Dinosaur Intelligence and size

[The Raptor dude]

Hi!!

There's a couple of questions I have that hasn´t been anwsered for too long, and every site that I visit says either contradictory information or doesn´t say anything about this topic at all.

Anyway, here it goes. I've been a jurassic park fan for as long as I can remember, and I´ve always wondered if the velociraptor intelligence in the movie was, at least, close to reality. Even if another dromaeosaur like deinonychus had it.Also, In the movie, velociraptor sizes are awfully wrong compered to their real life counterparts. However,I've heard many times that the size of the velociraptor in the movie is the same that the size if Deinonychus. My question is: Is this real? Thanks to anyone who answers this post!

[Troodon]

Movies are not real and most often have very little correlation to real facts. 

 

Velociraptor is the size of a dog.  Here are some comparisons of different type raptors from an image on Pinterest

 

 

Comments from a leading paleontologist from AMNH

 

 

[LordTrilobite]

We don't exactly know how intelligent extinct dinosaurs were. We can only make some educated guesses.

The brains themselves of course, are gone. But if the skull is preserved, the brain cavity can still be looked at. To get a rough idea of how smart an animal is it can be good to measure how big the brain is compared to the rest of the body. This is called the encephalization quotient (EQ). So the bigger the brain, the smarter the animal is likely to be. As far as I know, Troodontids have been measured to have the highest EQ. So they were likely among the smartest dinosaurs.

[Pemphix]

Concerning the intelligence,  let me add one thing: pack hunting is bound to a high amount of coordination, social behaviour etc. and is discussed in relationship with the topic "intelligence".

It is discussed if dromeaosaurids are pack hunters or not - so no clear answer from this point of view, too:

"Possible pack hunters":

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00114-007-0310-7

"No pack hunters":

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S003101822030225X?via%3Dihub

 

[Misha]

52 minutes ago, Pemphix said:

Concerning the intelligence,  let me add one thing: pack hunting is bound to a high amount of coordination, social behaviour etc. and is discussed in relationship with the topic "intelligence"

Wouldn't this also depend on the kind of pack hunting that goes on?

For example wolves have a lot of coordination when they hunt and I would agree that that kind of organization requires lots of intelligence.

With an animal like lions they also pack hunt but there it is more like the individuals all trying to kill the prey on their own, it just happens at the same time. This would be less demanding of intelligence.

 

I think that even if pack hunting does occur, the sophistication and extent to which it does would also impact how intelligent they would need to be.

[Harry Pristis]

I read last night a 1980 short story by Robert Silverberg called OUR LADY OF THE SAUROPODS which adopts some novel and interesting speculation about the intelligence of dinosaurs.  I recommend it.