Velociraptor Awareness Day: Saturday April 18

by Amy Judd | April 18, 2009 at 01:35 pm

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Today is Velociraptor Awareness Day, every Saturday April 18th, people get together to 'safeguard the world against Velociraptors.' (No really, this is a true day)

I repeat: Velociraptors are dangerous. They will eat you. So if you see one, run. Really fast. For any hope of escape, a routine exercise program is (of course) essential, but taking math classes can also help you with this. Randall Munroe at xkcd explains how:

No one is sure where this day came from or how it got started, but apparently some do recognize this day.
So what is a Velociraptor?
It existed about 75 to 70 million years ago, in the latter part of the Cretaceous Period.
It was about the size of a turkey, walked on two legs, and had a large sickle-shaped claw on each of its hind legs.

Velociraptor (commonly shortened to 'raptor') is one of the dinosaur genera most familiar to the general public due to its prominent role in the Jurassic Park motion picture series. In the films it was shown with anatomical inaccuracies, including being much larger than it was in reality and without feathers.