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VELOCIRAPTORS

2014-04-01 · explainer · John, Henry Green · 3:24 · watch on YouTube

Topic: Science & nature · mode: Explainer · tags: guest or collab

On a topic chosen by his young son, John explains that real velociraptors were small, feathered Mongolian dinosaurs unlike the Jurassic Park version, and argues the coolest thing about dinosaurs is that we're still learning about them.

What is said

The parts of the video and what is said in each (★ — how much it matters to the video).

00:00:00 — Greeting; John's son chooses the topic: velociraptors

  • ★★ John tries an experiment: needing to make a video, he asks his young son what it should be about, and takes up the suggestion. — 00:00:01 · Henry Green
  • ★ Henry Green: John's son suggests the topic: a velociraptor. — 00:00:04 · Henry Green

00:00:11 — The Jurassic Park velociraptor and its pop-culture terror (Toronto Raptors)

  • ★★ John says the velociraptor wasn't famous until Michael Crichton's 1990 novel Jurassic Park and Spielberg's film, which show smart, people-sized, scaly pack hunters dug up in Montana. — 00:00:11 · Montana
  • ★ John says even people who have not seen Jurassic Park know the terror of the velociraptor; Toronto even named its NBA team after raptors. (playful) — 00:00:30

00:00:45 — Five corrections: Mongolia not Montana, feathers, no packs, 75 million years ago, turkey-sized

  • ★★ John says the velociraptor never lived in Montana; it lived in Mongolia and China. — 00:00:45 · Montana, China
  • ★★★ John says velociraptors were feathered, not scaly. — 00:00:49
  • ★★ John says velociraptors probably did not hunt in packs. (hedged) — 00:00:49
  • ★★ John says velociraptors lived 75 million years ago in the Late Cretaceous. — 00:00:54
  • ★★★ John says velociraptors were not human-sized killers but like long-tailed turkeys; adults weighed less than an average three-year-old human. — 00:01:04
  • ★★ John says the name means 'swift thief', but velociraptors were probably quite slow on short legs. (hedged) — 00:01:15

00:01:28 — Humans are the terrifying species; Deinonychus; brontosaurus vs apatosaurus; diplodocus

  • ★★ John says the one truly terrifying animal species is humans; we would have threatened velociraptors far more than they us. — 00:01:28
  • ★★ John says Jurassic Park's velociraptors are based on a larger American cousin, Deinonychus, renamed because 'velociraptor' sounds cooler. — 00:01:38
  • ★★ John says the brontosaurus ('thunder lizard'), the coolest dinosaur of their childhood, isn't a thing; it's just an apatosaurus ('deceptive lizard'). — 00:01:48
  • ★ John says, as his son would point out, that the apatosaurus isn't even that big compared to the diplodocus. — 00:02:05 · Henry Green

00:02:09 — Why velociraptors had feathers: dromaeosaurids, evolutionary leftovers

  • ★★ John says velociraptors belonged to the feathered, bird-like dromaeosaurid family; they could not fly, and their feathers were maybe for attracting mates but probably an evolutionary leftover. (hedged) — 00:02:09

00:02:27 — Two awesome facts: jumping, sickle claws; the velociraptor-protoceratops fossil

  • ★★ John says velociraptors could jump about ten feet high and had retractable sickle-shaped claws on their hind legs to stab prey. — 00:02:31
    • check: ten feet — doubtful
  • ★★ John says a fossil shows a velociraptor and a protoceratops locked in combat, buried by a sandstorm, showing they could kill protoceratops. — 00:02:40

00:02:53 — A dinosaur-obsessed child shows how much we know and don't; quill knobs found 2007; still learning; sign-off

  • ★★★ John says having a dinosaur-obsessed child makes you realize both how much we know and how much we don't about life's distant past. — 00:02:53 · Henry Green
  • ★★★ John says Crichton's velociraptors were featherless because feathering wasn't known for sure until 2007, when scientists found quill knobs on a forearm. — 00:03:02
  • ★★★ John says the coolest thing about dinosaurs is that, a hundred million years later, we're still learning about them. — 00:03:13

Humor (significant)

  • Toronto named its NBA team after raptors because they are so fearsome — 00:00:42

    “they're gonna beat you at basketball!”

  • Fifth correction: velociraptors were not human-sized killing machines — 00:01:04

    “they were, like, long-tailed turkeys.”

  • Off topic, John says turkey legs at the State Fair are delicious — 00:01:22

    “I wonder if velociraptor legs are good...”

  • Brontosaurus means 'thunder lizard' but is just an apatosaurus, 'deceptive lizard' — 00:02:01

    “I don't want my gigantic lizards to bring the lies, I want them to bring the thunder.”

Mentioned

Central: Jurassic Park · Velociraptor

Also: People: Henry Green

Works: Jurassic Park (film)

Organizations: National Basketball Association · Toronto Raptors

Concepts: Apatosaurus · blind mole-rat · Brontosaurus · Deinonychus · dinosaur · Diplodocus · Dromaeosauridae · humpback whale · Late Cretaceous · Protoceratops · quill knob · vestigiality

Places: China · Mongolia · Montana

Only in the description or credits: Michael Crichton · Steven Spielberg

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