Raptor Red
Encyclopedia
Raptor Red is a 1995 American novel by paleontologist Robert T. Bakker
. The book is a third-person account of dinosaur
s 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 "fun" 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.
When released, Raptor Red was generally praised: Bakker's anthropomorphism
was seen as a unique and positive aspect of the book, and his writing was described as folksy and heartfelt. 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 defended Bakker's creative decisions in an editorial.
. 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 Utahraptor. Bakker was motivated to write the book by both 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." 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." He credited the turn-of-the-century naturalist
Ernest Thompson Seton
's works that focused on life from the perspectives of grizzly bear
s and wolves as having inspired him to write the novel from the dinosaur's point of view.
Raptor Red was an attempt to introduce Utahraptor to the public, as well as explain some of Bakker's theories regarding dinosaur behavior. Bakker's raptors are shown as monogamous, relatively intelligent and social creatures, an assertion he defends, saying "the life of dinosaurian hunters was hard. Most skeletons we excavate have clear marks of old wounds. To survive and raise their young, the predators needed more than sharp teeth and strong claws. They needed social bonds." Bakker also advances his controversial theory that an asteroid impact did not kill the dinosaurs in the Cretaceous–Tertiary extinction event, but rather a disease spread through migration.
Another of the novel's goals was to dispel the common perception of predators as evil and portray them as creatures to be admired and empathized with. "Being a top predator is difficult," Bakker said, noting that fossils of big predators often show multiple broken and healed bones, as well as signs of serious infections, all evidence of a harsh lifestyle. He continued, "Most predators had some trauma, they had been beaten up—for a simple reason: Dinner fights back." 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.
Bakker received a large advance for the novel from Bantam Books
, rumored to be in the six-figure range. The book was prominently featured at the American Booksellers' Convention in Chicago, alongside Michael Crichton
's The Lost World. 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
.
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
. Bakker's audiobook royalties—at least $34,000 by November 1995—were donated to the Tate Museum in Casper, Wyoming
, where he was curator.
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. 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. 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. Aegialodon, however, did not live in the same time and place as Utahraptor, hailing from England
about 136 million years ago. 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 5 million years younger.
, 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 the female Acrocanthosaurus into deep water where the larger predator is dragged under by the Kronosaurus. Red saves her family, but at a price—her consort is forced away by Red's sister.
Facing continual 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
. Sensing the weakness of the Utahraptor pack, 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 and wait for Red to die, but are driven back by a sudden attack—the older Utahraptor chick returns with Red's consort to defend the nest, driving back the Deinonychus. Some time later, the old white pterosaur circles over Red's mountain stronghold, and finds the pack has grown considerably. Both Red and the older chick have found mates and have chicks, who are having fun rolling down a hill. The satisfied pterosaur leaves with a mate and offspring of his own.
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." 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.
In contrast to this positive reception, Entertainment Weekly
felt that the anthropomorphising of the dinosaurs veered close to "a Disney cartoon." Other criticisms from the press included a lack of character needed for truly engrossing fiction. Reviewers described Bakker's work as "thoroughly heartfelt," despite flaws such as inconsistent writing; Men's News Daily, a site which focuses on social values, suggested that Bakker's raptors "possess a quaint, special appeal in today's social climate". Megan Gallagher's narration of the audiobook, combined with continuous sound effects and dramatic music to create an "aural picture," was also praised. Entertainment Weekly gave Raptor Red its "Best of Breed Award" for a "captivating novel about animal life".
Many critical reviews of the work came from scientists who objected to Bakker's looseness with scientific fact. 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. 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." 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." 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."
According to Bakker, the novel's success led to interest in a movie deal from Hollywood. According to Daily Variety in 1996, producer Robert Halmi Sr. made deals with Jim Henson's Creature Shop
for film adaptations of Animal Farm and Raptor Red. No official project has been announced.
Robert T. Bakker
Robert T. Bakker is an American paleontologist who helped reshape modern theories about dinosaurs, particularly by adding support to the theory that some dinosaurs were endothermic...
