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Raptor Red is a featured article; it (or a previous version of it) has been identified as one of the best articles produced by the Wikipedia community. Even so, if you can update or improve it, please do so. | |||||||||||||
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A fact from this article appeared on Wikipedia's
Main Page in the "
Did you know?" column on
February 22, 2007. The text of the entry was: Did you know ...that the novel
Raptor Red, by
paleontologist
Robert T. Bakker, is told from the perspective of an intelligent
therapod
dinosaur,
Utahraptor? | |||||||||||||
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This article is written in American English, which has its own spelling conventions (color, defense, traveled) and some terms that are used in it may be different or absent from other varieties of English. According to the relevant style guide, this should not be changed without broad consensus. |
The only issue I see is this newsgroup posting which is being used to source "Several reviewers, especially scientists, took issue with the technical aspects of the book. Bakker combining fauna in ways not directly supported by the fossil record; for example, some dinosaur species in the book may or may not have died out before the arrival of Utahraptor." Several problems with this. It's ONE posting from ONE scientist being used to support "several scientists", which is a stretching of the source, and it's from a newsgroup. While the scientist is probably close to qualifying as an expert, surely there are other sources for this statement? And you need more than one person saying it to support 'several'. Ealdgyth - Talk 14:36, 31 August 2008 (UTC)
The characters in Bakker's novel do not display "uniquely human" traits, and seem to be within the realm of what is possible; in fact, much of the book is spent giving evolutionary reasons for why the animals act the way they do. This is not at all like Dinotopia.
Can anyone explain what makes the animals in Bakker's novel anthropomorphic? Esn ( talk) 11:51, 6 October 2008 (UTC)
Non-human animals can have emotions and expressions. Elephants, for example, will mourn the loss of one of their herd members for hours (I think I read somewhere that they even shed tears occasionally). I hate it how many of us think we're the only species capable of emotions and feelings, when as a matter of fact nearly all animals are (maybe with the exception of some invertebrates but you get my point). Bakker was perfectly realistic in his depictions of dinosaurs as complex and sophisticated creatures capable of emotion (makes a good change considering the animals' usual portrayal as bloodthirsty monsters). The Utahraptors didn't talk or wear clothes, and that's enough for me to say they are NOT anthropomorphic. Perhaps the word was cited, but whoever cited it obviously misunderstood the purpose of the book. We humans are hardly unique at all, there are plenty of animals much more unique. There's even controversy beginning over whether we're even the most intelligent, many now believe that dolphins and porpoises have superior intellect of humans. Perhaps I'm going off topic, but just because the dinosaurs are given feelings and emotions does not make them anthropomorphic. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.36.130.109 ( talk) 00:29, 29 December 2011 (UTC)
The Danish softcover version of the book that I own has this cover, drawn by Robert Bakker himself: [1] It appears to have been used in American editions of the book too, judged on several images of it on the web. So I'm wondering what the original cover was, and under what circumstances an alternate version was made? The current main cover image does not seem to have been drawn by Bakker, isn't his style. This info could be potentially interesting (a holographic cover!?), and maybe featured in the article. FunkMonk ( talk) 19:46, 5 June 2009 (UTC)
It has been a while since I read this book, but I still remember it well. Now looking back, though, I notice some things which I missed before.
In addition to simply being a book about a dinosaurs struggle to survive and reproduce, there are some other themes which I think should be brought up. The first is an individual's struggle to be accepted into a group. A good chunk of the story is dominated by Raptor Red's 2nd aspiring consort trying to gain acceptance from the distrusting sister of Raptor Red. Although he does not like the sister's babies, he goes to great lengths to become a full member of the pack, and although being kicked out, eventually manages to come back once the xenophobic sister is dead.
The second theme which can be argued is that the Raptor Red is a story of a child (the sister's oldest chick) journey from a helpless infant to a capable adult, all through the eyes of Raptor Red. When the protagonist first meets the family, this baby is well, a baby. But by the end of the story, the oldest chick has grown into a capable and (relatively) compassionate adult who actually unites with her mom's old enemy (Raptor Red's 2nd consort) to save her aunt.
I request permission to put this into the article. Fusion7 ( talk) 17:16, 15 June 2009 (UTC)
I didn't see anything in the article about the novel's sales. Did it make any best-seller lists, for example? As a featured article, it really should have some information about that. Everyking ( talk) 04:14, 16 January 2010 (UTC)
The Anti-Vandalism Barnstar | ||
I was just looking at the history for this page, and I would like to thank everyone who helped remove vandalism. JackSlice Talk Adds 23:40, 20 January 2010 (UTC) |