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Deinonychus ("terrible claw") is a genus of carnivorous dromaeosaurid that lived during the early Cretaceous. Fossils have been recovered from the U.S. states of Montana, Wyoming, and Oklahoma, in rocks of the Cloverly Formation and Antlers Formation, though teeth that may belong to Deinonychus have been found much farther east in Maryland.
Deinonychus appears in the third episode of Jurassic Fight Club, entitled "Gang Killers". Deinonychus is one of the largest raptor.
Description
This carnivorous dinosaur was about 3.1 meters (10 feet) long, 1.5 (5 feet) tall, and weighed up to 72.6 kg (160 pounds). It had a flexible neck, a big head, a well-developed brain and large, keen eyes, similar to modern birds of prey.
Fighting style
Deinonychus's long, slender tail and spine encased in bony rods helped it maintain balance and change direction as it ran and attacked its prey. More than living up to its name ("terrible claw"), it used its sharp-clawed fingers and the 5-inch-long sickle-like talons on the second toe of each foot to grab its prey.
Diet
Deinonychus is believed to have hunted in packs, which would have allowed it to kill much larger victims, such as the herbivorous Tenontosaurus, or giant sauropod dinosaurs.
Trivia
- Deinonychus has given its name to the entire group of what are popularly known as raptor dinosaurs, or Deinonychosaurs. It was the model for the terrifying Velociraptors in Steven Spielberg's blockbuster movie Jurassic Park (1993), although in reality Velociraptor was much smaller than the dinosaurs featured in the movie.
- 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. A similar error occurs in the later episodes where Ceratosaurus fought Allosaurus, where it might be meant to be another small coelurosaur.
- Deinonychus in the show was depicted as purely scaly, but suprisingly, a year earlier, quill knobs were discovered on Mongolian raptor bones.