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Utahraptor was as big as a polar bear.

It was the biggest "raptor" ever - and looked like a feathered nightmare.

2 min read
Utahraptor was as big as a polar bear.
THE FULL STORY

If you mash together everything scary about the movie velociraptors with everything we know about real raptors, you basically end up with Utahraptor. About 23 feet long, 1,100 pounds, covered in feathers, smart, and armed with a curved 9-inch sickle claw on the second toe of each foot.

It was discovered in Utah in 1991 - surprisingly close to when Jurassic Park was being filmed. The movie makers were halfway through making their “raptors” too big and scary to be accurate Velociraptors, and then suddenly real dinosaurs were found that were exactly as big and scary as the movie versions.

Utahraptor lived around 125 million years ago, much earlier than its smaller cousin Velociraptor. It probably hunted in groups and was capable of taking down sauropods many times its size.

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