Reddit reviews Predatory Dinosaurs of the World: A Complete Illustrated Guide

>their genome was edited to make them much larger than they should otherwise be

None of the dinosaurs in Jurassic Park were authentic; they are all theme park monsters. This point is made in the original book, but isn't really brought up in the first movie; Dr. Wu talks about it pretty heavily during an exposition scene in Jurassic World, however.

That said, the Utahraptor was not discovered until after Jurassic Park was released, and just happens to be the same size as the film's Velociraptors.

Per the Jurassic Park wiki:

>In the Jurassic Park universe, the term "Velociraptor" is applied to the genus of another dromaeosaurid dinosaur known as Deinonychus. The films, like the novels, followed the unusual taxonomy created by Gregory S. Paul, who believed that Deinonychus, as well as a few other species of dromaeosaurids, could be classified under the genus "Velociraptor".^[1] As for the large size of the raptors, the novel raptors were sized up for an unknown reason by author Michael Crichton while the movie raptors were made larger per Steven Spielberg's request to him being unimpressed by the size of Deinonychus.^[2]

No problem! Here are a couple of books that might help you along, if you haven't already gotten a hold of them! :)

All Yesterdays, a wonderfully provocative book that challenges common paleoart tropes.

The Paleoart of Julius Csontonyi is awesome. Most of his artwork can be found online, but it's nice to have it there in your hands. I won't go so far as to say Csotonyi is the modern day Charles R. Knight, but he's rapidly gaining that reputation.

Predatory Dinosaurs of the World by Gregory S. Paul. Modern paleoart owes a lot to Paul's work, even if his attention to anatomical detail resulted in dinosaurs that are just a bit too lithe.

Finally, we have William Stout's The New Dinosaurs. Yes, at times Stout makes his dinos look downright emaciated, but his comic-book-y style and portrayal of dinosaur behavior is a bit prescient of "All Yesterdays," and I can't help but associate his work with those wonderfully cheesy 1980s dino documentaries with Gary Owens, and that catchy theme music.

And once again, good luck!

This myth about them being the size of a turkey just will not die. :(

Jurassic park Velociraptors were actually Deinonychus which is more very large dog sized with a tail length comparable to that of the movie dinosaurs. They do seem to have been beefed up a little in the movie still.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deinonychus

Look on the right of the above wikipedia page under Synonyms and you'll see Velociraptor antirrhopus Paul, 1988. Click on Paul and it will take you to the page of a palaeontologist named Gregory S. Paul who wrote a book that was the main source that Michael Crichton used to write the novel, and Paul eventually was consulted for the Jurassic Park Movie. At the time that book was written, there was considerable debate as to what subfamily Deinonychus belonged to, hence the reason for some palaeontologists including Paul labelling it as Velociraptor antirrhopus. That name made its way into Michael Crichton's novel and the rest is movie history in terms of naming conventions.

The turkey sized dinosaur that everyone talks about is a completely different species called Velociraptor mongoliensis, so called because Mongolia is the site of the species fossil discovery, and so far all of the other fossil examples of the species are limited to Mongolia and China. In otherwords the turkey raptor is an exclusively Asian species.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Velociraptor

Deinonychus however is an North american species with fossil remains coming exclusively from Wyoming, Oklahoma, and Montana. Where was the dig site at the start of the movie? Yep. Montana. :)

The book even makes the distinction between Velociraptor antirrhopus and Velociraptor mongoliensis by mentioning both species.