DEINONYCHUS

Deinonychus antirrhopus

Etymology: Counterbalancing terrible claw

Nickname: "Deinon" or "Raptor"

Classification: Neocoelurosauria, Dromaeosauridae

Diet: Carnivore

Size: 3.5 meters long

Provenance: Cloverly Formation, Montana, USA - Early Cretaceous, Aptian-Albian stage, 115 - 108 million years ago

Movie appearances: Jurassic Park (1993); The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997); Jurassic Park III (2001); Jurassic World (2015); Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (2018); Jurassic World: Dominion (2022); Jurassic World Rebirth (2025)

Deinonychus antirrhopus was a dromaeosaurid neocoelurosaur that lived in the Early Cretaceous period in what is today the central United States. It was about the size of a jaguar, with feathers covering most of its body (save for the head, neck and parts of the feet, hands and arms), making it resemble a very large flightless bird of prey. Its genus name refers to the large sickle claw, present on the second digit of its feet that is used to pin down prey and cause deep and nasty wounds. This species was, at one point, proposed to be part of the genus Velociraptor, in the late 1980s, but this idea was never perpetuated by the scientific community.

Before Deinonychus were publicly revealed to have been resurrected, it wasn't a particularly emblematic or well known dinosaur for the general public. However, its unique physique and build, especially with the proposed pack hunting capacities this dinosaur was believed to have had, caused it to be a charming species for paleontologists. Upon resurrection, Deinonychus proved indeed to be very cunning and intelligent predators, capable to even outsmart humans in certain situations (with deadly results to the humans, in that regard). They have shown to be the most dangerous wild predators of Isla Sorna, actively gathering to hunt stranded humans. They are known to have varied color schemes, depending on individual variation. The most emblematic Deinonychus individual is Blue, a female specimen that was born in Jurassic World and was tamed by Owen Grady, and was the sole surviving Deinonychus in Isla Nublar, eventually making it to the mainland US as a feral hunter. Paleontologist Alan Grant predicted that real life Deinonychus were coordinated pack hunters, with partitioning members of a pack ambushing their prey and attacking them in the flanks to take it down by surprise. Deinonychus have a naked head and neck, a feature present in both sexes, and reminds one of vultures. The Deinonychus that were brought to Isla Nublar, for Jurassic Park, were all females of a similar phenotype. People first admired their agility and fast speed, observing that they were capable of jumping over prey, like a big cat would, and reaching speeds of up to 40 km/h. To keep pack integrity, Deinonychus often depicted aggressive behaviours to other packmates, in order to keep the pecking order. Another phenotype of Deinonychus was endemic to Isla Sorna, and little is known as to the significance of these different phenotypes. This phenotype is, however, curiously of a second generation of Deinonychus that was generated in the Sorna labs, so this new phenotype might have resulted from a genetic mutation during early cellular development. There are no InGen records of this second generation, so it appears that it was created clandestinely in the aftermath of Hurricane Clarissa, when illicit resurrections lead to the creation of a few additional dinosaurs in Isla Sorna, such as the Spinosaurus. The males of this second phenotype have a generally greyish-blue color, with light bluish horizontal striping from the neck to the end of the tail.

Deinonychus were initially resurrected by InGen in Isla Sorna. They were one of the first dinosaurs whose cloning was attempted, back in 1980, though genetic assembly was faulty initially, until Dr. Henry Wu proposed the addition of a few genes of the common reed frog (Hyperolius viridiflavus) that ended up resulting in the creation of more stable clones; this technique was first attempted, successfully, in Deinonychus and subsequently applied to all dinosaurs and pterosaurs that were resurrected in Isla Sorna (however, with the potential side effect that parthenogenesis would be more easily achievable in a few of these animals). By 1992, Dr. Henry Wu was first allowed to monitor, with detail the great intelligence and social language of Deinonychus which, until that time, was heavily disregarded. Eight female Deinonychus were brought to Isla Nublar for Jurassic Park, where they established a pack of their own, with one of them becoming the de facto leader of the pack, nicknamed The Big One; this leader killed one of the members of the pack, a member which, curiously, before her death, secretly generated a clutch of eggs on her own, through the proccess of parthenogenesis (no staff from the park would be made aware of parthenogenesis in Deinonychus, at the time). By 1993, the Jurassic Park Deinonychus were living in a very small enclosure, where they were fed with live animals, such as cows. Upon the collapse of Jurassic Park, Alan Grant and Dr. Hammond's grandchildren, who were stranded in the park, actually passed through the old Deinonychus enclosure, where they found the nest that was laid by the deceased parthenogenic female, discovering that it actually survived and that healthy babies hatched from it. Alan Grant, who was already aware that all the dinosaurs in the park were females, accurately concluded that these dinosaurs were capable of reproduction in spite of this constraint, contemplating how, indeed, life finds a way. The day after Clarissa saw two people being killed by the Deinonychus, Robert Muldoon and John Arnold. Three Deinonychus attempted to hunt down Alan Grant, Ellie Sattler and Hammond's grandchildren, in the Visitor Center, but the dromaeosaurs were killed by the local Tyrannosaurus rex, inadvertently saving the humans.

