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Life

Velociraptor's 'killing' claws were for climbing

9 September 2009

Âé¶¹´«Ã½. Science news and long reads from expert journalists, covering developments in science, technology, health and the environment on the website and the magazine.

The whopping claws on its feet may look terrifying, but it looks like they were used for climbing rather than disembowelling

(Image: Solent News / Rex)

ACCORDING to Jurassic Park, everyone’s favourite fleet-footed predators dispatched their prey by disembowelling them with deadly “killing claws”. Not so, say palaeontologists who have studied the biomechanics of Velociraptor claws. Instead, the notorious dinosaurs used their claws to cling to prey and to climb trees.

of the University of Manchester, UK, and colleagues previously showed that Velociraptor‘s sharp-tipped foot claw could puncture skin and help the dinosaur cling to wounded prey…

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