", in which a Ceratosaurus pair were shown hunting a Deinonychus, where it might be meant to be another small coelurosaur.
- Deinoychus has gender currently is unknown.