![]() Cover of the book's first edition by Robert Bakker | |
Author | Robert T. Bakker |
---|---|
Genre | Science fiction |
Publisher | Bantam Books |
Publication date | October 1995 (hardcover) September 1996 (paperback) |
Publication place | United States |
Media type | Print (hardback & paperback) Audiobook |
Pages | 250 (paperback) |
ISBN | 0-553-10124-2 |
OCLC | 32429989 |
813/.54 20 | |
LC Class | PS3552.A43814 R3 1995 |
Raptor Red is a 1995 American novel by paleontologist Robert T. Bakker. The book is a third-person account of dinosaurs during the Cretaceous Period, told from the point of view of Raptor Red, a female Utahraptor . Raptor Red features many of Bakker's theories regarding dinosaurs' social habits, intelligence, and the world in which they lived.
The book follows a year in Raptor Red's life as she loses her mate, finds her family, and struggles to survive in a hostile environment. Bakker drew inspiration from Ernest Thompson Seton's works that look at life through the eyes of predators, and said that he found it enjoyable to write from a top predator's perspective. Bakker based his portrayals of dinosaurs and other prehistoric wildlife on fossil evidence, as well as studies of modern animals. The book was released in hardcover, paperback, and audiobook formats.
When released, Raptor Red was generally praised: Bakker's anthropomorphism was seen as a unique and positive aspect of the book. Criticisms of the novel included a perceived lack of characterization and average writing. Some scientists, such as paleontologist David B. Norman, took issue with the scientific theories portrayed in the novel, fearing that the public would accept them as fact, while Discovery Channel host Jay Ingram and others defended Bakker's creative decisions as provoking debate and bringing science to a wider audience.
Paleontologist Robert T. Bakker was motivated to write Raptor Red by his interest in dinosaur behavior and his desire to marry science and entertainment, saying that, "nature is a drama. It is the most ripping yarn ever written. You've got life and death and sex and betrayal and the best way to approach it is through individual animals." [1] According to Bakker, "It was fun to put myself in the mind of a raptor, especially since being a top predator is so challenging ... much harder than [being] a herbivore." [1] He credited the turn-of-the-century naturalist Ernest Thompson Seton's works that focused on life from the perspectives of grizzly bears and wolves as having inspired him to write the novel from the dinosaur's point of view. [1]
Raptor Red was an attempt to introduce Utahraptor to the public, as well as explain some of Bakker's theories regarding dinosaur behavior. [2] : 6–8 Bakker originally suggested the genus name Utahraptor for a new dinosaur specimen that had been found by an amateur bone-hunter in Utah. Bakker was at the time consulting with the designers of the Jurassic Park film, whose largest portrayed Velociraptor —called the "big female" in the script—was coincidentally the same size as the newly discovered specimen. [2] One of the novel's other goals was to dispel the common perception of predators as evil and portray them as creatures to be admired and empathized with. [3] Bakker's raptors are shown as monogamous, relatively intelligent and social creatures, an assertion he defended. "The life of dinosaurian hunters was hard. Most skeletons we excavate have clear marks of old wounds," he said. "To survive and raise their young, the predators needed more than sharp teeth and strong claws. They needed social bonds." [4] [5] The behavior of the raptors and other animals featured in the novel was based on a combination of fossil evidence and observations of modern animals, such as chimpanzees and alligators. [5] [4] Bakker also advanced his theory that an asteroid impact did not kill the dinosaurs in the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event, but rather diseases spread through migration. [3]
Bakker received a large advance for the novel from Bantam Books, rumored to be in the six-figure range. [5] The book was prominently featured at the American Booksellers' Convention in Chicago, alongside Michael Crichton's The Lost World . [6] Coverage of the event noted that both novels were on the trailing end of the dinosaur fad fueled by Jurassic Park, as the new trend in American books was shifting toward politics in the aftermath of the 1994 US elections. [7]
