Dakotaraptor

Y’all seem to like the two people answering the Queue format, so here we go.

I was going to talk about BlizzCon but then this happened.

Welcome Dakotaraptor, a contender for largest Dromaeosaurid ever. Not only is it nearly the same size as Utahraptor (it’s built on a more gracile body plan, so it almost certainly weighed less) but this late Cretaceous raptor is a game changer for a variety of reasons. It’s much akin to its relatives Velociraptor or Deinonychus but scaled up to bigger than even Jurassic Park dared dream, and it had long feathers on its forelimbs in a structure that even the most anti-feathered dinosaur grump would have to admit is a wing.

Wings. This nearly twenty foot (six meters) long raptor had wings. No, it couldn’t fly with them any more than an ostrich can, but it had clear, unmistakably feathered forelimbs. At this point, if you put featherless raptors in your dinosaur movie, you look like an idiot. It would be like having hairless lions and tigers in your movie because they look cooler. Just stop it, Hollywood.