Do you have a favourite raptor?

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

Boru

I have three:

Extant:  The harpy eagle. Looks like a hawk trying to be an owl and just missing.  One of the largest living eagles.  Eats sloths and monkeys.



Extinct:  Haast's eagle. This 35lb bird was able to take down a 250lb moa, and may have occasionally preyed on humans. Became extinct early in the 15th century after the Maori hunted the moa to extinction.



Literary:  Lancre wowhawk, or lappet-faced worrier. 

Fewer birds could sit more meekly than the Lancre wowhawk, or lappet-faced worrier, a carnivore permanently on the lookout for the vegetarian option. It spent most of its time asleep in any case, but when forced to find food it tended to sit on a branch out of the wind somewhere and wait for something to die. When in the mews the worriers would initially perch like other birds and then, talons clamped to the pole, doze off peacefully upside down.
Hodgesaargh bred them because they were found only in Lancre and he liked the plumage, but all reputable falconers agreed that for hunting purposes the only way you could reliably bring down prey with a wowhawk was by using it in a
slingshot. 

Boru

[Deesse23]

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

Budgie?

Boru

[Anomalocaris]

Raptor can also refer to the family of dromaeosaurid carnivorous dinosaurs distinguished by highly bird like anatomy.   Velociraptor is the most famous member first popularized by Jurassic park movie franchise.     

Dromeosaurid dinosaurs in fact are so Extraordinarily bird like in detailed anatomy some paleontologist proposed that, rather than merely deriving from a close common ancestor with True birds in the manner believed to be true of tyrannosaurs and other bird like dinosaurs, the Dromaeosaurids were In fact True birds.   In this theory they would have descended from Flight capable true birds that had split from all other dinosaurs and proceeded well down the path of birds and bird flight and then secondarily retro-adopted back to a purely terrestrial flightless niche.   Think of them as sort of like Like The later flightless terror birds of Cenozoic South America, but far more comprehensively retro-adopted to large terrestrial carnivores niche.

Velociraptor of Jurassic park was vastly exaggerated in size.  Real velociraptor ranged in size from those of a chicken to those of a turkey.   But there are far larger Dromaeosaurids.     The largest well known is utahraptor, Estimated to be 1000 lbs, or similar in weight to polar bear or Alaska Kodak bear.

Utahraptor:



There are fragmentary remains that suggest even larger raptor dinosaur may have existed.   Proposed ultra raptor, if correctly interpreted, would approach the size and weight of the tyrannosaurs.

[ignoramus]

[Rev. Rye]

[arewethereyet]

Chewy has lived with us for over twenty years.  Definitely my favorite raptor.

[Shell B]

Velociraptor

[Gawdzilla Sama]

[Brian37]

i have to say Owls are my favorite. Certainly not the biggest, but my late mother loved owls.