The type skull of Velociraptor mongoliensis. From Osborn, et al. 1924.

By the summer of 1993 Velociraptor had become a household name. Although Deinonychus had long been my fleet-footed favorite the olive-green “clever girls” of Speilberg’s film soon outshone all of their relatives and gave Tyrannosaurus a run for it’s money.* Velocriaptor is hardly a new dinosaur, however. It was discovered during the famous expeditions to Mongolia made by the AMNH in the 1920’s, the team setting out to find the “birthplace” of all mammals and coming back with loads of new dinosaurs. Velociraptor mongoliensis was officially described, along with Saurornithoides and Oviraptor, in 1924 but was practically invisible to the public until it starred in