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First Fossil Evidence That Velociraptors Hunted in Packs

Posted by Zonk on Tue Oct 30, 2007 12:32 PM
from the clever-girl dept.
Science
Ponca City, We Love You writes "The New Scientist reports that palaeontologists have excavated a fossil trackway in Shandong Province in China 100 to 120 million years old that contains footprints left by six Dromeosaurs, the more formal name for raptors, showing evidence of group behavior. Up until now, the popular stereotype from Jurassic Park of raptors hunting in packs has had no fossil evidence to back it up. The paths of the six 90 kilo raptors do not overlap where the animals walked alongside a river or stream. '"The odds of these tracks being made by different individuals that just happen to be moving in the same direction, without their tracks stepping on one another, are small," said Jerry D. Harris, director of paleontology at Dixie State College. "Groups that do that usually have relatively sophisticated behavior, and they're relatively intelligent," Harris added. "By moving together in groups, it's entirely possible that they hunted in groups."'"
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Submission: First Fossil Evidence that Raptors Hunted in Packs by pcol (577822)
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First Fossil Evidence That Velociraptors Hunted in Packs 50 Comments More /

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  • Fossil evidence? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Kohath (38547) on Tuesday October 30 2007, @12:34PM (#21173429)
    Who needs fossil evidence? Just watch the movie. See? Packs.

  • Run, Randall, Run! (Score:3, Informative)

    by ClayJar (126217) on Tuesday October 30 2007, @12:35PM (#21173451) Homepage
    (I hope this doesn't get in the way of my thrice-weekly xkcd [xkcd.com] entertainment.)

  • Duh? (Score:4, Funny)

    by nih (411096) on Tuesday October 30 2007, @12:38PM (#21173485)
    seriously, i wish God would stop planting 'evidence' of dinosaurs, this is getting rather tiresome.

    • Re:Duh? (Score:4, Funny)

      by Shaitan Apistos (1104613) on Tuesday October 30 2007, @01:04PM (#21173921)

      seriously, i wish God would stop planting 'evidence' of dinosaurs, this is getting rather tiresome.
      Sigh. Why does everyone think Christians are stupid? We KNOW there were dinosaurs. Nothing in the bible says there weren't. They lived alongside man thousands of years ago and died out because they couldn't fit on the ark. Except the little ones which I can only assume were sinners.

      Duh.

    • Dude, it's not planted (Score:4, Funny)

      by Moraelin (679338) on Tuesday October 30 2007, @01:46PM (#21174629) Journal
      Well, it's not planted as such. At some point the great game designer in the sky thought it would be fun to have some big stuff running around the high level areas. And some 90 kilo birds that He planned to use later as the Blood Elves' mount.

      But you know how that ends up working. You tweak a little here, a little there, and next thing you know they're whining that you've nerfed them to death and start cancelling their subscriptions in droves.

      So, you know, cut Him some slack. What do you expect Him to do? Hide that they ever existed? Like that ever works. Try deleting just a post or two on a board and you end up with a whole rebellion on your hand. Try denying that the game ever had dinosaurs? Ooer... noone does... ermm...

      Well, OK, so Sony's propaganda machine does try to present the new animal breeding on SWG like some revolutionary new feature, and not, say, like they had animal handlers in the first place and they removed them.

      But I figure God is better than Sony, you know? (Ok, ok, so that's not hard to achieve;) He's not affraid to admit that some things weren't that well balanced in the first place and had to be changed.
  • Any evidence of hunting while in packs? They could had walked to their offices to work in packs, just like we do.

  • Blasphemy!! (Score:4, Funny)

    by Ronin X (121414) on Tuesday October 30 2007, @12:40PM (#21173531)
    They were obediently following Adam and Eve around, and it was only 6000 years ago.  Blasphemers!

  • pack hunters? (Score:4, Funny)

    by trybywrench (584843) on Tuesday October 30 2007, @12:40PM (#21173533)
    so velociraptors may have been pack hunters? thanks for the nightmares.

