Talk:Utahraptor

message: There was a lot of conjecture and simply false statements on this page. To begin with, "reasonable to assume that this trait was present in all of Dromaeosauridae" in reference to feathers is false. The same way you don't look at a woolly mammoth and presume all other elephants were covered in hair.
"Feathers were very unlikely to have evolved more than once, so assuming that any given dromaeosaurid, such as Utahraptor, lacked feathers would require positive evidence that they did not have them"
This was a burden of proof logical fallacy and again complete conjecture so I removed it. It is impossible to get evidence that a dinosaur "didn't have feathers", just like it's impossible to get evidence that "unicorns do not exist". You need evidence that something DOES exist. There is no evidence of feathering on Utahraptor.
As an endothermic animal gets bigger, the square-cube law means that they don’t need as much insulation to stay warm, and may even lose their integument almost entirely over a certain size threshold when they get too warm. This is why elephants, rhinos, and hippos are mostly hairless–they run very warm and a thick fur coat would cause them to fatally overheat. Even on Dakotaraptor we only have evidence that it's arms had some feathers. Zero evidence these larger raptors had a fully feathered body.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Pylon12 (talk • contribs) 20:36, 13 November 2022 (UTC)
thread_title: Accuracy

message: this page needs fixing up bad...
:Umm...can you please clarify?Cas Liber 23:03, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It's true, but there is no citation as it's just gossip at this point, hasn't been published. Better wait for the paper. Dinoguy2 02:45, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Fix up

message: The article says Utahraptor was 'up to 2m/6ft in height'. What posture does this refer to? The Jurassic park films are hardly documentary evidence, but they clearly show a raptor style skeleton is capable of changing ultimate hight by a fair margin. With mammals we measure up to the fore-shoulder whilst standing still. Is there an equivalent standardized measurement & posture for dinosaurs?ANTIcarrot 17:31, 20 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The hip height is your best bet, but you'll see a lot of variability in how flexed the various parts of the leg are. J. Spencer 22:09, 20 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I wouldn't take any estimates cited here as gospel at the moment. A new paper in press is set to downsize Utahraptor a fair bit. Dinoguy2 08:04, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

text: The tail looks longer because of the feathers. Dinoguy2 (talk) 09:22, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Measurements 

message: How is Utahraptor to be pronounced, since it is a mixed English-Latin word?
If it was pronounced as a pure latin word (like most of scientific names), it would simply be IPA:utahraptor (a form I have actually heard used.) However, if mixed pronounciation is used, it would be something like IPA:ˈjuːtɑːraptor. On a note, I'm leaving out pure English pronounciation because I don't think it would be appropriate (even the mixed form might be problematic for speakers of other languages.)
Is there any established rule concerning this?
arny (talk) 03:49, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: This only really matters if you're trying to write an entire sentence in Latin and then read it aloud.  I'd be astounded if at least 80% of all English-speaking biologists in the world didn't pronounce it /ˈjuːtɑːˌræptɚ/. Foogus (talk) 03:19, 30 August 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  English speaking ones, yes. However, I've heard everything from non-English speaking people, and there should be some consensus. --arny (talk) 17:15, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

text: Turner, Makovicky, & Norell (2007) disagree and claim there is no reason an animal this large would lose all feathers, given that feathers act as insulators against both hot and cold weather. Also consider that other giant birds like giant moa and elephant birds (about the same weight as Utahraptor, not to mention the much larger, desert-living Gigantoraptor) are always depicted as being fully feathered, and the later lived in the tropics. I don't know what you mean about the "nature" of the animal but Senter (2006) showed that even if dromaeosaurs had fully developed wings (which the smaller ones at least seem to) the feathers would not get in the way of the predatory stroke, given they way in which they held/moved their arms. Dinoguy2 (talk) 00:16, 31 August 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Pronounciation 

