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{{trope}}
[[File:Velociraptor-incident.jpg|link=X Days Since...|frame]]
{{quote|''"Try to imagine yourself [[Everything's Better
Ever since ''[[Jurassic Park]]'' made ''Velociraptor'' a household name, its iconic image - a man-sized, intelligent, vicious, scaly killer - has appeared countless times in popular culture, usually as a [[Shout-Out]] to, well, ''Jurassic Park''. In [[Real Life]], ''Velociraptor'' were about the size of turkeys, though there was another "raptor", ''Utahraptor'', that more closely matches ''Jurassic Park'''s depiction in terms of size. [[Somewhere a Palaeontologist Is Crying|As you can imagine, it causes paleontologists an unending amount of sweet, tasty tears.]]
Besides ''Velociraptor'' itself, this trope potentially encompasses all portrayals of other deinonychosaurian dinosaurs in media as well: the [[wikipedia:Dromaeosauridae|dromaeosaurids]] and [[wikipedia:Troodontidae|troodonts]]. Interestingly, some recent{{when}} analyses suggest that the so-called "first bird" ''Archaeopteryx'' may either be a deinonychosaur as well (in other words, closer to ''Velociraptor'' than to modern birds), or less close to modern birds than deinonychosaurs are. In any case, it's worthy to note that in spite of its iconic status, there is very little anatomical difference between ''Archaeopteryx'' and small deinonychosaurs, and, potential color patterns aside, you'd probably have no luck telling them apart in life. This has even led to speculation that traditional deinonychosaurs may have had ancestors who ''became'' flightless.
For a more thorough listing of the inaccuracies that tend to show up in various works, see the folder below. For good examples of ''accurate'' deinonychosaur portrayals, see [
Basically a deinonychosaurian equivalent of [[Ptero-Soarer]].
Subtrope of [[Everything's Better
For the other kind of raptor, see [[Big Badass Bird of Prey]].
* Being covered in scales instead of feathers. If present in older works this is a victim of [[Science Marches On]], but we've known since 1999 that deinonychosaurs had feathers.<ref>Indeed, some possible deinonychosaurs such as ''Archaeopteryx'' and ''Rahonavis'' already showed evidence of feathers before then, but had not been recognized as deinonychosaurs when first discovered.</ref>
▲== List of Common Inaccuracies in Media ==
▲* Being covered in scales instead of feathers. If present in older works this is a victim of [[Science Marches On]], but we've known since 1999 that deinonychosaurs had feathers<ref>Indeed, some possible deinonychosaurs such as ''Archaeopteryx'' and ''Rahonavis'' already showed evidence of feathers before then, but had not been recognized as deinonychosaurs when first discovered.</ref>. On real deinonychosaurs, scales were only present on the lower legs and feet, if at all (some had completely feathered feet).
* In the event that deinonychosaurs are portrayed with feathers, it is [http://dinogoss.blogspot.com/2010/03/youre-doing-it-wrong-1-archaeopteryx.html very, very unlikely] that the feather distribution and structure will be portrayed accurately. One of the most common mistakes on this front is to have the wing feathers end at the wrist, even though we know that deinonychosaurs actually had wing feathers attached to the second finger as well. Only partially feathering deinonychosaurs is also generally incorrect. It is common for many depictions of feathered deinonychosaurs to portray them as a [[Mix and Match Critter|weird hybrid]] between a bird and a lizard, probably to highlight their "[[Hollywood Evolution|missing link]]" iconism. However, we know that deinonychosaurs were almost entirely feathered other than the tip of the snout and sometimes the feet. (Though it is not unreasonable to suggest that the largest deinonychosaurs may have had some naked patches similar to ostriches today.) For a long time it was thought that deinonychosaurs only had pennaceous (modern-style) feathers on the wings and tail (and sometimes the legs), with the rest of the body being covered in protofeathers, but a new study has shown that these protofeathers are likely just misinterpreted pennaceous feathers. So, like modern birds, deinonychosaurs actually [[Feathered Fiend|had pennaceous feathers all over the body]]. Incidentally, the pennaceous feathers of many modern flightless birds (such as [[Land Down Under|kiwis]]) are degraded and hair like, so it's possible that flightless deinonychosaurs were similar.
* The hands will be twisted around so that the palms point backwards towards the body, kind of like a zombie. In reality, deinonychosaurs (in fact, most dinosaurs) have palms that naturally face one another, and [[You Fail Biology Forever|twisting them around like that would break the wrists]]. Biomechanical studies have shown that deinonychosaur palms would actually rotate ''upwards'' when the wrists were extended, which would have helped them clutch objects to the chest.