  • Artisan Tracker (Score:3, Insightful)

    by ChromaticDragon (1034458) on Tuesday October 30 2007, @12:43PM (#21173573)
    Nah... The movie that comes to my mind is completely different.

    I am getting a picture of very clean cut, tall, dainty and somewhat immortal lithe man (with bow strapped across back, of course) darting back and forth across the plain. He sniffs here, looks there, describing what the signs indicate happened (all while you're seeing flashbacks to millions of years ago where the pack of raptors were hauling tail across the terrain with two little midget dinos tied to a couple raptors' backs because some dark T-Rex said "don't eat them".

    That's some tracker...

  • Great News (Score:5, Funny)

    by GammaKitsune (826576) on Tuesday October 30 2007, @12:44PM (#21173599)
    Now all we need to find is some evidence of raptors being able to open up doors, and we'll have proof that Hollywood knows more about Dinosaurs than Science.

    • Now all we need to find is some evidence of raptors being able to open up doors, and we'll have proof that Hollywood knows more about Dinosaurs than Science.

      Eh, Hollywood sucks, but who is to say that they WOULDN'T have been able to figure out how to open a door, given the right motivation? My dog can open doors. Ever watch squirrels figure out "squirrel-proof" bird feeders? Ever seen a cat that was toilet trained?

      Granted, the mammalian brain has tens of millions of years of evolution over the dinos, but who is to say what they would have been capable of? Imagine if we actually were able to somehow obtain an intact DNA strand, clone them and observe the

      • Can you honestly say that you WOULDN'T go to a Jurassic Park if someone managed to pull it off?

        Every time the scene where they first see the dinos roaming about is shown, all I think is, "I'd give my entire life savings to visit such a place." I almost cry thinking about how cool it would be to walk with dinosaurs (present day birds, alligators, komodo dragons and other such creatures excluded).

        So yes, in my case I would do everything both within and outside my power to see such a place. Not a zo

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by rucs_hack (784150)
        Eh, Hollywood sucks, but who is to say that they WOULDN'T have been able to figure out how to open a door, given the right motivation?

        If by motivation you mean claws you could fillet a buffalo with, then probably they could, at least with most of the doors I see.

        Granted, the mammalian brain has tens of millions of years of evolution over the dinos,

        The dinosaurs had no need for a large brain, they were the dominant species, most of them were big, there was food, water, it was warm, and they either ate each
  • Even if you prove that they were together, it still does not mean they were hunting together. It is possible that they have just finished their end-sem examn and were hanging out together to relax with some beer around a camp fire. Or they were playing three a side basketball. Or just watching TV. Or they five of them were the chumps and the sixth one is the Amway salesraptor. There are so many possibilities, these guys are jumping to conclusion creating the image of vicious hunters and contaminating the ju
    • "Amway salesraptor" Wow, that is scary. Almost as scary as a pair of bible punching Jehova's Witness raptors.

    • ... they were playing three a side basketball...

      This is rediculous. Have you ever tried to play 3on3 without anybody's paths crossing?
      For that matter, what are the chances that six raptors with beers would be able to walk a straight line?
      You clearly need to put more thought into your hypotheses before you present them. Now go and completely rewrite this paper.

  • Dr. Grant was right! (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Token_Internet_Girl (1131287) on Tuesday October 30 2007, @12:56PM (#21173789)
    "Try to imagine yourself in the Cretaceous Period. You get your first look at this "six foot turkey" as you enter a clearing. He moves like a bird, lightly, bobbing his head. And you keep still because you think that maybe his visual acuity is based on movement like T-Rex, he'll lose you if you don't move. But no, not Velociraptor. You stare at him, and he just stares right back. And that's when the attack comes. Not from the front, but from the side, from the other two 'raptors you didn't even know were there. Because Velociraptor's a pack hunter, you see, he uses coordinated attack patterns and he is out in force today. And he slashes at you with this... a six-inch retractable claw, like a razor, on the the middle toe. He doesn't bother to bite your jugular like a lion, say... no no. He slashes at you here... or here... or maybe across the belly, spilling your intestines. The point is... you are alive when they start to eat you. So you know... try to show a little respect.
    "