message: The present image in the taxobox shows a reconstructed skeleton of Utahraptor with pronated hands. It also gives the wrong idea that the animal is known from a complete skeleton. Skeletal reconstructions, compared to images of actual fossil or a cast of it, should probably be put on the same level than real life reconstructions and be subjected to the same level of scrutiny. Does anybody feel the same? ArthurWeasley (talk) 19:25, 17 March 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I'd agree with that. I'd move it to the text, or remove it completely due to the incorrect posture. Dinoguy2 (talk) 21:26, 17 March 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I've just put a note about this in the Dino Project page... ArthurWeasley (talk) 01:10, 18 March 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree in this case, though I was the one who put it in. Wasn't sure if the hand was pronated or if the angle of the arm just made it look like that. Should maybe be fixed in the Saurornitholestes article too, there the pronation is even more obvious. FunkMonk (talk) 08:37, 18 March 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I guess I'll bring the taxobox image up again. Since this discussion, there was a new skeleton mount of Utahraptor uploaded to Wikimedia Commons. It doesn't have pronated hands. However, the first thing to note with these two photos of the same mount is that it is posed rather dynamically, with its limb raised up, which some people may mistake for a pronated hand. There's also the problem of a tiny little sculpture of Utahraptor sitting right next to the mount. Now, in one of the images, the sculpture is partially blocked by one of the supports. I'm not sure at the moment how far the "freedom of pano" rule goes, so I'll just place both images here. BleachedRice (talk) 03:47, 13 February 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: I think the sculpture would fall under de minimis. I'm not sure whether the skeleton is based on the newer Utahraptor material which has been incorporated into this skeletal drawing? Based on the sculpture, it is probably a pretty early attempt at a skeletal mount. FunkMonk (talk) 15:37, 13 February 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: I found a news article from 2011 about the Utahraptor skeleton being newly mounted. Not sure if that's recent enough or not. Definitely older than Scott Hartman's reconstruction, though.The sculpture was probably made before this mount. BleachedRice (talk) 03:40, 16 February 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: Here is a video showing a completely new mount, which is very different from the old one: So I think that's the only bet for getting a full skeleton photo that is fit for the taxobox. FunkMonk (talk) 03:48, 16 February 2018 (UTC)
thread_title: Skeleton image

message: I heard that there was evidence it may have reached 12m long! Its probally false but i wanted to check. Spinodontosaurus (talk) 16:19, 19 December 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Maybe, but so far there's no official description of those vertebrae, so even their identity as Utahraptor and not something else should be taken with a grain of salt until they're formally described. Dinoguy2 (talk) 14:46, 15 January 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  A Question 

message: Utahraptor weighed 1,500 pounds, not somewhat less than 1,100 pounds, as this article states. Would a 23-foot long dinosaur weigh "somewhat less than" 1,100 pounds? I dont't think so!
:You mean a 10-foot long dinosaur with a 13-ft lightweight skin-and-bones pole of a tail sticking out the back, not to mention air-filled bones? Sure, in fact 1,000lbs is probably an overestimate. Anyway we can't just take published research, say it doesn't sound right to us, and then change it. That's not we Wikipedia editors saying what we think it weighed, that's Jim Kirkland, the guy who actually discovered and studied the thing, saying what he thinks it weighed. If you disagree with him, publish a scientific paper explaining your methods and we can include a reference to it. MMartyniuk (talk) 00:05, 24 April 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: He's talking about snout-to-vent length, more or less. Head to hips (where most of the mass is going to be): 10 ft; tail (not much mass): another 13 ft. J. Spencer (talk) 01:00, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

text: Again, compare the silhouettes in those scale diagrams. Utahraptor may be the same length but is 'smaller' overall due to much slimmer proportions. MMartyniuk (talk) 00:06, 26 April 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: It should also be pointed out that Majungasaurus had heavyset hind legs and a more solidly built skull. Firsfron of Ronchester 00:13, 26 April 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Researchers have differing ways of coming up with these estimates.  The Majungasaurus estimate could be correct, the Utahraptor estimate could be correct, both could be correct, and neither could be correct.  It's not up to WP to decide among these alternatives, but to present estimates from reliable sources. J. Spencer (talk) 23:16, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