Raptor Red was initially published as a mass-market paperback and hardcover book, and was later released as an audiobook by Simon & Schuster Audio, read by Megan Gallagher. [8] Bakker's audiobook royalties—at least $34,000 by November 1995 [5] —were donated to the Tate Museum in Casper, Wyoming, [8] where he was curator. [9]
Raptor Red takes place approximately 120 million years ago, in the Early Cretaceous period of the Mesozoic. At the time, a land bridge had formed between Asia and the Americas, this allowed groups of foreign dinosaurs to invade present-day Utah; one of these foreign species is Utahraptor . Raptor Red's name comes from the symbols the dinosaur learns as a hatchling to self-identify with. [2] : 19 Bakker gives an individual view of each species of dinosaur or ancient creature in the same style as Red's experiences; these include a baby Gastonia who instinctively attacks what it does not understand with its clubbed tail, and a whip-tailed diplodocid who enjoys beating up predators. [10] Bakker prominently features the adventures of a "fur-ball" (mammal), Aegialodon ; according to the author, the emphasis was added because the Aegialodon is on the direct ancestral line to humans. [3] Aegialodon, however, did not live in the same time and place as Utahraptor, hailing from England about 136 million years ago. [11] Some of the other animals featured in the novel were closer in time and place to Utahraptor but not strictly contemporary. For example, fossils attributable to Acrocanthosaurus and Deinonychus are known from the same rock formation as Utahraptor (the Cedar Mountain Formation), but from sediments about five million years younger. [12]
In the book's opening, the title character and her mate ambush a herd of Astrodon , which are large herbivorous sauropods. The Astrodon are surprised, thinking that their bulk deters smaller predators. Utahraptor, however, are much larger than any resident raptor, and proceed to take down an Astrodon with teamwork. When Red's mate climbs onto the dead Astrodon, the corpse rolls in the mud, trapping the male under the bulk of the animal. Despite Red's best efforts, her mate suffocates. Despondent, Red wanders around the floodplain, nearly starving since a Utahraptor cannot successfully hunt big game on its own.
Red follows a familiar scent and is reunited with her sister, a single mother with three chicks. The two hunt together and bring food back to the nest for the young. A white pterosaur, one Red has seen since she hatched, helps the two by finding carrion and prey in exchange for a helping of meat. On one hunting expedition, when the two adult Utahraptor are stalking a herd of Iguanodon , Red spies a young male Utahraptor that is watching their prey. He begins a courtship dance for Red, but Red's sister chases him off, hissing. Her growls agitate the Iguanodon, who stampede; the male hastily leaves. After climbing into a tree to escape a flash flood, Red encounters the male raptor again, who performs a courtship dance while hanging onto the tree branches. Red's sister begrudgingly allows the male to stay with them, provided he steers clear of her chicks.
For a while, Red and her pack are happy, feeding off the plentiful carrion left by receding flood waters, but the pack's way of life is upset by an invasion of large Acrocanthosaurus , huge meat-eating dinosaurs. The added competition for food puts strain on the pack, as does the unexpected death of one of the chicks. A fight erupts between the male raptor and Red's sister. Red, torn between a prospective mate and her kin, tries to defuse the situation. Two Acrocanthosaurus watch the commotion and take the opportunity to attack the Utahraptor. Meanwhile, a Kronosaurus ambushes one of the chicks on the beach. Seeing the danger, Red lures one Acrocanthosaurus into deep water where it is dragged under by the Kronosaurus. Red saves her family, but her consort is forced away by Red's sister.
Facing continued threats from the Acrocanthosaurus, Red, her sister and the chicks are forced up into the mountains. They encounter ice and snow for the first time, and kill a segnosaur in a cave, turning the den into their nest. The older chick accompanies the two adults on hunting expeditions. One day the raptors encounter a strange creature they have never seen—a whip-tailed diplodocid who inflicts wounds on Red and her sister; the older chick is forced to set off alone and find the pack's food. This calamity coincides with the arrival of a large pack of smaller raptors known as Deinonychus . They surround the nest and wait for the wounded raptors to become weak enough to attack.
