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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."'"

25 of 169 comments (clear)

  1. Fossil evidence? by Kohath · · Score: 5, Funny

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

    1. Re:Fossil evidence? by jollyreaper · · Score: 4, Funny

      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!
      --
      Kwisatz Haderach
      Sell the spice to CHOAM
      This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
    2. Re:Fossil evidence? by LiquidAvatar · · Score: 5, Funny

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

      --
      It is difficult to free fools from the chains they revere.
      -Voltaire
    3. Re:Fossil evidence? by tcc3 · · Score: 3, Funny

      They made a Highlander II? =)

    4. Re:Fossil evidence? by Darby · · Score: 3, Funny


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


      Damn, Dude. That was harsh ;-)

    5. Re:Fossil evidence? by jollyreaper · · Score: 4, Funny

      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.
      --
      Kwisatz Haderach
      Sell the spice to CHOAM
      This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
  2. Run, Randall, Run! by ClayJar · · Score: 3, Informative

    (I hope this doesn't get in the way of my thrice-weekly xkcd entertainment.)

    1. Re:Run, Randall, Run! by mark99 · · Score: 5, Funny

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

    2. Re:Run, Randall, Run! by spun · · Score: 4, Funny

      And this one. Where are your velociraptor entry-points?

      --
      - None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
  3. Duh? by nih · · Score: 4, Funny

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

    --
    I'm a rabbit startled by the headlights of life :(
    1. Re:Duh? by Shaitan+Apistos · · Score: 4, Funny

      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.
  4. Blasphemy!! by Ronin+X · · Score: 4, Funny

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

    --
    Ok my karma is maxed out. When do I become Enlightened?
  5. pack hunters? by trybywrench · · Score: 3, Funny

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

    --
    I came to the datacenter drunk with a fake ID, don't you want to be just like me?
    1. Re:pack hunters? by greenguy · · Score: 5, Funny

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

      I can identify with that.

      --
      What if I do the same thing, and I do get different results?
  6. Artisan Tracker by ChromaticDragon · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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...

  7. Great News by GammaKitsune · · Score: 5, Funny

    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.

    --
    Gamertag: WyleType
  8. Dr. Grant was right! by Token_Internet_Girl · · Score: 4, Insightful

    "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.
    "

    --
    Sure baby, I'll give you my phone number...in Hex
    1. Re:Dr. Grant was right! by Shakrai · · Score: 4, Insightful

      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.......

      --
      I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
      We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
  9. It was just ONE Velociraptor.. by hansraj · · Score: 5, Funny

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

  10. Additional evidence by Lurker2288 · · Score: 3, Funny

    "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.

  11. Dude, it's not planted by Moraelin · · Score: 3, Funny

    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.

    --
    A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
  12. that is not news... by garompeta · · Score: 5, Funny

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

  13. Re:They walked in packs by KidKadaver · · Score: 5, Funny

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

  14. One little GOTO by GogglesPisano · · Score: 3, Funny
  15. Re:XKCD by celardore · · Score: 3, Funny