text: Does it fit the "reliable" of "reliable source"? J. Spencer (talk) 23:34, 26 April 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: No, it only allows one person to edit it, and he doesn't provide research methods for his conclusions, or cite research he used to write his descriptions, and blatantly plagiarizes images from 10-year old TV shows. By "reliable source" we mean published in the scientific literature and preferably by a peer-reviewed journal. Not a random web site. MMartyniuk (talk) 00:42, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

text: Yes. As the webmaster of that site should know, using someone else's image like that without permission or even credit is not a very polite thing to do, to put it mildly. MMartyniuk (talk) 04:02, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

text: Yeah... that's a pretty weird mistake. I'd say the guy just confused Antarctica with the Arctic, but then he says this: "Had it existed in Antarctica it is the largest Antarctic dinosaur, in contrast to most of the rest of the world where the largest dinosaurs were invariably herbivorous." There are both Arctic and Antarctic dinos larger than Troodon, though none from the same time frame as Troodon in the Antarctic, but then again aside from Vegavis there aren't any dinos known from the Antarctic in that time period at all. Very confused stuff. MMartyniuk (talk) 04:54, 29 April 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Weight 

message: User 65.102.29.189  has been insisting in edits that "raptor" properly translates to "thief" and so the etymology given in the description should be changed. Holtz 2008 translates the name as "Utah thief" so I went ahead and included both definitions. But, for the record, "raptor" is most precisely translated as "ravisher" or "abductor". See  MMartyniuk (talk) 20:06, 24 September 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Agree. The concept is less about stealing furtively, but taking away by force. -- Obsidi♠n Soul 20:43, 24 September 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Etymology 

message: The timeline at the top of the infobox has an apparent mistake in it. It shows the temporal range of Utahaptor in the late Permian. This is impossible and also contradicts the rest of the article which puts it in the Cretaceous. TornadoLGS (talk) 20:23, 20 October 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Apparently, the template didn't know what to do with the word "to". It's fixed now. J. Spencer (talk) 23:48, 20 October 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Timeline Error 

message: The image Utahraptor_ostrommaysorum.JPG shows the "large curved claw" on either the first or third toe, depending on which side you start counting on. However, the first paragraph in the description states that it was on the second toe. This appears to be a contradiction, unless I'm somehow missing something. Any suggestions about how to fix this? Bayushikazemi (talk) 15:14, 25 January 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: The dewclaw is the first toe. Abyssal (talk) 22:04, 25 January 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: Right, Also, we always start counting on the same side when describing anatomy to avoid confusion, so it's always the second toe because the dewclaw always counts as the first toe. MMartyniuk (talk) 13:17, 27 January 2013 (UTC)
thread_title: Utahraptor Feet

message: Recent report at the NY times gives the details:
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/28/science/utah-paleontologists-turn-to-crowdfunding-for-raptor-project.html
Project website:https://www.gofundme.com/utahraptor  .
With nice illo by Julius Csotonyi  --Pete Tillman (talk) 04:47, 25 September 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Crowdfunding project 

message: I believe at least two authorities have stated that Utahraptor was the dominant predator in its environment, as other giant therapods did not appear in N. America for some time after the Jurassic. Could we not get this stated and referenced in the article? 50.111.58.24 (talk) 00:18, 16 June 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: If the sources are reliable, of course. Just need to identify them.FunkMonk (talk) 00:31, 16 June 2019 (UTC)
thread_title: Apex predator

message: I know the rules is that you use 'an' if the word starts with a vowel, but it feels incorrect to say 'An Utahraptor' The JOJOLands (talk) 08:32, 12 April 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: For words beginning with “u,” consider the way the word sounds. For words where the “u” sound is pronounced like “you,” such as user, usual, or Utah, use “a.” For words where the “u” sound is pronounced like “uh,” such as unusual, understanding, or utter, use “an.” So, it's "a Utahraptor". Case in point: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Utah-Citizens-Guide-Regulation-works/dp/B000ESVCVE Plotosaurus (talk) 15:32, 9 December 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Is it 'a' or 'an'