Red's sister dies, and Red is crippled and defenseless against the smaller dinosaurs. The Deinonychus close in but are driven back by the sudden arrival of the older Utahraptor chick and Red's consort, who defend the nest. Some time later, the old white pterosaur circles over Red's mountain stronghold, and finds the pack has grown considerably. Red and her niece have chicks of their own, who are having fun rolling down a hill. The satisfied pterosaur leaves, having found a mate as well.
Bakker anthropomorphizes the dinosaurs in Raptor Red; the raptors and other wildlife are depicted as demonstrating intellect and emotion. [13] Doctor Patricia E. Chu classified Raptor Red as a cinematic and modern "animal story" in the vein of previous works such as Jack London's White Fang . [14] While the animals in Raptor Red are heavily anthropomorphized—Bakker has one dinosaur aware of its own mortality—they are also described in highly technical or technologic terms, such as describing a raptor's brain like a computer, or its imprinting through descriptions of biochemistry. [14]
Raptor Red was favorably received by critics and the mainstream press. Much praise was given to Bakker's anthropomorphizing of the dinosaurs; [4] [5] [15] [16] a reviewer for the Toronto Star said that "Raptor Red does for dinosaurs what some nature writing does for creatures alive today: it turns data into stories. And stories are what all of us need to make these animals—even dinosaurs—come alive." [17] Mark Nichols of Maclean's said that Bakker's success lay in making the reader hope that the dinosaurs were indeed creatures as Bakker portrayed. [18] James Gorman, writing for Natural History , compared Bakker's heroine to a "bloody-minded Jane Austen character—bound by family ties, thoroughly responsible, yet longing for independence and love." [19] A review in The Psychological Record recommended the book as a "conceptually-rich and controversial" explanation for dinosaur behavior. [13]
While the Library Journal 's review praised Bakker's sympathetic characterization for never becoming cartoonish, [15] other critics felt that the anthropomorphizing of the dinosaurs veered too far into exaggeration. [20] Other criticisms included a lack of character needed for truly engrossing fiction. [21] Reviewers described Bakker's work as genuine, despite flaws such as inconsistent writing. [18] [19] [22] Billboard praised Megan Gallagher's narration of the audiobook, with its continuous sound effects and dramatic music to creating an "aural picture". [8] Entertainment Weekly gave Raptor Red its "Best of Breed Award" for a "captivating novel about animal life". [23]
Many critical reviews of the work came from scientists who objected to Bakker's dramatic license and departure from established facts. [24] The paleontologist Thomas Holtz noted that Bakker combined fauna in ways not directly supported by the fossil record; for example, several of the dinosaurs featured in the books lived millions of years after Utahraptor died out. [25] Michael Taylor, curator of vertebrate paleontology at the National Museums of Scotland, panned the book, saying that "Raptor Red is an accurate portrayal only within the context of uncertainties over the reconstruction of fossil animals as living forms ... Bakker's postscript never really admits these uncertainties." [17] David B. Norman criticized the book as "no more than a children's adventure story—and a rather poorly written one at that ... The merging of science and fantasy is at its worst in books like Raptor Red because none but the experts can disentangle fact from fiction; this type of nonsense turns an uninformed reader into a misinformed one." [26] Jay Ingram, from the Discovery Channel, published a rebuttal, saying, "The most important point is that Bakker's portrayal of the dinosaurs in Raptor Red is vivid—vivid in a way few museum displays or factual accounts can be. And if it turns out in the long run that some of the speculation is unwarranted, who cares? Bob Bakker has given us a unique window onto the era of dinosaurs." [17]
According to Bakker, the novel's success led to interest in a movie deal from Hollywood. [5] Producer Robert Halmi Sr. made deals with Jim Henson's Creature Shop for film adaptations of Animal Farm and Raptor Red in 1996. [27] No official project has been announced.