. The book is a third-person account of dinosaur
Dinosaur
Dinosaurs are a diverse group of animals of the clade and superorder Dinosauria. They were the dominant terrestrial vertebrates for over 160 million years, from the late Triassic period until the end of the Cretaceous , when the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event led to the extinction of...
s during the Cretaceous Period, told from the point of view of Raptor Red, a female Utahraptor
Utahraptor
Utahraptor is a genus of theropod dinosaurs, including the largest known members of the family Dromaeosauridae. Fossil specimens date to the upper Barremian stage of the early Cretaceous period...
. 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
Ernest Thompson Seton
Ernest Thompson Seton was a Scots-Canadian who became a noted author, wildlife artist, founder of the Woodcraft Indians, and one of the founding pioneers of the Boy Scouts of America . Seton also influenced Lord Baden-Powell, the founder of Scouting...
's works that look at life through the eyes of predators, and said that he found it "fun" to write from a top predator
Apex predator
Apex predators are predators that have no predators of their own, residing at the top of their food chain. Zoologists define predation as the killing and consumption of another organism...
's perspective. Bakker based his portrayals of dinosaurs and other prehistoric wildlife on fossil evidence, as well as studies of modern animals.
When released, Raptor Red was generally praised: Bakker's anthropomorphism
Anthropomorphism
Anthropomorphism is any attribution of human characteristics to animals, non-living things, phenomena, material states, objects or abstract concepts, such as organizations, governments, spirits or deities. The term was coined in the mid 1700s...
was seen as a unique and positive aspect of the book, and his writing was described as folksy and heartfelt. Criticisms of the novel included a perceived lack of characterization and average writing. Some scientists, such as paleontologist David B. Norman
David B. Norman
David Bruce Norman is a British paleontologist, currently Director of the Sedgwick Museum, Cambridge University. He is a fellow at Christ's College, Cambridge where he teaches geology in the Natural Sciences tripos. He is a member of the Palaeontological Association. He has studied Iguanodon...
, 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 defended Bakker's creative decisions in an editorial.
Background
Paleontologist Robert T. Bakker originally suggested the genus name Utahraptor for a new dinosaur specimen that had been found by an amateur bone-hunter in UtahUtah
Utah is a state in the Western United States. It was the 45th state to join the Union, on January 4, 1896. Approximately 80% of Utah's 2,763,885 people live along the Wasatch Front, centering on Salt Lake City. This leaves vast expanses of the state nearly uninhabited, making the population the...
. Bakker was at the time consulting with the designers of the Jurassic Park
Jurassic Park (film)
Jurassic Park is a 1993 American science fiction adventure film directed by Steven Spielberg. The film is based on the novel of the same name by Michael Crichton. It stars Sam Neill, Laura Dern, Jeff Goldblum, Richard Attenborough, Martin Ferrero, and Bob Peck...
film, whose largest portrayed Velociraptor
Velociraptor
Velociraptor is a genus of dromaeosaurid theropod dinosaur that existed approximately 75 to 71 million years ago during the later part of the Cretaceous Period. Two species are currently recognized, although others have been assigned in the past. The type species is V. mongoliensis; fossils...
—called the "big female" in the script—was coincidentally the same size as the newly discovered Utahraptor. Bakker was motivated to write the book by both 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." 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." He credited the turn-of-the-century naturalist
Naturalism (philosophy)
Naturalism commonly refers to the philosophical viewpoint that the natural universe and its natural laws and forces operate in the universe, and that nothing exists beyond the natural universe or, if it does, it does not affect the natural universe that we know...
Ernest Thompson Seton
Ernest Thompson Seton
Ernest Thompson Seton was a Scots-Canadian who became a noted author, wildlife artist, founder of the Woodcraft Indians, and one of the founding pioneers of the Boy Scouts of America . Seton also influenced Lord Baden-Powell, the founder of Scouting...
's works that focused on life from the perspectives of grizzly bear
Grizzly Bear
The grizzly bear , also known as the silvertip bear, the grizzly, or the North American brown bear, is a subspecies of brown bear that generally lives in the uplands of western North America...
s and wolves as having inspired him to write the novel from the dinosaur's point of view.
