Sources

Where the facts come from

Every factual claim on this site links to its source. This is the full list.

How we checked

Each fact was written alongside its source. Our build script stores the source text and, for every fact, checks that the key words and figures really appear in it. 160 of 160 checks passed when this site was last built (October 2026). Where we couldn’t find a source we could read, we left the claim out.

What we use

Only museum sources and scientific papers: the Natural History Museum in London, the American Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Magazine, and scientific papers we read in full. The papers are Osborn’s original 1924 description of Velociraptor in American Museum Novitates, and two peer-reviewed studies of how the claw worked.

Figures that change

Palaeontology moves quickly. New fossils turn up and new studies revise old ideas, especially for size, age and behaviour. Facts like these are marked “checked 28 Oct 2026” so you know how fresh they are, and we say where estimates vary or scientists disagree. Dates of discoveries and names, such as the first fossil being found on 11 August 1923, don’t change.

Natural History Museum (17)

• Natural History Museum: Archaeopteryx (Dino Directory) (3 facts)
• Natural History Museum: Bambiraptor (Dino Directory) (1 fact)
• Natural History Museum: Citipati (Dino Directory) (1 fact)
• Natural History Museum: Debunking dinosaur myths and movie misconceptions (5 facts)
• Natural History Museum: Deinonychus (Dino Directory) (6 facts)
• Natural History Museum: Dromaeosaurus (Dino Directory) (1 fact)
• Natural History Museum: Gallimimus (Dino Directory) (2 facts)
• Natural History Museum: Microraptor (Dino Directory) (6 facts)
• Natural History Museum: Oviraptor (Dino Directory) (1 fact)
• Natural History Museum: Pinacosaurus (Dino Directory) (1 fact)
• Natural History Museum: Protoceratops (Dino Directory) (1 fact)
• Natural History Museum: Saurornithoides (Dino Directory) (1 fact)
• Natural History Museum: Sinornithosaurus (Dino Directory) (1 fact)
• Natural History Museum: Tarbosaurus (Dino Directory) (1 fact)
• Natural History Museum: Utahraptor (Dino Directory) (5 facts)
• Natural History Museum: Velociraptor (Dino Directory) (10 facts)
• Natural History Museum: Vicious Velociraptor: tales of a turkey-sized dinosaur (54 facts)

American Museum of Natural History (6)

• American Museum of Natural History, OLogy card 038: Fighting Dinosaurs (9 facts)
• American Museum of Natural History, OLogy: Fighting Dinos (6 facts)
• American Museum of Natural History: Dinosaur Eggs (4 facts)
• American Museum of Natural History: Fossils of the Flaming Cliffs (exhibition) (4 facts)
• American Museum of Natural History: Get to Know a Dino: Velociraptor, 2016 (7 facts)
• American Museum of Natural History: Velociraptor Had Feathers, Study Confirms, 2007 (9 facts)

Smithsonian Magazine (2)

• Smithsonian Magazine: A dinosaur’s pterosaur lunch (3 facts)
• Smithsonian Magazine: You say “Velociraptor,” I say “Deinonychus” (5 facts)

Scientific papers (3)

• Fowler, Freedman, Scannella & Kambic (2011), The predatory ecology of Deinonychus and the origin of flapping in birds, PLOS ONE (3 facts)
• Manning, Payne, Pennicott, Barrett & Ennos (2006), Dinosaur killer claws or climbing crampons?, Biology Letters (2 facts)
• Osborn (1924), Three new Theropoda, Protoceratops zone, central Mongolia, American Museum Novitates 144 (8 facts)