NAME

Meaning - Utahraptor means “Robber from Utah”
Pronounced - YOU-tah-RAP-tor
Named By - James I. Kirkland, Robert Gaston and Donald Burge
When Named - 1993
DIET

Carnivore (meat-eater)
SIZE

Length - 16-23 feet (5-7 m) long
Height - About 6 ft (1.7 m) tall at the hips
Weight - Roughly 1 ton
WHEN IT LIVED

Cretaceous period, about 125 million years ago
WHERE IT LIVED

Fossils have been found in the Cedar Mountain Formation of central Utah, USA, North America.
FOSSILS

A fragmentary skeleton was found, including sharp hand and foot claws.
CLASSIFICATION
  • Kingdom Animalia (animals)
  • Phylum Chordata (having a hollow nerve chord ending in a brain)
  • Class Archosauria (diapsids with socket-set teeth, etc.)
  • Order Saurischia - lizard-hipped dinosaurs
  • Suborder Theropoda - bipedal carnivores
  • Tetanura - advanced theropods with three fingers
  • Infraorder Coelurosauria - lightly-built fast-running predators with hollow bones and large brains
  • Family Deinonychosauria/Dromaeosauridae
  • Genus Utahraptor
  • Species U. ostrummaysorum (type species named by James I. Kirkland, Robert Gaston and Donald Burge, 1993)
INTERESTING FACTS

Utahraptor’s second toe had a 9-15 inch (23-38 cm) retractible, sickle-shaped claw; the other toes had smaller claws. Utahraptor was twice as large as Deinonychus.
LINKS

A detailed page on Utahraptor.
A Utahraptor printout to color.