* Deinonychosaurs will often be depicted as [[Lightning Bruiser
* [[Animal Eyes]], combined with [[Rule of Scary]] and, to some extent, [[Reptiles Are Abhorrent]]. Cat-like eyes [[Hellish Pupils|with slits for pupils]] are the most common, which MIGHT be reasonable considering that the other closest relatives of dinosaurs, crocodilians, have slit pupils as well. However, given the fact that raptors are more closely related to birds, their eyes may well be more bird-like with round, fixed pupils. On the other claw, however, the typical raptor skull does not have a supraorbital ridge, so it would be rather unrealistic to give your raptor the same "eagle scowl" as that of the other type of raptor, the [[Big Badass Bird of Prey]].
* [[Bigger Is Better]] combined with [[Taxonomic Term Confusion]], where works depict "''Velociraptor''" as being more similar to ''Deinonychus'' and sometimes nearing the size of ''Utahraptor'', the [[Trope Maker]] being ''[[Jurassic Park]]'', due to Michael Crichton using paleo artist Gregory Paul's book (which considered ''Deinonychus'' a species of ''Velociraptor'') as a source for his novel. This is typically a result of [[Follow the Leader]] when present in other works.
* Overly flexible or overly stiff tails. Due to their tails being surrounded by ossified tendons, deinonychosaur tails were probably not sinuous and whip-like as shown in ''[[Jurassic Park]]''. At the same time, it is a common meme among paleo artists to draw deinonychosaur tails as being stiff rods almost incapable of bending except at the base. Though true to a degree, fossils of sleeping deinonychosaurs such as ''Mei'' show that their tails were flexible enough to curl around the body.
* [[Intellectual Animal|Extreme intelligence.]] Prior to the discovery that modern birds are dinosaurs, deinonychosaurs were widely considered "the most intelligent dinosaurs". (Just look at the door-opening raptors from [[Jurassic Park]].) Based on brain-to-body ratio and brain structure, deinonychosaurs do appear to have been quite intelligent among Mesozoic dinosaurs. In fact, their encephalization quotient is actually much higher than that of modern-day crocodilians, (which may not sound like that much of a compliment, at first, until you remember that, according to a recent study, crocodilians are [[Reality Is Unrealistic|actually as intelligent as dogs]]), and comparable to those of some modern birds. However, they were almost certainly not as intelligent as the most intelligent birds alive today. A common paleo meme that arose in the 1980s was the idea that if dinosaurs never became extinct, the most intelligent species (i.e.: deinonychosaurs) would [[Lizard Folk|develop into]] [[The Reptilians|humanoid forms]]. This, of course, overlooks the fact that the most intelligent dinosaurs (modern-type birds) ''were'' [[Overshadowed
* [[Rule of Cool|Being capable of taking on impossibly large prey.]] Due to their reputation as pack hunters (which is in itself debatable), deinonychosaurs are popularly shown killing prey much, much larger than themselves with ease. Although we know that some dromaeosaurids potentially preyed on larger prey (for example, one famous fossil preserves a ''Velociraptor'' fighting a ''Protoceratops'', a herbivore that could have been up to twelve times its size in mass), many of these depictions show coyote-sized dromaeosaurids killing prey not just ten times their size, but ''several hundred times'' their size, such as adult hadrosaurs or even sauropods. This paleo-meme may have originated from John Ostrom's description of Deinonychus as a big-game hunter, using its claws to slash at its prey, but it is now known that its claws did not have the sharp lower edges required for this purpose. Instead, the more advanced dromaeosaurs would have used the hooked claws as [http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0028964 piercing implements,] hooking onto moderately sized targets such as juvenile hadrosaurs or small ceratopsians, and skewering their vitals (the ''Velociraptor'' vs. ''Protoceratops'' fossil, for example, shows that the raptor's killing claw is embedded in the ceratopsian's throat, where the jugular would be IRL). Furthermore, many other deinonychosaurs (such as troodonts and basal dromaeosaurids) likely [[Fragile Speedster|specialized in small prey]], not large ones. (Check out how comparatively [http://shartman.deviantart.com/art/Wounding-Tooth-200043202 small] those teeth and claws are in ''Troodon''.)