Velociraptor is a genus of small dromaeosaurid dinosaurs that lived in Asia during the Late Cretaceous epoch, about 75 million to 71 million years ago. Two species are currently recognized, although others have been assigned in the past. The type species is V. mongoliensis, named and described in 1924. Fossils of this species have been discovered in the Djadochta Formation, Mongolia. A second species, V. osmolskae, was named in 2008 for skull material from the Bayan Mandahu Formation, China.
Deinonychus is a genus of dromaeosaurid theropod dinosaur with one described species, Deinonychus antirrhopus. This species, which could grow up to 3.4 meters (11 ft) long, lived during the early Cretaceous Period, about 115–108 million years ago. Fossils have been recovered from the U.S. states of Montana, Utah, Wyoming, and Oklahoma, in rocks of the Cloverly Formation and Antlers Formation, though teeth that may belong to Deinonychus have been found much farther east in Maryland.
Utahraptor is a genus of large dromaeosaurid dinosaur that lived during the Early Cretaceous period from around 135 to 130 million years ago in what is now the United States. The genus was described in 1993 by American paleontologist James Kirkland and colleagues with the type species Utahraptor ostrommaysi, based on fossils that had been unearthed earlier from the Cedar Mountain Formation of Utah. Later, many additional specimens were described including those from the skull and postcranium in addition to those of younger individuals.
Dromaeosauridae is a family of feathered coelurosaurian theropod dinosaurs. They were generally small to medium-sized feathered carnivores that flourished in the Cretaceous Period. The name Dromaeosauridae means 'running lizards', from Greek δρομαῖος (dromaîos), meaning 'running at full speed', 'swift', and σαῦρος (saûros), meaning 'lizard'. In informal usage, they are often called raptors, a term popularized by the film Jurassic Park; several genera include the term "raptor" directly in their name, and popular culture has come to emphasize their bird-like appearance and speculated bird-like behavior.
Robert Thomas Bakker is an American paleontologist who helped reshape modern theories about dinosaurs, particularly by adding support to the theory that some dinosaurs were endothermic (warm-blooded). Along with his mentor John Ostrom, Bakker was responsible for initiating the ongoing "dinosaur renaissance" in paleontological studies, beginning with Bakker's article "Dinosaur Renaissance" in the April 1975 issue of Scientific American. His specialty is the ecological context and behavior of dinosaurs.
Dromaeosaurus is a genus of dromaeosaurid theropod dinosaur that lived during the Late Cretaceous period, sometime between 80 and 69 million years ago, in Alberta, Canada and the western United States. The type species is Dromaeosaurus albertensis, which was described by William Diller Matthew and Barnum Brown in 1922. Its fossils were unearthed in the Hell Creek Formation, Horseshoe Canyon Formation and Dinosaur Park Formation. Teeth attributed to this genus have been found in the Prince Creek Formation. Dromaeosaurus is the type genus of both Dromaeosauridae and Dromaeosaurinae, which include many genera with similar characteristics to Dromaeosaurus such as possibly its closest relative Dakotaraptor. Dromaeosaurus was heavily built, more so than other dromaeosaurs that are similar in size, like Velociraptor.
Sauroposeidon is a genus of sauropod dinosaur known from several incomplete specimens including a bone bed and fossilized trackways that have been found in the U.S. states of Oklahoma, Wyoming, and Texas.
Acrocanthosaurus is a genus of carcharodontosaurid dinosaur that existed in what is now North America during the Aptian and early Albian stages of the Early Cretaceous, from 113 to 110 million years ago. Like most dinosaur genera, Acrocanthosaurus contains only a single species, A. atokensis. It had a continent-wide range, with fossil remains known from the U.S. states of Oklahoma, Texas, and Wyoming in the west, and Maryland in the east.
John Harold Ostrom was an American paleontologist who revolutionized the modern understanding of dinosaurs. Ostrom's work inspired what his pupil Robert T. Bakker has termed a "dinosaur renaissance".
Age of Reptiles is a comic written by Ricardo Delgado published by Dark Horse Comics.