Raptor Red was an attempt to introduce Utahraptor to the public, as well as explain some of Bakker's theories regarding dinosaur behavior. Bakker's raptors are shown as monogamous, relatively intelligent and social creatures, an assertion he defends, saying "the life of dinosaurian hunters was hard. Most skeletons we excavate have clear marks of old wounds. To survive and raise their young, the predators needed more than sharp teeth and strong claws. They needed social bonds." Bakker also advances his controversial theory that an asteroid impact did not kill the dinosaurs in the Cretaceous–Tertiary extinction event, but rather a disease spread through migration.
Bakker received a large advance for the novel from Bantam Books
Bantam Books
Bantam Books is an American publishing house owned entirely by Random House, the German media corporation subsidiary of Bertelsmann; it is an imprint of the Random House Publishing Group. It was formed in 1945 by Walter B. Pitkin, Jr., Sidney B. Kramer, and Ian and Betty Ballantine...
, rumored to be in the six-figure range. The book was prominently featured at the American Booksellers' Convention in Chicago, alongside Michael Crichton
Michael Crichton
John Michael Crichton , best known as Michael Crichton, was an American best-selling author, producer, director, and screenwriter, best known for his work in the science fiction, medical fiction, and thriller genres. His books have sold over 200 million copies worldwide, and many have been adapted...
's The Lost World. 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
United States elections, 1994
The 1994 elections in the United States were held on November 8, 1994. This was the year known as the Republican Revolution, in which members of the Republican Party stormed back to majorities in the House and Senate...
.
Raptor Red was initially published as a mass-market paperback and hardcover book, and was later released as an audiobook by Simon & Schuster
Simon & Schuster
Simon & Schuster, Inc., a division of CBS Corporation, is a publisher founded in New York City in 1924 by Richard L. Simon and M. Lincoln Schuster. It is one of the four largest English-language publishers, alongside Random House, Penguin and HarperCollins...
Audio, read by Megan Gallagher
Megan Gallagher
Megan Gallagher is an American actress.Gallagher was born in Reading, Pennsylvania and grew up in Wyomissing, Pennsylvania. Her mother, Aileen Gallagher, was a model.Gallagher has largely worked in television and theatre...
. Bakker's audiobook royalties—at least $34,000 by November 1995—were donated to the Tate Museum in Casper, Wyoming
Casper, Wyoming
Casper is the county seat of Natrona County, Wyoming, United States.. Casper is the second-largest city in Wyoming , according to the 2010 census, with a population of 55,316...
, where he was curator.
Setting and characters
Raptor Red takes place approximately 120 million years ago, in the Early CretaceousEarly Cretaceous
The Early Cretaceous or the Lower Cretaceous , is the earlier or lower of the two major divisions of the Cretaceous...
period of the Mesozoic
Mesozoic
The Mesozoic era is an interval of geological time from about 250 million years ago to about 65 million years ago. It is often referred to as the age of reptiles because reptiles, namely dinosaurs, were the dominant terrestrial and marine vertebrates of the time...
. 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
Utahraptor
Utahraptor is a genus of theropod dinosaurs, including the largest known members of the family Dromaeosauridae. Fossil specimens date to the upper Barremian stage of the early Cretaceous period...
. Raptor Red's name comes from the symbols the dinosaur learns as a hatchling to self-identify with. 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
Gastonia (dinosaur)
Gastonia is a genus of nodosaurid dinosaur from the Early Cretaceous of North America, around 125 million years ago. Closely related to Polacanthus, it has a sacral shield and large shoulder spikes. It is also the first polacanthine dinosaur to have been mounted for display at the Denver Museum of...
who instinctively attacks what it does not understand with its clubbed tail, and a whip-tailed diplodocid
Diplodocid
Diplodocids, or members of the family Diplodocidae , are a group of sauropod dinosaurs. The family includes some of the longest creatures ever to walk the earth, including Diplodocus and Supersaurus, which may have reached lengths of up to .-Description:While still massive, when compared to the...
who enjoys beating up predators. Bakker prominently features the adventures of a "fur-ball" (mammal
Mammal
Mammals are members of a class of air-breathing vertebrate animals characterised by the possession of endothermy, hair, three middle ear bones, and mammary glands functional in mothers with young...
