Velociraptor Bad At Disemboweling

illtron writes "British scientists at the University of Manchester were apparently bored and decided to find out, once and for all, if the Velociraptor was as mean as Jurassic Park would like everyone to think. They created a robotic Velociraptor leg to simulate the effect that leg would have on pig and crocodile skin. It turns out that disemboweling a dino probably would have been out of the question, since the best that big claw could do was usually just to leave a deep puncture." From the article: "I realized that the sick-claw was not a knife, but was rather more like the claw of a cat. Cats use their claws to pierce and hold prey, not to disembowel. Whereas my work was mostly theoretical, Phil took one step farther as he was given the opportunity to mechanically test the disemboweling hypothesis. His work is very important,"

Comments

That's when the attack comes...

[Cruithne]

... from the other two raptors you didnt even know were there. And they DO have disembowling claws, unlike this obvious decoy.

Unconvincing

[geordieboy]

It seems possible their methodology and conclusions are flawed. If you saw away at a large chunk of meat with a small but sharp knife you can make a deep wound. Why do they assume the raptor attacks in a short stabbing motion? What about other modes of attack their "robotic arm" doesn't simulate?

Re:Unconvincing

[geordieboy]

You're probably right that a sawing motion is not practical in an attack. But more generally, I'm not sure exactly why it is useful to build a robot arm to do their demonstration. Wouldn't a few minutes experimentation with a sharp piece of bone and a lump of meat achieve the same, and probably give you more insight about the specific types of movement you can use to cause damage than just manipulating this simplistic arm? I suspect they used the arm to lend some extra perceived scientific flavor to their observations. It's an experiment with a *robot*, so it must be right.

Re:Unconvincing

[kfg]

If you saw away at a large chunk of meat with a small but sharp knife you can make a deep wound.

Try "sawing away" at something, anything, with an awl. The whole point here is that a velociraptor claw is not a sharp knife, but a pointy stick.

You can make a wound as deep as the "hilt", but no "longer" than the diameter of the claw.

KFG

Re:Unconvincing

[Kaboom13]

The point of the robot arm is to get the same range of motion as the actual Dinosaur would have had. They can then give each joint a strength proportional to the size of the muscle that would have been attached to it (some guess work here I would assume). Then they can play around with it and see what different movements and would kind of attacks would have been possible and how much damage they would do. Animals use their claws in different ways, and the appendage the claw is attached to gives you just as much information as the size and shape of the claw itself. The expirement isn't what damage can WE do with a velociraptor claw it's what damage the velociraptor could have done.

Re:Unconvincing

[jafiwam]

Yeah, I was going to say anybody that thinks cats only make small puncture wounds has never owned one.

Here's an experiment;

- borrow cat
- fill tub while cat watches
- grab cat
- put cat in water

You will note that a) cats can somehow reverse gravity and automatically apply force upward with nothing to work against and b) 6 inches by .5 inch deep wounds are a trivial matter for a cat to produce

This guy (in the article) doesn't know what he's talking about.

It's cool they are using engineering to solve some of these issues instead of stupid speculation though.

Who care about TFA

[zappepcs]

Just how cool is it to be paid to test "stuff" like that?

Fsck! I need a job like that!

Re:I nominate this...

[phasm42]

"His work is very important"
Hmmm...

Cats don't disembowel?

[Matey-O]

"I realized that the sick-claw was not a knife, but was rather more like the claw of a cat. Cats use their claws to pierce and hold prey, not to disembowel.

He's obviously never had a catnipped-up cat grab a hold of his forearm with the front claws and use it's back legs to scrape the everlovincrap out of him.

Re:Cats don't disembowel?

[commodoresloat]

I recall a long time ago seeing one of those "animals attack" shows and it showed some sort of big cat attacking a much larger prey by running alongside it and pouncing on its belly from underneath and using its legs in a manner similar to what is described above. That sucker was disemboweled, that's for sure.

Re:Cats don't disembowel?

[prockcore]

He's obviously never had a catnipped-up cat grab a hold of his forearm with the front claws and use it's back legs to scrape the everlovincrap out of him.

Everyone knows a cat's claw is Piercing+1, Slashing-5 sheesh

Seriously though. Look at the cat scratch, it's not a clean cut, it's similar to if you got scratched by a pointy stick, not a razor. If the claw went deeper it wouldn't move because only the point is sharp, not the edge.

Re:Cats don't disembowel?

[cab15625]

OK, so we're talking about the difference between surgically slicing the abdomen open with a scalpel vs. ripping the abdomen open. In the end, what's the difference? Either way, you still end up with guts on the floor.

Someone else pointed out that this isn't generally how cats kill, and I'd have to say they're right, generally. I have, however, witnessed my cat slaughter a teddy-bear in this manner (she'd had a hard day, she'd gotten herself trapped in the closet and then had a bit too much catnip and the bear just looked at her kinda funny that one time too many and something in her just snapped). Doesn't matter how dull those hind claws are, the legs they're attached to are pretty f**king powerful and that kicking is pretty damned effective.

A Prayer to My God

[Seumas]

Dear God,

Today, I read a story about scientists creating a robotic velociraptor leg to see how well it could gut certain animals. What I don't understand is, why do we not know more about dinosaurs without having to go through such extensive research? My pastor told us that the Bible teaches that the world is only a few thousand years old, which must mean that men and dinosaurs lived alongside one another (perhaps Jesus even rode a triceritops?). If that is the case, then why isn't dinosaur behavior and activity a matter of written record?

