Utahraptor in GURPS

Utahraptor ostrommaysorum was the largest known dromeosaur. It grew to grizzly bear or polar bear size, perhaps 500 kg in mass and nearly 6 meters long. Utahraptor lived in the early Cretaceous period, around 125 million years ago, in what is now called Utah (and, likely, other parts of the American west).

One fossil site contains the remains of at least seven Utahraptor specimens. Rather than evidence of pack behavior, this is probably a predator trap – a place where prey became mired, which attracted predators which themselves became stuck and served as bait for even more predators.

The world where Utahraptor lived was a semi-arid landscape of prairies, woodlands, and riverside forests. It would have enjoyed a brief rainy season between long dry spells. Other notable animals of this time and place were the nodosaur dinosaurs Gastonia, sauropod dinosaurs Cedarosaurus, Mierasaurus, Venenosaurus, and Moabosaurus, iguanodont dinosaurs Iguanocolossus, Planicoxa, Cedrorestes and Hippodraco, the bizarre therizinosaur dionsaurs Martharaptor and Falcarius, the ornithomimosaur dinosaur Nedcolbertia, the troodontid dinosaur Geminiraptor, and the dromeosuarid Yurgovuchia. Many non-dinosaurs also could also be found here, including birds, mammals, lungfish, freshwater sharks and rays, pterosaurs, turtles, snakes, lizards, and crocodiles.

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