Hurricane Clarissa also affected Isla Sorna, in 1993, and most dinosaurs, including the resident Deinonychus, were freed into the wilderness. The Sorna Deinonychus resided in the interior of the island, where they established their nesting sites, with the long grass plains and the abandoned InGen worker village serving as their preferred hunting grounds. In 1997, Deinonychus were one of the main dangers for Ian Malcolm, his daughter Kelly Malcolm, and Sarah Harding, hunting them while they were stranded in the village. Kelly surprisingly manages to kill a Deinonychus, by using her impressive gymnastic skills to kick the dromaeosaur out of a window, where it was then impaled by a spike.

By 2001, resident Deinonychus of the second phenotype have established an adult pack that first interacted with a group of stranded survivors. There the humans observed the Deinonychus intricate vocalizations that were served for pack coordination. Pack hunting appears to have been equally shared between males and females. This pack appears to have had a dominant female as the leader, implying females likely have a tendency for social leadership. Though, usually, the male that is mating the dominant female also demonstrates social dominance; the human group manages to utilize the high sociality of the Deinonychus in their favour, by retrieving them their eggs, which were secretly stolen by one of the humans, and so the dromaeosaurs spare them.

By 2004, establishment in Isla Nublar, for the construction of the Jurassic World, was underway, and the first Deinonychus to return to Isla Nublar, from Isla Sorna, was brought. Claire Dearing has a first encounter with the creature when it escaped from the confinement. The Deinonychus is put down after it maims one of the workers. In 2012, the IBRIS project was founded and overseen by Vic Hoskins, dedicated to train Deinonychus, either for a future attraction of Jurassic World or to test whether they would be overall plausible contenders for control in specialized operations. In 2015, the escape of the Indominus rex prompted Hoskins to persuade trainers from the IBRIS Project to release the four Deinonychus of the project in order to detect the escaped hybrid; however, the Indominus rex, retaining Deinonychus DNA, had the intellect to communicate with them, and so persuaded the dromaeosaurs to turn back on the humans. Later Owen Grady manages to tame back the Deinonychus, who turned back on the Indominus rex; Blue was the sole survivor of the conflict, managing to take down the Indominus rex, with the aid of the local Tyrannosaurus rex. Despite Blue's allegiance to Owen Grady, she was still a formidable predator, and she was recorded attacking other humans who were stranded in 2015, in the aftermath of the Jurassic World incident. A number of casualties were ultimately caused by Deinonychus during the 2015 incident. 

Deinonychus were also secretly residing in Mantah Corp island. There the Deinonychus were heavily monitored, having implanted chips to command their movements and actions. Drones helped keep the dinosaurs in check, to make sure they couldn't escape containment. Deinonychus were recorded entering into conflict with a number of Mantah Corp predators, such as Carnotaurus, Baryonyx, Coloborhynchus and Spinosaurus. In the aftermath of the 2015 Isla Nublar Incident, leaked footage from Jurassic World's development reveals the early work done to the local Deinonychus, including Owen Grady's early interactions with a young Blue, demonstrating that Deinonychus are surprisingly empathic creatures. By 2018, to save Blue from the eruption of Mount Sibo, Owen Grady returns to Isla Nublar, where mercenaries tranquilize her in order to bring her to Lockwood Manor. Blue is shot in the proccess, leaving her wounded, so Owen Grady and Claire Dearing are tasked to take blood from the local Tyrannosaurus rex to save her. Behind the rescue of dinosaurs from Isla Nublar, Dr. Henry Wu was looking forward to take Blue in order to take her blood components, necessary for the creation of a more refined and healthy form of Indoraptor hybrid, but he was however disappointed to learn that her blood was, at the time, contaminated with Tyrannosaurus rex blood material. Blue manages to escape the Lockwood Manor, before the remaning dinosaurs are freed into the californian wilderness.

Years later, worldwide dinosaur trade began to be more widespread, and Deinonychus were among the dinosaurs affected, with trade likely hailing from Deinonychus previously held by Mantah Corp; those dinosaurs were aprehended by the Department of Prehistoric Wildlife (DPW). By 2022, Blue manages to lay a nest of her own eggs, through the proccess of parthenogenesis; only one egg hatches, giving birth to Beta, who soon follows her mother for hunting. Beta soon gets into contact with Maisie Lockwood, who was residing in Owen Grady's property, leading to a short-lived conflict with Blue. Beta is, however, captured by humans, leaving Blue agitated; Owen Grady promised her he would bring her baby back. Maisie Lockwood, also having been captured, is brought to the Biosyn headquarters, located in the Dolomite Mountains, where she is united with Beta; after learning both Maisie and Beta share genetic similarities worthy of exploitation, she releases Beta, who escapes and causes havoc throughout the facility. Beta is later encountered by Owen, Maisie and Alan Grant. Beta is later retrieved back to her mother in the californian wilderness, and both Blue and Beta lived a happy wild life together.

