First Fossil Evidence That Velociraptors Hunted in Packs

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."'"

Fossil evidence?

[Kohath]

Who needs fossil evidence? Just watch the movie. See? Packs.

Re:Fossil evidence?

[jollyreaper]

Who needs fossil evidence? Just watch the movie. See? Packs.

And we know those bastards are light, too! Sure, they may look like they weigh a couple hundred pounds, but a 90 pound girl can knock one across the room with the right acrobatic attack!

XKCD

[dtmfdan]

let the XKCD references begin

Duh?

[nih]

seriously, i wish God would stop planting 'evidence' of dinosaurs, this is getting rather tiresome.

Blasphemy!!

[Ronin X]

They were obediently following Adam and Eve around, and it was only 6000 years ago.  Blasphemers!

pack hunters?

[trybywrench]

so velociraptors may have been pack hunters? thanks for the nightmares.

Re:XKCD

[physicsboy500]

Indeed [xkcd.com]

Great News

[GammaKitsune]

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.

6000

[weirdcrashingnoises]

is the number of slashdotters that simultaneous think they should attempt to post something witty using this number.

Re:Run, Randall, Run!

[mark99]

This link is more relevant: http://xkcd.com/135/ [xkcd.com]

It was just ONE Velociraptor..

[hansraj]

.. with lots of free time and a sense of humor. :|

Re:Duh?

[Shaitan Apistos]

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.

Re:Perhaps they didn't hunt together at all

[vidarh]

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.

Re:Run, Randall, Run!

[spun]

And this one. [xkcd.com] Where are your velociraptor entry-points?

Additional evidence

[Lurker2288]

"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.

Obligatory.

[InvisblePinkUnicorn]

"They're moving in herds... they do move in herds!"

Re:Duh?

[someone1234]

But, it is somewhat curious that there is such evidence only after God had seen the movie.

Re:Fossil evidence?

[LiquidAvatar]

I bet that you're one of those people who insists on acknowledging Highlander 2...

Re:pack hunters?

[greenguy]

TFA says there were six of them. I suppose that makes them six-pack hunters.

I can identify with that.

Dude, it's not planted

[Moraelin]

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.

Re:No proof of hunting

[trongey]

... 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.

Re:Best place to see dinosaur skeletons in Bay Are

[Chapter80]

I live in the SF Bay Area. Where is the nearest place I can take my curious children to see full sized assembled dinosaur fossil skeletons?

Simple. Just stay where you are.
No need to travel to a new place. Simply travel back in time 100 million years.

Re:Dr. Grant was right!

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, being eaten by a lion probably sucks

Understatement of the week.......

that is not news...

[garompeta]

It was already known that Dinosaurs were sociable animals. They are still alive in a special place. It is called Congress.

Re:They walked in packs

[KidKadaver]

Yeah, this just establishes that they died in packs; perhaps also that they had cults and poor judgment.

One little GOTO

[GogglesPisano]

And this one as well [xkcd.com].

Re:Fossil evidence?

[tcc3]

They made a Highlander II? =)

Screw Beowulf, here's the prior art

[Anonymous Coward]

What we're imagining is a velociraptor cluster.

Re:Dr. Grant was right!

[PixelScuba]

Token_Internet_Girl: Can we go on a date pls :(

It's a trick. Get an Axe.

Re:XKCD

[celardore]

google search [xkcd.com]

You call that a headline?

[LA Thierry]

Wake me up when there's fossil evidence that Jesus had a pet dinosaur.

Military formation

[Bob-taro]

"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!

Re:Fossil evidence?

[Darby]

I bet that you're one of those people who insists on acknowledging Highlander 2...

Damn, Dude. That was harsh ;-)

Re:Let's find out

[MiniMike]

Fortunately, the difficulty in obtaining the dinosaur DNA and SGI workstations is more than compensated for by the ease of finding a smart ass obese slovenly IT guy...

Re:Fossil evidence?

[jollyreaper]

I bet that you're one of those people who insists on acknowledging Highlander 2...

Highlander? Sequels? I don't know what you're talking about. There can be only one.

Re:Duh?

[mrcleaver]

The little ones did make it on the ark, they just evolved into birds afterwards.

Re:Dr. Grant was right!

[pipingguy]

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.