), Aegialodon
Aegialodon
Aegialodon dawsoni was a mammal from the early Cretaceous, known from fossilised teeth discovered in the Wadhurst Clay Formation near Cliff End, Hastings, East Sussex.-In popular culture:...
; according to the author, the emphasis was added because the Aegialodon is on the direct ancestral line to humans. Aegialodon, however, did not live in the same time and place as Utahraptor, hailing from England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
about 136 million years ago. 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
Cedar Mountain Formation
The Cedar Mountain Formation is the name given to distinctive sedimentary rocks in eastern Utah that occur between the underlying Morrison Formation and overlying Naturita Formation . It is composed of non-marine sediments, that is, sediments deposited in rivers, lakes and on flood plains...
), but from sediments about 5 million years younger.
Plot
In the book's opening, the title character and her mate ambush a herd of AstrodonAstrodon
Astrodon was a genus of large herbivorous sauropod dinosaur, related to Brachiosaurus, that lived in what is now the eastern United States during the Early Cretaceous period. Its fossils have been found in the Arundel Formation, which has been dated through palynomorphs to the Aptian-Albian...
, 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
Suffocation
Suffocation is the process of Asphyxia.Suffocation may also refer to:* Suffocation , an American death metal band* "Suffocation", a song on Morbid Angel's debut album, Altars of Madness...
. Despondent, Red wanders around the floodplain
Floodplain
A floodplain, or flood plain, is a flat or nearly flat land adjacent a stream or river that stretches from the banks of its channel to the base of the enclosing valley walls and experiences flooding during periods of high discharge...
, 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
Pterosaur
Pterosaurs were flying reptiles of the clade or order Pterosauria. They existed from the late Triassic to the end of the Cretaceous Period . Pterosaurs are the earliest vertebrates known to have evolved powered flight...
, 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
Iguanodon
Iguanodon is a genus of ornithopod dinosaur that lived roughly halfway between the first of the swift bipedal hypsilophodontids and the ornithopods' culmination in the duck-billed dinosaurs...
, 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
Stampede
A stampede is an act of mass impulse among herd animals or a crowd of people in which the herd collectively begins running with no clear direction or purpose....
; the male hastily leaves. After climbing into a tree to escape a flash flood
Flash flood
A flash flood is a rapid flooding of geomorphic low-lying areas—washes, rivers, dry lakes and basins. It may be caused by heavy rain associated with a storm, hurricane, or tropical storm or meltwater from ice or snow flowing over ice sheets or snowfields...
, 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
Carrion
Carrion refers to the carcass of a dead animal. Carrion is an important food source for large carnivores and omnivores in most ecosystems. Examples of carrion-eaters include vultures, hawks, eagles, hyenas, Virginia Opossum, Tasmanian Devils, coyotes, Komodo dragons, and burying beetles...
left by receding flood waters, but the pack's way of life is upset by an invasion of large Acrocanthosaurus
Acrocanthosaurus
Acrocanthosaurus is a genus of theropod dinosaur that existed in what is now North America during the Aptian and early Albian stages of the Early Cretaceous. Like most dinosaur genera, Acrocanthosaurus contains only a single species, A. atokensis. Its fossil remains are found mainly in the U.S...
, 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
Kronosaurus
Kronosaurus is an extinct genus of short-necked pliosaur. It was among the largest pliosaurs, and is named after the leader of the Greek Titans, Cronus.-Discovery and species:Kronosaurus lived in the Early Cretaceous Period ....
ambushes one of the chicks on the beach. Seeing the danger, Red lures the female Acrocanthosaurus into deep water where the larger predator is dragged under by the Kronosaurus. Red saves her family, but at a price—her consort is forced away by Red's sister.
Facing continual 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
Therizinosaur
Therizinosaurs are theropod dinosaurs belonging to the clade Therizinosauria. Therizinosaur fossils have been found in Early through Late Cretaceous deposits in Mongolia, the People's Republic of China and Western North America...
