Both the Cretaceous crocodilians and raptors’ smallest and largest teeth showed different average carbon isotope values, indicating differences in diet. antirrhopus (the actual animal Jurassic Park’s raptors are based on) and crocodilians from excavation microsites dating back to the Cretaceous Period (145-66 million years ago) by using stable isotopes of carbon and oxygen.

Researchers analysed tooth carbonate of D. If raptors were not pack hunters, on the other hand, then the chemical composition of young and old teeth should be different.

The chemical composition of the body is directly dictated by diet, and specifically the teeth of young and old members of a pack should have the same chemical composition, or close to it. The researchers claim this dietary diversity early in life is rarely found in pack-hunting animals, where the old and the young share food.Īnd the old adage is true – you are what you eat. The young Komodo dragon’s dietary diversity is a result of the babies escaping to live in trees to avoid being eaten by adults and finding a larger variety of food in trees. Both of these groups hunt the same animals as adults, but these living counterparts of dinosaurs never hunt in packs, and researchers have associated this lack of social hunting with other asocial habits, such as eating their own young. Of course, it’s not possible to actually investigate real raptors these days, but scientists can use living relatives, modern reptiles like Komodo dragons and crocodiles, to make educated inferences.

However, how much of this science fiction is actually fiction? Were Velociraptors actually pack-hunters? ‘Jurassic Park’ essentially created a worldwide obsession with raptors: loyal companions like dogs, coordinated group-hunters like wolves, and clever hunters than can take down larger prey. This fan-favorite has undergone serious character development since the 1993 hit movie. ‘Jurassic Park’ may have undergone an expansion to become ‘Jurassic World’, but if there is one unifying element in all the movies, it is the raptor – the intelligent, social pack-hunting dinosaur.

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