Now For Something Really Nasty

Dinosaur lore has it that Tyrannosaurus rex, the king of the giant lizards, was the meanest creature ever to roam the earth: 10 m (33 ft.) long with 15-cm (6-in.) teeth and a voracious appetite. But fossilized claw, skull and jaw bones found in a quarry in eastern Utah point to a dinosaur that, while smaller than Tyrannosaurus, was probably a whole lot nastier. Labeled the "Utahraptor" until a more suitable scientific name can be found, the 7-m (20-ft.), one-ton beast is the largest specimen ever seen of a variety of dinosaur known as the Velociraptor, an upright, fast-moving carnivore that sported an enormous claw on the back of each foot for slashing at prey. It was, according to one researcher, "the wolverine of the Cretaceous."

Until the latest discovery, the largest velociraptor ever found was about the size of a human. But that did not stop Steven Spielberg from featuring supersize velociraptors in his upcoming movie Jurassic Park, based on the Michael Crichton novel of the same name. In it, real dinosaurs, grown from bits of ancient DNA to populate a theme park, go on a rampage and terrorize humans trapped there. Until the Utah find, Spielberg's creatures would have been just another Hollywood exaggeration; now, they will seem even more monstrously real.