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Velociraptor Bad At Disemboweling

Posted by Zonk on from the illusions-shattered dept.

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,"

6 of 298 comments (clear)

  1. That's when the attack comes... by Cruithne · · Score: 5, Funny

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

  2. Cats don't disembowel? by Matey-O · · Score: 5, Funny
    "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.
    --
    "Draco dormiens nunquam titillandus."
    1. Re:Cats don't disembowel? by cab15625 · · Score: 5, Funny

      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.

  3. Re:I nominate this... by Seumas · · Score: 5, Funny

    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?

  4. Re:yeah, um by The+Amazing+Fish+Boy · · Score: 5, Funny

    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.

  5. Velociraptor is the wuss by Wyatt+Earp · · Score: 5, Informative

    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