* [[Feather Fingers|Overly useful hands.]] Many deinonychosaurs had long arms and big hands, and it is therefore tempting to think that they were actually ''used'' like human hands. It is not uncommon to see deinonychosaurs (again, especially ''Troodon'') shown with opposable thumbs, even though the only deinonychosaur that has so far been biomechanically demonstrated to have had opposable thumbs is ''Bambiraptor'', so most deinonychosaurs could only hold objects two-handed (or clutched them towards the chest). In reality, long as their arms were, deinonychosaurs couldn't reach further with their hands than they could with their mouths, and the large feathers known to have been present on the arms and hands of deinonychosaurs would have prevented their use in picking up food from the ground or digging (known traces of digging deinonychosaurs show they dug with their feet, as modern ground birds do). The hand claws were useful as grappling hooks and for holding food that couldn't be eaten in one gulp, but they likely weren't as dexterous as often portrayed.
* Arms lifting above the back. As we now know that deinonychosaurs were very closely related to birds, artists often use modern birds as references for deinonychosaurs (as well as other basal birds). This normally isn't a bad thing (most deinonychosaur portrayals aren't birdlike ''enough''), but it can still be misleading. Many small deinonychosaurs may have had some flying or gliding ability, so they are often shown with their arms lifted above the back in a flight stroke. However, biomechanical studies of deinonychosaurs and basal birds show that they could only lift their arms to the sides at most, and powered flight as in modern birds evolved in more derived birds.
* Pseudobeaks. In the same vein as the previous, another common way artists attempt to make their deinonychosaurs more birdlike is to add a beak-like sheath on the snout of deinonychosaurs. In fact, we know that deinonychosaurs actually had feathers covering most of the snout, and as they had a full complement of teeth, they didn't really need a beak as well. (Even in prehistoric birds with both beaks and teeth, the beak [http://dinogoss.blogspot.com/2011/04/youre-doing-it-wrong-birds-with-teeth.html doesn't occupy the same space as the teeth].) Deinonychosaurs that preserve facial integument show a featherless region at the very tip of the snout, but even then there's no evidence for a keratinous sheath there.
* Inaccurate family life. Possibly due to extrapolation from modern predatory birds, it is popular to portray dromaeosaurids as living in mated pairs with the female brooding the eggs, feeding their young, and sometimes nesting in trees. Based on body to clutch size ratio, however, it was probably the males that brooded the eggs, and the sheer number of eggs in known deinonychosaur nests means that the males probably had multiple mates (as, frankly, there are too many eggs per nest to fit in one female). Young deinonychosaurs were capable of running around after hatching, so it's not unlikely that they hunted at least some of their food on their own instead of being fed. Although deinonychosaurs (especially the smaller ones) may have climbed trees, ground nesting appears to be basal among birds, even flying ones,<ref>Even basal birds that ''have'' evolved tree nesting, such as wood ducks, tend to nest in tree hollows instead of building a nest in the branches.</ref>
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==
* Old Lace from the comic book series ''[[Runaways]]'' is a genetically engineered Deinonychus. Interestingly enough, she looks just like the Jurassic Park-style Velociraptors and has been mistaken for one as well.
== Documentaries ==
* Three episodes of the [[Discovery Channel]] miniseries ''[[Dinosaur Planet]]'' featured "raptors". The first one was about a female ''Velociraptor'' named "White Tip" (due to her white feathers) trying to find a new pack. The second was about a male ''Pyroraptor'' named "Pod" who ends up on an island inhabited by dinosaurs much smaller than he is including a pack of mini troodonts. In a third episode, ''Troodon'' proper shows up. They were commendably portrayed with feathers, but not quite extensively enough (for example, they lacked pennaceous feathers).
* In the [[Speculative Documentary]] / parody ''[[Prehistoric Park]]'', a ''Troodon'', later named Rascal, causes trouble by attempting to steal the bait truck. {{spoiler|This sets off a chain reaction of accidents in the park, culminating in the climactic T-Rex escape scene.}} This one [[Somewhere a Paleontologist Is Crying|lacked feathers]]. Another episode also featured the troodont ''Mei'' and the dromaeosaurid ''Microraptor'', the former of which also lacked feathers, and the latter of which suffered some mild [[Anachronism Stew]] and splayed its legs while gliding, something that has [[Science Marches On|since been debunked]].
* [[Walking
* ''[[
* ''[[
* ''[[
* ''[[
* ''[[The Truth About Killer Dinosaurs]]'' focused on ''Velociraptor'' in one of the two episodes, discussing how ''Velociraptor'' may have used its killing claw in predation. The fact that dromaeosaurids had feathers is given some attention, though ([[Overly Long Gag|as usual]]) the feathering given to the animated ''Velociraptor'' isn't entirely accurate.
