25 Pyroraptor Facts For Kids.
Full of feathers, full of teeth, full of fire and looking like an angry version of “Fawks” the phoenix from Harry Potter, the pyroraptor is a relatively unknown dinosaur. it has one of the coolest names we have ever seen of any dinosaur. pyroraptor means “fire thief” which is awesome!
Pyroraptor or “fire thief” was a small feathered member of the dromaeosauridae family that lived around 77 million years ago. It is named following its discovery after a forest fire in France in 1992. It is estimated to be between 3-4 feet long, and 5 to 10lbs in weight with a 6.5cm claw similar to other raptors.
It was certainly a cool looking dinosaur, and even if a little (maybe more than a little) oversized in the Jurassic World Dominion Movie, it still was great to see a fully feathered dinosaur at last in the franchise.
We have 25 pyroraptor facts for you below, to help you learn more about this new, and little known dinosaur. We also have loads more dinosaur information and facts on the links in the menu above for you to browse and learn as you want.
There are also printable to download and collect with dinosaur facts on the Pyroraptor and others on our site too. So check those out once you have learnt about the pyroraptor!
25 Facts about the Pyroraptor.
1: The Pyroraptor was a small raptor, about the size of a turkey Not many bones have been found but we know it had a claw about 2.5 inches long (6.5 cm)
2: Like others in the family, (dromaeosauridae),the microraptor and the sinornithosaurus, it would have been feathered and looked quite like a hawk or vulture
3: It had razor sharp teeth which it used to rip apart its prey, there have only been two teeth found but these were flat and curved backwards like a tiger shark and they were serrated to cut through meat.
4: Pyroraptor was quite small and would only stand about 2 -3 feet high when on its hind legs. So the one in Jurassic world, Dominion, as Ian Malcolm is famous for saying, is bigger, they always make them bigger!
4.5. There is no evidence that pyroraptor was aquatic or had specialized swimming abilities. It lived in what was then a group of islands called Ibero-Armorican which were 400 or so Kilometres long. These were large enough to sustain pyroraptor populations, so the need to migrate or swim to other areas would be minimal.
We are aware of the penguin like abilities that Jurassic World dominion has bestowed on the Pyroraptor and can only put this down to artistic license, genetic modification and rumor.
5: It is named as the fossils, two teeth an arm bone and the claws, were found after a forest fire in provence in france. It was discovered after a forest fire – hence the name Pyroraptor. Pyro means fire in greek. So the name means fire thief.
6: Its claws although probably used for hunting, could have also been used for climbing as well.
7. It makes an appearance in the Jurassic World Dominion Movie, but it hugely oversized in this when compared to the fossil findings. However it is just a movie so maybe Doctor Woo beefed it up to make it as large as their velociraptor.
8. it is unknown if this raptor could fly, however its feathers and small size don’t mean it is possible. We simply don’t know enough yet either way. it is thought that the microraptor, a relative, may have been able to glide or fly a little but not like we see birds do today.
9. It is likely to have lived in prehistoric forests, with plenty of cover and trees to hind and hunt in.
10: It is believed that the pyroraptor died out around 66 million years ago, during the extinction of the dinosaurs and lived from about 70 million years ago. This makes it ( in dinosaur terms) a fairly recent dinosaur!
11: There are only a few known fossils of the pyroraptor the original ones being discovered in France, and some additional ones unearthed in Spain.
12: The pyroraptor was about 2 feet tall and 4 feet long, a little larger than a turkey, but less heavy. ( than a thanksgiving and christmas one at least!)
13: It lived in what is now Europe, although 66 million years ago the earth looked a lot different.
14: Pyroraptor was a relatively small dinosaur and likely weighed between 5 and 10 pounds
15: The pyroraptor had a diet of small animals, such as lizards, rodents and birds and judging from the teeth, and other members of its family was most certainly a carnivore.
16: It is believed that the pyroraptor was an excellent runner like other small theropods.
17: It was alive during the late cretaceous era which means it was alive at the same time as triceratops and Tyrannosaurus rex, and velociraptor .