Yours Truly,

Johnny Christian.

Re:A Prayer to My God

[Scratch-O-Matic]

I haven't studied the issue, but I feel like your generalization of scientists is wrong. Most good scientists welcome the chance to be proven wrong...that's what peer review is all about, and why scientists have such confidence in properly derived conclusions. If they look down on anyone who doesn't "worship science," it's most likely because the conclusions drawn by those people are NOT replicable and have NOT been subjected to real peer review--which is why such conclusions fail to convince those who understand (not "worship") the scientific process.

From TFA...

[The Amazing Fish Boy]

"Our study shows that the claw was used as a climbing crampon. It allowed the dromaeosaurs to hook themselves on to the flanks of their prey: when the prey turned, so too was the attacker," Manning told Discovery News. He continued in a puzzlingly forced manner, "Yes. We truly have nothing at all to fear from what I am sure are very friendly dinosaurs. We should trust that any dinosaur attacks are certainly not imminent. Nothing to fear whatsoever."

Questioned on the claw marks in his back, Manning replied, "What? Oh that. Yes. Haha. Silly me, I must have walked into a door. Yes. Nothing to fear whatsoever."

Please pardon my cynicism

[NanoGator]

"I realized that the sick-claw was not a knife, but was rather more like the claw of a cat. Cats use their claws to pierce and hold prey, not to disembowel."

Right now I'm sitting here with a 2 inch long scratch on my tum... uh.. stom.. uh.. crap factory because last night my clutzy-ass-cat took a swipe at the cord to my sweat pants.

Re:I nominate this...

[Seumas]

What a waste of scientific effort. This was so obvious in the first place. Of course they suck at disemboweling. Even if they had the strength and accuracy to hurl the ball down the lane and knock all the pins over, how the hell would those tiny little arms hold the ball?

His Work Is Very Important

[Greyfox]

Because now we all know that the next time we encounter a velociraptor we do not have to fear disemboweling. You would not believe how many nights this has kept me up...

Re:yeah, um

[The Amazing Fish Boy]

Go cure cancer or something.

Uh huh. Look, I'll be honest with you. I'm not sure paleontologists are able to cure cancer. I know. It comes as a shock to most people. We've all heard the tired old argument that dinosaurs died from cancer, and that the cure to cancer is in their magical dinosaur bones, but I just don't buy it. And frankly until someone proves it, I don't think much effort is going to be put into forcing paleontologists by whip and chain to cure cancer. I'm sorry that you had to hear this from me.

velociraptors suck

[minus_273]

Deinonychus would kick thier ass any day!

shit did i say that out loud..

I remember watching Jurassic Park

[QuantumG]

and thinking I could kick the shit out of one of those Velociraptors. They're short, they have short little arms and these long ineffectual tails and they can't turn their heads more than 80 degrees to the left or right. Not to mention the fact that they have poor peripherial vision and can't recognise stationary objects. In particular, when the kids ran into the computer room and hid, thinking the raptors couldn't open the door, but they did, the kids could have kept low, circled around, jumped on the raptor's tail and kicked it in the spine.. it'd be snappin' at em but as long as you stay behind it you'll be fine.. then you could do a wind choke on its prehistoric neck or just snap it Bruce Lee style.

That's why I really liked Pitch Black. Instead of pitting blood hungry monsters against helpless little kids, they threw in a bad ass human to take em on and, unlike the useless soldiers in Aliens, he actually put up a fight!

Re:I remember watching Jurassic Park

[Oligonicella]

So, geeks don't only have unrealistic fantasies and expectations about sex?

Snuggle-Saurus!

[damned_mediocrity]

From TFA: The Velociraptor dinosaur... was not as vicious as portrayed. On the contrary, it embraced its victims before its razor sharp teeth went to work...

Awww, look. He wants to hug me!

Yet again scientist realize

[Xiph]

that Hollywood movies don't always get their facts right. It reminds me of the roaring fast-running t-rex which couldn't see stuff when it was standing still. I can understand that Hollywood needs to come up with these things, if something haven't been studied thoroughly. What i don't understand is why we bother reading about whether this uninteresting tidbit of information is true, for the whenever it's been part of a movie.

Velociraptor is the wuss

[Wyatt Earp]

Jurrasic Park misrepresented the Velociraptors.

Velociraptor has a skull length of 249 mm (9.80 in), a total length of 2.7 m (8 ft 10 in), a hip height of 0.5 m (1 ft 8 in), and weighs 20 kg (45 lb). The 'raptors portrayed there were modelled after a larger relative, Deinonychus.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deinonychus

Re:yeah, um

[azhyd]

This is indeed a delightful reply. I'd like to know the current job of the grandparent when he's back from hiding in shame.

Re:yeah, um

[Dasher42]

Uh huh. You just make those limp excuses for the paleontologists. Some runner at a marathon is going to totally blow by you and find that cure, and then they're going to be digging up paleontologist bones with their petrified feet planted firmly in their mouths. ;)

Re:Darn you scientists.

[schtum]

What's worse, they refuse to acknowledge my theory of Intelligent Disemboweling.