    • Re:Dr. Grant was right! (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Shakrai (717556) * on Tuesday October 30 2007, @01:30PM (#21174321) Journal

      He doesn't bother to bite your jugular like a lion, say... no no. He slashes at you here... or here... or maybe across the belly, spilling your intestines

      I've always said that we mammals don't really have it that bad. Yeah, being eaten by a lion probably sucks, but at least he makes a halfway clean kill (closes the airway or bites into an artery and you bleed out) before him and his buds start to eat you.

      Go a little lower on the chain then mammals and you'll find out just how much of a raving bitch mother nature truly is. The lion doesn't cripple you, lay his eggs inside you, to eventually hatch and consume you from the inside out while your are still alive. The lion doesn't dissolve your insides and suck them out while you lay there paralyzed from his venom.

      Wow, I'm glad I'm on the top of the food chain.......

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by ozbird (127571)
        Don't worry, there's still mind control parasites [livescience.com] to contend with - tinfoil hats won't help against those.
        • Hermes Conrad: On to new business. Today's mission is to go to the brain slug planet.
          Dr. Zoidberg: What are we going to do there?
          Hermes Conrad: Nothing. Just walk around not wearing a helmet.

  • It was just ONE Velociraptor.. (Score:5, Funny)

    by hansraj (458504) on Tuesday October 30 2007, @12:59PM (#21173827)
    .. with lots of free time and a sense of humor. :|

  • Additional evidence (Score:4, Funny)

    by Lurker2288 (995635) on Tuesday October 30 2007, @01:11PM (#21174005)
    "The paths of the six 90 kilo raptors do not overlap where the animals walked alongside a river or stream. '"The odds of these tracks being made by different individuals that just happen to be moving in the same direction, without their tracks stepping on one another, are small," said Jerry D. Harris, director of paleontology at Dixie State College."

    Wow, they must really be smart. They travel single-file, to conceal their number.
  • but they are not very good going after you if you hide in the ceiling tiles, they find kitchen floors slippery, and a good reflective aluminum surface should be good enough to give at least one of them a banged head
  • So why don't we build a facility to breed them from DNA extracted from mosquitoes trapped in Amber, run the place with Silicon Graphics workstations with some smart ass obese slovenly IT guy... Oh wait..
  • "They're moving in herds... they do move in herds!"

  • that is not news... (Score:5, Funny)

    by garompeta (1068578) on Tuesday October 30 2007, @01:54PM (#21174747)
    It was already known that Dinosaurs were sociable animals. They are still alive in a special place. It is called Congress.

  • Military formation (Score:3, Funny)

    by Bob-taro (996889) on Tuesday October 30 2007, @03:04PM (#21175781)

    "The odds of these tracks being made by different individuals that just happen to be moving in the same direction, without their tracks stepping on one another, are small,"

    It goes way beyond that. This proves that they were marching 6 abreast. If some were walking behind the others, the footprints would still have overlapped. The theory of caveman dinosaur cavalry formations has never had any fossil evidence ... until now!

    • If they were so amazingly smart as to know that humans would come along a few tens of million years after their time, yet stupid enough to worry about it.... Nah, I think I'll discount that idea.
    • Well, not Jesus, but in the book of Daniel, you can read about a dragon called Bel in Babylon:
      1:23 Now there was a large dragon, and the Babylonians used to revere it. 1:24 The king said to Daniel, "Surely you can't claim that this is not a living god. So worship it!" But Daniel replied, "I will worship the Lord my God alone, for he is the living God. 1:26 But, O king, if you will grant me authority I will put the dragon to death using neither sword nor staff." The king replied, "I grant you authority."

      Most

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