utahraptor

Everyday

A large meat-eating dinosaur with a big curved claw on each foot, which lived about 125 million years ago in what is now Utah, USA. tree →

In the lessons

In dinosaur and science lessons it is one of the biggest raptors, about 6 to 7 metres long, much bigger than the real velociraptor. Fossils show it was related to birds and probably had feathers.

Examples

• Utahraptor was named after the state of Utah. tree →
• A utahraptor had a huge claw on each foot. tree →
• Scientists think utahraptors had feathers. tree →
• The utahraptor was much bigger than a velociraptor. tree →
• We saw a utahraptor skeleton at the museum. tree →
• Utahraptor lived in the Early Cretaceous period. tree →

Note

As a scientific name it is written Utahraptor with a capital letter; in everyday writing «a utahraptor» is fine. Use «a», not «an», because it starts with a «you» sound. Myth: films show velociraptors as big as people, but it was utahraptor that was that big.