In a famous scene from “Jurassic Park,” ranger Robert Muldoon aims his sights at a velociraptor, only to be ambushed by another female velociraptor — a “clever girl,” as he says.
Partly because of iconic films like this, pack hunting among theropods (two-legged, meat-eating dinosaurs, including velociraptor and many others) is well ingrained in the public imagination. But researchers are at loggerheads over whether these extinct hunters were ever actually smart enough to work together to take down their prey.
The debate begins with the discovery of several Deinonychus antirrhopus specimens — a theropod whose first name means “terrible claw” — and a paleontological cold case involving a Tenontosaurus, an herbivore from the early Cretaceous.
Read More: The Real-Life Inspiration Behind the “Jurassic Park” Velociraptors
