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Re: A load of questions



Mike Hoffman asks, "What is a Utahraptor?" and how does Utahraptor relate to 
the Jurassic Park raptors. 

I believe someone on this list has said that the book's Velociraptors are the 
same as Deinonychus, because Crichton was following taxonomists who say that 
V. and D. belong in the same genus. But everyone agrees that the movie raptors
are too big even for that. 

Utahraptor is a different dromaeasaurid genus discovered by Carl Limoni and 
the digging team of James Kirkland and Donald Burge at Gaston Quarry in 
eastern Utah. This happened in October, 1991 -- during the filming of the 
movie. Bob Bakker has been describing Utahraptor as the movie-fictional 
dinosaur that turned out to be real.

Earth had a News item on the find in our January 1993 issue and a feature by 
Bakker in September 1993. 

Tom Waters
Associate Editor
Earth magazine
72350.1764@compuserve.com