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
Diplodocid
Diplodocids, or members of the family Diplodocidae , are a group of sauropod dinosaurs. The family includes some of the longest creatures ever to walk the earth, including Diplodocus and Supersaurus, which may have reached lengths of up to .-Description:While still massive, when compared to the...
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
Deinonychus
Deinonychus was a genus of carnivorous dromaeosaurid dinosaur. There is one described species, Deinonychus antirrhopus. This 3.4 meter long dinosaur lived during the early Cretaceous Period, about 115–108 million years ago . Fossils have been recovered from the U.S...
. Sensing the weakness of the Utahraptor pack, 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 and wait for Red to die, but are driven back by a sudden attack—the older Utahraptor chick returns with Red's consort to defend the nest, driving back the Deinonychus. Some time later, the old white pterosaur circles over Red's mountain stronghold, and finds the pack has grown considerably. Both Red and the older chick have found mates and have chicks, who are having fun rolling down a hill. The satisfied pterosaur leaves with a mate and offspring of his own.
Reception
Raptor Red was favorably received by critics and the mainstream press. Much praise was given to Bakker's anthropomorphising of the dinosaurs; a reviewer for the Toronto StarToronto Star
The Toronto Star is Canada's highest-circulation newspaper, based in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Its print edition is distributed almost entirely within the province of Ontario...
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." Mark Nichols of Maclean's
Maclean's
Maclean's is a Canadian weekly news magazine, reporting on Canadian issues such as politics, pop culture, and current events.-History:Founded in 1905 by Toronto journalist/entrepreneur Lt.-Col. John Bayne Maclean, a 43-year-old trade magazine publisher who purchased an advertising agency's in-house...
said that Bakker's success lay in making the reader hope that the dinosaurs were indeed creatures as Bakker portrayed.
In contrast to this positive reception, Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly is an American magazine, published by the Time division of Time Warner, that covers film, television, music, broadway theatre, books and popular culture...
felt that the anthropomorphising of the dinosaurs veered close to "a Disney cartoon." Other criticisms from the press included a lack of character needed for truly engrossing fiction. Reviewers described Bakker's work as "thoroughly heartfelt," despite flaws such as inconsistent writing; Men's News Daily, a site which focuses on social values, suggested that Bakker's raptors "possess a quaint, special appeal in today's social climate". Megan Gallagher's narration of the audiobook, combined with continuous sound effects and dramatic music to create an "aural picture," was also praised. Entertainment Weekly gave Raptor Red its "Best of Breed Award" for a "captivating novel about animal life".
Many critical reviews of the work came from scientists who objected to Bakker's looseness with scientific fact. The paleontologist Thomas Holtz noted that Bakker combined fauna
Fauna
Fauna or faunæ is all of the animal life of any particular region or time. The corresponding term for plants is flora.Zoologists and paleontologists use fauna to refer to a typical collection of animals found in a specific time or place, e.g. the "Sonoran Desert fauna" or the "Burgess shale 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. 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." David B. Norman
David B. Norman
David Bruce Norman is a British paleontologist, currently Director of the Sedgwick Museum, Cambridge University. He is a fellow at Christ's College, Cambridge where he teaches geology in the Natural Sciences tripos. He is a member of the Palaeontological Association. He has studied Iguanodon...
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." Jay Ingram, from the Discovery Channel
Discovery Channel
Discovery Channel is an American satellite and cable specialty channel , founded by John Hendricks and distributed by Discovery Communications. It is a publicly traded company run by CEO David Zaslav...
, 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."
According to Bakker, the novel's success led to interest in a movie deal from Hollywood. According to Daily Variety in 1996, producer Robert Halmi Sr. made deals with Jim Henson's Creature Shop
Jim Henson's Creature Shop
Jim Henson's Creature Shop is a company founded in 1979 by puppeteer Jim Henson, creator of The Muppets, and Frank Oz.It was originally created as a result of the observation that the team that had been put together for The Dark Crystal was extremely hard to recreate for Labyrinth, since the...
for film adaptations of Animal Farm and Raptor Red. No official project has been announced.