Velociraptor

Jewel made entirely by hand by the Italian craftsman Gianmarco Fontana. Ring made of 925 Silver depicting a Velociraptor, which is part of the "Animalia" collection.

Velociraptor populated the earth approximately between 85.8 million and 70.6 million years ago, during the late Cretaceous period. In 1924, Henry Fairfield Osborn, the then president of the American Museum of Natural History, named this dinosaur "Velociraptor". He bestowed this name, which derives from the Latin "velox" (fast) and "raptor" (thief or predator), hence "fast thief", as a fitting description of his agility and carnivorous diet.

There are two species of Velociraptor, the "Velociraptor mongoliensis" and the "Velociraptor osmolskae", the second of which was only identified in 2008. A member of the Dromaeosauridae family made up of small and medium-sized, bird-like dinosaurs, Velociraptors had roughly the size of a small turkey and smaller than other members of this dinosaur family, which included the Deinonychus (or Deinonic) and the Achillobator. Adult Velociraptors reached up to 2 meters in length, half a meter in height at hip level and 1 meter in total, and weighed up to 15 kg.