Velociraptor fossils found on the Isle of Wight

Velociraptor

The Isle of Wight’s Dinosaur Isle Museum has recently acquired five teeth from previously unknown dinosaurs related to the Velociraptors made famous in the Jurassic Park films. The teeth which date from the Early Cretaceous period are approximately 125 million years old and are the first record of this kind of dinosaur to be discovered on the Isle of Wight.

Three of the teeth were collected on the Island between 1972 and 2003 by Steve Sweetman and have been donated to the museum, the remaining two have been purchased by the Dinosaur Isle Museum. Mr. Sweetman, a postgraduate student studying for a PhD at the University of Portsmouth has written a scientific paper describing the teeth which will be published in the journal Cretaceous Research.

Aspects of the tooth growth morphology, including a high denticle size difference index (an index obtained from the size and distribution of tooth serrations) allowed the identification to be made. Curator of Dinosaur Isle, Martin Munt said, “The large size of the Isle of Wight teeth suggests an animal that may have been comparable in size to Utahraptor an extremely large dromaeosaur from the Early Cretaceous of Utah. The Isle of Wight animal is likely to have been a slender, fast moving predator perhaps as long as six metres. Along with its powerful jaws armed with backward-curving serrated teeth it is likely to have possessed long arms with clawed grasping hands and a sickle-like toe-claw for disembowelling prey."

Velociraptor Teeth

Mr. Munt continued: "There is some evidence that such dinosaurs hunted in packs and if that was the case Mr. Sweetman believes that there was almost nothing on Earth at the time which a pack of these Isle of Wight dinosaurs could not have tackled, killed and eaten. These teeth are an important find for Dinosaur Isle and also for palaeontology, as each new find brings us a clearer picture of the Cretaceous period in this region.” Visitors to Dinosaur Isle Museum over the autumn half term holiday will have the opportunity to see these exciting new discoveries.

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Dinosaur Isle Museum