18: The pyroraptor may have been able to climb trees using its claws, either for safety, hunting or nesting. Although its claws were pretty big for its size, they were very small when compared to the therizinosaurus which had 3ft long claws!
19: It is not known what color the pyroraptor feathers were, artistic license in various movies and documentaries has made them fairly brightly colored red and blue dinosaurs but the fact remains that we don’t know.
20. Like other similar series of dinosaur pyroraptor would have had well developed fore limbs with claws, and would have been fast for its size, but if it did live in forests it may have relied on ambush rather than sprinting down prey.
21: The pyroraptor is one of the most recently discovered dinosaurs, and although it was discovered in 1992, it wasn’t classified and named until 2000. By french paleontologists Ronan Allain and Phillippe Taquet.
22: The pyroraptor is currently being studied by scientists in order to learn more about its behavior and biology until more fossils are discovered all we can do is use evidence from other dromaeosaurs to estimate the size and behavior of the pyroraptor.
23: It was featured in a documentary called “Dinotasia” from 2012, which you can see the trailer here.
24. The pyroraptor belonged to the family dromaeosauridae, which was a part of the theropod class ( dinosaurs that walked on two legs) it is the only member of dromaeosauridae that has been found in Europe so far.
25: The pyroraptor was likely feathered, more heavily than other popular dinosaurs. The pyroraptor feathers may have been used for insulation or display, In the Movie Jurassic World Dominion it has a lot of feathers.
Conclusion
We hope you enjoyed these 25 fun facts about the pyroraptor! It is a relatively new dinosaur to all of us so hopefully more and more information will be discovered about this tiny terror, especially with its recent appearance in Jurassic World Dominion.
If you want to learn more about the fascinating pyroraptor (fire thief) or other dinosaurs both well know and little-known we recommend checking out the rest of the site and the dinosaur facts on the menu at the top of the page, where we have Dino facts, Dinosaur questions and loads of dinosaur printables to collect and help you learn.
Some of My Dinosaur Resource Recommendations for Home and School.
Thanks for taking the time to read our facts and questions articles, as a teacher myself i have struggled to find resources in one place and that is why this website was born. I simply love teaching students about dinosaurs both in my role as a language and General Studies teacher. However there is sometimes a need for something more concrete than a printout (as useful as we think ours are! )
There is something awesome about the feeling of awe that these amazing creatures instil in our children and students. To further help you, and potentially me, i have included a few resources below that i have found to be incredibly successful when explaining dinosaurs to children, these range form books and resources, to toys fossils and dinosaur figures.
Sometimes having something tactile to touch in those tiny hands help to focus and cement learning and develop those big brains! Hope they are helpful too.
Dinosaur Books and Readers
There are of course hundreds of excellent, and not so excellent books on Dinosaurs for Children out there. So rather than, yet, go into huge detail. I will highlight the ones I love to use with my students from ages 6 to 10. We have include AR in these as well. ( nothing quite like a moving dinosaur in front of you!
Fossil Sets
I cant say how great these are to use in a classroom while reading with a group. the chance to read about a dinosaur and then touch a real piece is simply great. I have a selection ( self confessed dinosaur geek) but a cheap set of 10 or so will do the trick just as well. Dinosaur poop is great as well!!! i pass it round and ask them to guess what it is first!
Dinosaur Figures
I actually use realia in a lot of classes especially with animals and dinosaurs, and figures help to show the kind of animal we are reading about. It is possible to spend hundreds of dollars on dinosaur figures but ther eis no need, either as a teacher or a parent. The set below and similar we have used to help students picture dinosaurs to great effect.
References
https://jurassicpark.fandom.com/wiki/Pyroraptor
https://alchetron.com/Pyroraptor
Hi, I am Roy Ford a General Studies and English Teacher who has taught all over the world. What started as a fossil collection became a great way to teach, motivate and inspire students of all ages and all over the world about dinosaurs and from that and children’s love of dinosaurs came the site dinosaur facts for kids, a resource for all ages.
