Dino-a-day: Deinonychus

Time to announce the 12 dinosaurs in the game!  First up, Deinonychus:

deinon_01

(click to see a larger image)

Deinonychus, an 11 foot long, roughly 5 foot tall dinosaur, may have been able to run up the sides of trees using their powerful legs and claws, and possibly assisted by lift generated by feathered forearms.  They likely ate a whole range of prey: from insects and small reptiles to much larger prey.  They may have hunted in packs, having been found in close proximity to (and with teeth marks on) Tenontosaurus.

Feathers on deinonychus are not just a theory: quill knobs have been discovered on the closely related Velociraptor’s skeleton.


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16 Responses to “Dino-a-day: Deinonychus”

  1. Allosaurus fragilis Says:

    Quill knobs were found on Velociraptor, not Deinonychus, but is assumable that all raptors had feathers due to Velociraptor having them.

  2. Thanks Allo, I corrected the post.

  3. With the golden color scheme and feathered crest, it reminds me of a lion, albeit with scales and feathers. It certainly looks fast and dangerous, and probably lived in a group.

  4. It’s gorgeous. Probably the best game model of a dromaeosaur I’ve seen so far.

    However the “lift generated by feathered forearms” statement is incorrect… Deinonychus wasn’t even capable of a flapping stroke. Its arms and wrists functioned like a regular theropod’s, not like a bird’s. Not to mention its arms were comparatively tiny–they wouldn’t have generated any significant amount of lift.

    According to Bakker, the tree-climbing was accomplished mostly through the hindlegs. The killer claws were used like grappling hooks and the powerful leg muscles propelled the raptor up the trunk.

  5. Interesting. I’m reading right now in Dinosauria (the book) that “the sideways flexure of the wrist in maniraptorans like Deinonychus … was so important to the ability to evolve flight. That Action, when the limbs are outstretched to the sides, now moves the hand, not upward and forward as in dromaeosaurids, but forward and downward.”

    Granted, this only implies that this would have been the origin of flight, and doesn’t necessarily suggest that it helped them climb trees. I imagine that a motion like this could have conceivably HELPED them climb trees, though, even if the primary means of upward locomotion was the claws and legs. I’ll update the post. Thanks for the insight! I LOVE working with experts!

  6. Hands should bent invards.

  7. Actually, dromaeosaurs have every feature that is needed to perform WAIR — running up trees using air pressure generated by the wings.

    And even tiny peafowl chicks that don’t even have true feathers yet can use WAIR, so the “arms are too small” argument is just invalid.

  8. Put hands bent invards sou it is perfect XD

  9. Will there bi chose to make it pack hunter or louner?
    New evidens points to the latter becaus the fossiils found from the tenontosaurus sites are moustly from subadults whit missing parts suggesting been eaten bai adults. I found this info from wikipedia and from fjuu papers.

  10. Looks awesome! :).
    Normally, Deinonychus’ with feathers looks terrible >.<. This one is good.
    Since Deinonychus hasn’t been found with any clues of feathers, I do belive that they had some on its head, neck and tail (to hide better in grass and maybe to scare strangers away, there are in their territory) and maybe some on its arms, so they could turn quicker.

  11. Now these are what I call hunters, think of them like wolves only extinct. This is one of my favorite dinos!

  12. i love the deinonychunds cool

  13. thats my fave dino! ;)

  14. What About The Killing Claw

  15. hey this cool

  16. love this dino!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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