Utahraptor!

Super Slasher Dinosaur Discovered!

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The most vicious, meat-eating dinosaur known to science was unearthed by a joint research project in Eastern Utah. Research directed by Donald Burge, Director of the College of Eastern Utah Prehistoric Museum, and Dr. James I. Kirkland, paleontologist for Dinamation International Society has led to the discovery of this efficient killing machine.

The new "super slasher", which will be called Utahraptor (Utah's predator), was first recognized during excavations of an exciting new dinosaur fauna that lived 125 million years ago in the Early Cretaceous period of Eastern Utah. The Gaston Quarry (named for its discoverer, Robert Gaston of Albuquerque, New Mexico) where the discovery was made, preserves a new dinosaur fauna. It is within a 30-million-year time interval where there is a knowledge gap about North American dinosaurs. Every dinosaur from the Gaston Quarry is either new or poorly known. Research indicates that the site may best be compared to the more familiar sites on the Isle of Wright in southern England.

A very large, deep, thin, blade-like claw core bone was uncovered in October, 1991, by Carl Limone, Preparator at the CEU Prehistoric Museum. The new claw's similarity to the slashing claw on the foot of Deinonychus and Velociraptor of the dromaeosaurid family of dinosaurs was immediately recognized by the quarry personnel. The dromaeosaurid dinosaurs were the most savage predators, pound for pound, ever to have walked the earth. At 9 inches long, the bony core supported a claw which in life would have been 15 inches long, indicating an animal twice the size of Deinonychus. Additional finds, including bones of the skull and upper jaw, support this conclusion.

A critical piece of evidence further confirming the identification of the new "super slasher" was found by Kirkland in the collections at the Brigham Young University (BYU) Earth Science Museum in Provo, Utah. Fossils from the exact same age had been collected from a site discovered by Lin Ottinger of Moab, Utah. The site which is about 25 miles from the Gaston Quarry was worked by a field crew led by BYU's Jim Jensen in 1975. These fossils included leg bones, hand claws, and the diagnostic tail bones with indicated that several different-sized animals (including animals as big as those at the Gaston Quarry) had been preserved at the BYU site. Special features found only in the tail bones of dromaeosaurid dinosaurs helped confirm the relationship of this giant killer.

Deinonychus, the best known of the dromaeosaurids, was discovered by Dr. John Ostrom of Yale University. This dinosaur provided a major piece of evidence in the theory that dinosaurs were warm-blooded, active animals, and more closely related to birds than reptiles. Deinonychus was a fast, highly specialized, wolf-sized predator that attacked dinosaurs much larger than itself. Its powerful jaws bore sharp, serrated teeth, its arms were strong with large recurved claws, and, on each of its feet, was a huge, sickle-shaped claw powered by its entire calf muscle. Deinonychus maintained the razor-sharp edge of its claw by holding it up off the ground when it walked or ran. It would use these claws to attack its prey much like the modern cat used its claws on its hind feet. Much larger dinosaurs could be disemboweled with a single stroke of this killing claw. All of this weaponry was controlled by a sophisticated nervous system, which simultaneously flicked the creature's specially stiffened tail side to side and up and down to keep the animal's balance, while controlling its powerful hind legs.

In addition to being the largest, Utahraptor is also the oldest known dromaeosaurid. It closely resembles Deinonychus except for the large, much more blade-like claws on its hand. Such claws suggest that besides piercing and holding, the Utahraptor's hand claws may have been nearly as important in cutting the hide of it s victim as the sickle-claw on its foot. This specialization alone suggests there must be both an older and smaller common ancestor to both Utahraptor and the rest of the known dromaeosaurids that is closer to the origin of birds.

Utahraptor would have been an extraordinary killing machine. It is estimated that it reached 20 feet in length and weighed close to a ton. Two inch serrated "steak knife" teeth in a skull a foot and a half long, blade-like claws up to 10 inches long on its hands combined with 15-inch killing sickle-laws on its feet, and a fast, highly agile body would make a Polar Bear or Siberian Tiger lucky to survive five seconds in the ring with this creature.

This new creature is known to have co-existed with a number of large, plant-eating dinosaurs including the heavily-spined and armored nodosaur, the two-legged, spike-thumbed iguanodons, and massive, long-necked Sauropod. Utahraptor was the most intelligent animal in its world and information about Deinonychus suggests it may have been a pack hunter. As it is thought that packs of Deinonychus hunted 30-foot-long relatives of the iguanodons, it is easy to envision a pack of Utahraptors taking on a 50-foot elephantine sauropod.

After study, the bones of the Utahraptor and the rest of the new animals from the Gaston Quarry will be displayed at the CEU Prehistoric Museum, In Price, Utah. Dinamation International Corp. has plans to create a life-size, robotic construction of Utahraptor to join its touring dinosaur exhibits.

The CEU Prehistoric Museum in Price, Utah, is a non-profit organization operated by the College of Eastern Utah. The museum exhibits paleontological and archaeological collections from eastern Utah.