Do you think the raptors should have been called deinonychus instead of veliraptor, since it lived Montana and was the same size as the movie raptors. I wonder why they didn't use deinonychus for the movies and books.
from T-man, age 17, ?, ?, ?; July 20, 2001

TOM: In a sense, they ARE using Deinonychus. During the 1980s dinosaur artist and researcher Greg Paul published a paper and book (Predatory Dinosaurs of the World) in which he proposed that Velociraptor mongoliensis and Deinonychus antirrhopus were not different enough from each other to be given separate genus names. So, because the name "Velociraptor" was used first, these dinosaurs would have to be called Velociraptor mongoliensis and Velociraptor antirrhopus.

When Michael Crichton started to write the book Jurassic Park, he used Predatory Dinosaurs of the World as one of his major references. This is why he called his creatures Velociraptor.

In the meantime, though, scientists have found sufficient new material of Deinonychus to demonstrate that they are more different than Greg Paul thought.