* ''[[When Dinosaurs Roamed America]]'' was one of the first documentaries to feature feathered dromaeosaurids. The scientific consultants [https://web.archive.org/web/20111113191156/http://dml.cmnh.org/2001Jul/msg00239.html pointed out] that the feathers should've been more pennaceous, but they reportedly didn't have enough of a budget to do realistic-looking pennaceous feathers.
* ''[[
* ''[[
* ''[[Planet Dinosaur]]'' went both ways by producing some of the most well-feathered dromaeosaurid television reconstructions to date, but the modelers still attached the wing feathers to the wrong finger, and their troodontids are no more than old-fashioned, lizard-like critters outfitted with a ''very'' thin feather coating, and have no wings, nor a tail fan.
** They also made ''Sinornithosaurus'' venomous, which was a theory that was panned some months before it was released (even though they included research that was ''more'' recent than the rebuttal to the venomous ''Sinornithosaurus'' hypothesis).
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== Films -- Animated ==
* The third ''[[The Land Before Time]]'' movie features JP-style raptors as the main [[Call a Rabbit
* Disney's ''[[
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** It also gave their adversaries [[Somewhere a Paleontologist Is Crying|the skull-phlebotinum, the new handy dictionnary for Raptorese]].
* The 2005 remake of ''[[King Kong]]'' introduces the ''Venatosaurus'', a fictional genus of dromeosaurid. For starters, they have scaly skin, prognated hands, and slit pupils. They are shown posessing [[Lightning Bruiser|great speed and strength]], and make the examples involving deinonychosaurs bringing down adult hadrosaurs seem plausible, because they are shown [[Up to Eleven|hunting a large herd of adult sauropods]].
* Raptors appear as the antagonists in the found footage film ''[[
== Live-Action TV ==
* ''[[Primeval]]'' features raptors in some episodes, Jurassic Park-styled. All of them have head plumage, in the style of the raptors in [[Jurassic Park]] 3.
** A [[Super-Persistent Predator|Super Persistent]], time-traveling, Raptor is even used to deliver some [[Laser-Guided Karma]] to one of the [[Big Bad
** Tree Creepers resemble muscular, long-armed raptors.
* In the BBC show My Pet Dinosaur, speculating on human's relationships with dinosaurs had the meteor not hit, had scaly ''Troodon''s as the equivalent of raccoons and foxes.
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== Tabletop Games ==
* Absolutely parodied with [[Mortasheen]]'s [http://www.bogleech.com/mortasheen/bucbuclaw.htm Bucbuclaw], an ugly chicken-looking thing, whose main attack involves [[Nausea Fuel|parasitic poop-eggs.]]
* ''[[Forgotten Realms]]'' even before ''Jurassic Park'' had "Riding Lizard" as the Drow cavalry mount of choice. Riding lizard is a sleek reptile, about camel-sized (but with long tail), that walks on all four, but can run on hind legs; it's mostly carnivorous and as such rather bold. On top of that, it can leap and got sticky pads that allow clinging to the walls, so it may climb like a spider or move along the ceiling by jumping between non-slippery stalactites, with rider on the back.
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** And one hilarious ''Velociraptor''/''Archaeopteryx'' mix from their dinosaur fusions line. (If only they didn't attach the feathers on [[Somewhere a Paleontologist Is Crying|this ridiculously long finger]], but instead directly on the arm, then it would at least be [[What Could Have Been|a toy raptor scientifically accurate with wing feathers]]...)
* There was a Meanie (Gross-out parodies of [[Beanie Babies]]) named [[Stock Dinosaurs|Veloci]]''[[Squick|crapper]]''.
* Dinobot from the ''[[
** Grimlock form the comics was a step in the right direction: though his toy form was just a recolored, scaly Dinobot, he was illustrated with a thin covering of fuzz.
* Two of the [[LEGO]] ''Dino'' sets have a giant, ''JP''-styled, striped raptor.
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== Videogames ==
* ''[[Dino Crisis]]'' had ''Jurassic Park'' style "Raptors". And for its next trick, it had [[Super-Persistent Predator|Super Persistent Predatory]]... Therizinosaurs. (To be fair, that particular group of animals was very poorly understood at the time. For Therizinosaurus itself, all we had were a pair of terrifyingly huge
* The game ''[http://raptorsafari.com/ Off-Road Velociraptor Safari!]'' is a work that features Velociraptors with feathers for once, if only because [[Refuge in Audacity|raptors getting hit by a car driven by a velociraptor wearing a pith helmet]] [[Rule of Cool|looks cooler]] with [[Perpetual Molt]].