Tenontosaurus is a genus of iguanodontian ornithopod dinosaur. It had an unusually long, broad tail, which like its back was stiffened with a network of bony tendons.
Microvenator is a genus of dinosaur from the Early Cretaceous Cloverly Formation in what is now south central Montana. Microvenator was an oviraptorosaurian theropod. The holotype fossil is an incomplete skeleton, most likely a juvenile with a length of 1.3 m (4.3 ft), and consequently, the adult size remains uncertain. Microvenator celer is primitive and may be the "sister taxon to all other oviraptorosaurs."
Astrodon is a genus of large herbivorous sauropod dinosaur, measuring 20 m (66 ft) in length, 9 m (30 ft) in height and 20 metric tons in body mass. It lived in what is now the eastern United States during the Early Cretaceous period, and fossils have been found in the Arundel Formation, which has been dated through palynomorphs to the Albian about 112 to 110 million years ago.
Tyrannosaurus rex is unique among dinosaurs in its place in modern culture; paleontologist Robert Bakker has called it "the most popular dinosaur among people of all ages, all cultures, and all nationalities". Paleontologists Mark Norell and Lowell Dingus have likewise called it "the most famous dinosaur of all times." Paleoartist Gregory S. Paul has called it "the theropod. [...] This is the public's favorite dinosaur [...] Even the formations it is found in have fantastic names like Hell Creek and Lance." Other paleontologists agree with that and note that whenever a museum erects a new skeleton or bring in an animatronic model, visitor numbers go up. "Jurassic Park and King Kong would not have been the same without it." In the public mind, T. rex sets the standard of what a dinosaur should be. Science writer Riley Black similarly states, "In all of prehistory, there is no animal that commands our attention quite like Tyrannosaurus rex, the king of the tyrant lizards. Since the time this dinosaur was officially named in 1905, the enormous carnivore has stood as the ultimate dinosaur."
Mapusaurus was a giant carcharodontosaurid carnosaurian dinosaur from Argentina during the Turonian age of the Late Cretaceous.
A fossil track or ichnite is a fossilized footprint. This is a type of trace fossil. A fossil trackway is a sequence of fossil tracks left by a single organism. Over the years, many ichnites have been found, around the world, giving important clues about the behaviour of the animals that made them. For instance, multiple ichnites of a single species, close together, suggest 'herd' or 'pack' behaviour of that species.
Dinosaurs: Giants of Patagonia is a 2007 film about life in the Early Cretaceous of Patagonia, southern South America. It features paleontologist Rodolfo Coria and his work, with Donald Sutherland acting as main narrator.
Eudromaeosauria is a subgroup of terrestrial dromaeosaurid theropod dinosaurs. They were small to large-sized predators that flourished during the Cretaceous Period. Eudromaeosaur fossils are known almost exclusively from the northern hemisphere.
Dakotaraptor is a chimaeric genus of maniraptoriform theropod dinosaur that lived in western North America during the Late Cretaceous period. The remains have been found in the Maastrichtian-aged Hell Creek Formation, dated to the very end of the Mesozoic era, making Dakotaraptor potentially one of the last surviving dromaeosaurids, though other researchers have disputed its classification. The remains of D. steini were discovered in a multi-species bonebed. Elements of the holotype and referred specimens were later found to belong to trionychid turtles, and it is unclear whether further analysis of potential non-dromaeosaurid affinities of the holotype and referred material can be properly conducted, because currently the type specimen is housed in private collection. Phylogenetic analyses of D. steini place it in a variety of positions within Dromaeosauridae.
Velociraptor was popularized by its appearance in the Jurassic Park franchise, which features numerous individuals. They first appear in Michael Crichton's 1990 novel Jurassic Park, followed by a 1993 film adaptation from director Steven Spielberg, which spawned a series of films. Despite their name, Crichton heavily based the Velociraptors on the larger Deinonychus, and this was carried over into the films. The on-screen raptors were created using several production methods, including animatronics by Stan Winston and CGI by Industrial Light & Magic (ILM).