FILM vs. REALITY

DISCLAIMER: Deinonychus does not show up in the Jurassic Park films, and is instead, here, meant to be a plausible replacement to the films' Velociraptor. The real life Velociraptor is distinct from its films counterpart in a variety of traits. Velociraptor was just 2 meters long, in real life, had a much slender snout and was found in Mongolia, unlike in the films, where it is depicted as much bigger, containing a boxy skull and being found in Montana. It is to be noted that much of the films reconstruction is more similar to that of Deinonychus, which is a dromaeosaurid that is more similar to it in size, has a boxier skull, and is indeed known from fossils in Montana. Gregory S. Paul proposed that Deinonychus could actually be a synonym of Velociraptor, during the late 1980s, and that was probably what inspired the perpetuation of the name Velociraptor into the "raptors" of the franchise; however, no credible source nowadays seems to agree that both genera are synonyms of each other, and consistently separate them in the Dromaeosauridae family.

The real life Deinonychus is distinct from the films Velociraptor by the probable presence of a body completely covered in feathers, instead of the naked or scaly skin of the films. A tail fan, rounded wings, and feathers running down to its toes are characteristics consistent with a collection of well preserved dromaeosaur fossils that would have been sufficiently related to Deinonychus to infer that it is accurate to portray them in such a way. The hands of Deinonychus would be incapable of pronation, and were mostly rather stiffened, to allow for the support of proper wings; however, Deinonychus probably could still clutch its hands to hold some objects, or use its hand claws to attack or defend itself in certain situations, it just wouldn't have the dexterity of the hands found in the film counterparts. Although the real life Deinonychus likely had lips covering its teeth, like the film Velociraptor, it would be incapable of retracting them like the lips of a mammal, so it couldn't really snarl and show off its teeth while the mouth is closed. The tail of the films Velociraptor waves around when the animal is running, but the real life Deinonychus had a more stiffened tail for counterbalancing, not being capable of intense waving motions, working more like a stiff rod. The eggs of the film Velociraptor are depicted with a white coloration, however, studies on Deinonychus eggshells suggest that they would have actually been bluish in color. The film Velociraptor are depicted with females that are able to change their own sex to that of a male, in order to reproduce in the lack of other males; however, such a tactic, known as sequantial hermaphroditism, is completely unknown in any tetrapods, even though it is proposed in the films to have been triggered by the inclusion of frog DNA. A few tetrapods are, however, known to reproduce via parthenogenesis, where females are capable of generating offspring without male insemination, a proccess more akin to that of Blue and Beta, in Jurassic World: Dominion. Parthenogenesis is known to occur in birds, albeit very rarely, however, speculatively speaking, real life Deinonychus could still potentially reproduce this way.

The Velociraptor in the films are depicted as incredibly social, intelligent and communicative creatures. This is based on Deinonychus, which was first proposed to have been a pack hunter, due to the association of many individuals gathered around a large dead iguanodont, implying these dinosaurs took it down in unisson. Although a pack hunting interpretation for that fossil assemblage has since been disregarded, it is not impossible that Deinonychus could be able to make organized packs, or have social hierarchy, as such behaviours aren't properly easy to identify in fossils. The intelligence of extinct animals is also hard to quantify, and even though the brain size of Deinonychus isn't known to have been especially big to raise suspicions about high intelligence, brain size is consistently not always a factor in favour of high degrees of intelligence, so many of the intelligent behaviours depicted by the film counterparts are also not impossible. Although there is little to no information about the vocalization capacities of Deinonychus, it is also not unfeasible that it would be capable of producing the vocalizations heard in the films. Parental care is a trait well widespread and well observed in maniraptoran dinosaur fossils, and it is safe to assume that Deinonychus had some form of parental care. The films Velociraptor lay eggs in open nests, and the babies are depicted as being capable of hunting, walking and running shortly after hatching from the egg, in a manner not dissimilar to ratites and fowl, and that is correctly expected for Deinonychus. In Jurassic World: Dominion, however, the newborn Beta is depicted, very early on, capable of tackling down very large prey, in a manner similar to her adult mother, however Deinonychus youngsters were hunting different prey as adults, implying they likely didn't accompany their parents during hunting, and instead preferred small prey to sustain themselves.