* ''[[Pokémon Black and White]]'' has Archen and Archeops, who appear to based on deinonychosaurs/archaeopterygids and are (thankfully) covered in feathers. It must be noted that they lack the killing claws on their feet, however...
** Grovyle and Sceptile, the evolutions of the 3rd gen Grass starter Treeko, have some raptor elements to them, such as inward-facing hands and leaves as "feathers". While they may be inaccurate, the line is mostly based on lizards.
* ''[[
* The ''[[Monster Hunter]]'' series started with the Velociprey type enemies, which were actually more Velociraptor sized, but it turns out they were just immature versions. The larger Velocidrome Alphas were the first "large" monster most players fought. ''Tri'' replaced these with the Jaggi family, which lacked the "beak" of the Prey/Drome family.
* ''[[Primal Carnage]]'' has typical scaly raptors, though the developers actually un-pronated their hands.
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== Web Originals ==
* [[Memetic Mutation|Philosoraptor]]: [https://web.archive.org/web/20141203221816/http://www.makemymood.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/philosaptor-30.jpg Seen here] getting all chemistry nerdy.
* [[The Tyrannosaur Chronicles]]: Subverted by a naked ''Deinonychus'' character, who is said to have shaved all her feathers off in order to [[Shout-Out|star in]] ''[[Jurassic Park]]''. The other deinonychosaurs are portrayed with feathers, though mostly not pennaceous ones, probably due to massive work load. More properly feathered deinonychosaurs have been shown to be in the works, but the [[Series Hiatus]] on this project has prevented them from yet making an appearance in the story.
* [[Spec World]]: More or less completely averted, a little bit of [[Science Marches On]] aside,<ref>Most acutely, some of Spec's dromaeosaurids being descended from ''Megaraptor'', now known to have been a carnosaur rather than a giant dromaeosaurid</ref>
** Among the different kinds of dromaeosaur families that ''DO'' appear, only three are labeled as "raptors" per se. Other families include mattiraptors, hesperonychids, draks, [[Instant Awesome, Just Add Ninja|ninjas]], and arbros.
* [http://deinonychosauria.deviantart.com/ This] [[Deviant ART]] group was created specifically to avert this trope.
== Web Comics ==
*
▲* Referenced numerous times in ''[[Xkcd (Webcomic)|Xkcd]]'', [http://xkcd.com/87/ like here].
* [[Species Surname|Utahraptor]] from ''[[Dinosaur Comics]]''.
** By the way, if you want to see Utahraptor (and his two theropod friends) portrayed in a [[Title Drop|more historically accurate]] way (meaning feathered), just type in ''&butiwouldratherbereading=somethingmorehistoricallyaccurate'' behind the html-adress of a ''qwantz''-comic of your choice, [http://www.qwantz.com/index.php?comic=1&butiwouldratherbereading=somethingmorehistoricallyaccurate like this for example]. Or check out [[Dresden Codak|
* Yoshi from ''[[The Adventures of Dr. McNinja
* Marvin, Libby's [[Cool Pet|pet dinosaur]] from [[
* Some of the earlier pages in ''[[
* Skull and the Eumaniraptor Trio from [[Raptormaniacs]] avert this.
== Western Animation ==
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* The ''Velociraptor'' that gets locked into Jimmy's closet in a ''[[Jimmy Neutron]]'' episode is the standard ''JP''-styled fare.
* In ''[[Extreme Dinosaurs]]'', three anthropomorphic raptors are the main villains.
* ''[[
* The small carnivorous dinosaurs that attack our heroes in ''[[Ice Age|Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs]]'' are vaguely reminiscent of raptors, including the killing claws, but they are ''Guanlong,'' a genus of ''[[Somewhere a Palaeontologist Is Crying|primitive tyrannosaur.]]'' In fairness to the movie, there ''ARE'' deinonychosaurs, but the ''Troodons'' ([[All There in the Manual|identified as such in the game]]) are depicted as [[They Just Didn't Care|naked vegetarians,]] [[Science Marches On|while in reality they would have technically been omnivorous.]]
* Averted in "The Rite of Spring" segment of ''[[
* ''[
* ''[[The Magic School Bus]]'' episode "The Busasaurus" featured a ''Troodon'' pack. Amusingly, they're sized accurately if you pay close attention, but they sort of tried to hide this using [[Forced Perspective]]. Being outright inaccurate wouldn't do on a science show, after all. They're also scaled, but [[Science Marches On|the episode is from 1995]].
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