I recently received a letter from Dr. Daniel Snyder, a paleontologist from Knox College, who wanted to share some theories on handling dromeosaurids:
Dear sir,
I have recently been introduced to your Web comic, and I write in great admiration. You have a keen mind and wit, as well as the artistic ability to convey them to the reader (me). Thank you, and keep up the efforts!
I notice that many of your comics revolve around people (including yourself) with a phobia of Velociraptor. This phobia revolves around Velociraptor overcoming some 70 million years of extinction and the geographic barriers between its home and yours, leaping out of the underbrush and/or through the kitchen, and doing unmentionable things to your innards with its teeth and claws.
I see little point in addressing the substance of your fears, as that’s perhaps best to someone more qualified to deal with the human mind. I hold a Ph. D. in vertebrate paleontology and am somewhat more qualified to address the symptoms. To wit, I would like to help you overcome your fears by successfully defending yourself against Velociraptor.
It is widely known in the field of agronomy (e.g., Avery, 2002) that birds are repulsed by methyl anthranilate, a natural compound found in many of the less sweet fruit varieties. Methyl anthranilate has been used (with some success) as a bird repellent on crops. Now, we know (e.g., Gauthier et al., 1988) that modern birds are descended from dinosaurian ancestors, of which one close relative was Velociraptor (ibid.). Much as lab rats respond to drugs like humans, it is entirely possible that Velociraptor will respond to methyl anthranilate as does the common crow or European starling.
Thus, I recommend you carry around a loaded SuperSoaker filled with Concord grape juice. Fresh-squeezed would be ideal, but from concentrate should be effective as well. This will not only have the theoretical asset of protecting you from Velociraptor, it will have the pragmatic asset of protecting you from thirst.
In appreciation of your Web comic efforts, I will happily waive my consultation fee.
—
Bibliography
Avery, M. L., 2002. Avian repellents. Pages 122-128 in J. R. Plimmer (ed), Encyclopedia of Agrochemicals. Volume 1. John Wiley & Sons, Hoboken, New Jersey, USA.Gauthier, J., A. G. Kluge, and T. Rowe. 1988. Amniote phylogeny and the importance of fossils. Cladistics-the International Journal of the Willi Hennig Society, 4, pp.105-209.
Daniel Snyder, PhD
Knox College
K-52/x7846/dsnyder@knox.edu
Excellent!
And this makes me think of the can of shark repellent in that Batman movie. Maybe it wasn’t such a silly approach after all …
edit: By the way, as in all my comics, you can just read ‘velociraptor’ as referring not to the beagle-sized dinosaur, but rather as a generic term for whichever dromeosaurid most closely resembles the Jurassic Park animals. That is, something between a deinonychus and a utahraptor.
xkcd 
Great, he ruined it for all of us…
Honestly though, that’s just hilarious!
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Damn you, Sssssnyder! You have not sssseen the last of usssss!!!
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Ace, I believe he has not ruined our fear of raptor but given us a MOST EXCELLENT means of protection.
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Goddamn I love academics.
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Brilliant!
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That’s brilliant.
Kudos.
To both you and Prof. Snyder.
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that man is my hero.
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Oh no! I’m out of grape juice, but I’m affraid to go outside to get it.
Should I make a run for it?
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You’re ignoring the other terrifying implications of his email.
Birds are basically flying velociraptors.
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Actually, a velociraptor isn’t much bigger than a chicken: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Vraptor-scale.png 😛
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Never underestimate anything just because it’s small.
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Ze: don’t get complacent!
Yes, perhaps velociraptors are not all they are cracked up to me.
But that merely means we must fear their larger cousins, utahraptors! from : “Up to 7 meters (23.3 feet) long, 2.4 meters (8 feet) tall and 700 kg (1500lbs) in weight, Utahraptor would have been a formidable predator.”
Those suckers could be a good foot and a half taller than me and weigh something like 7 times than me! And Dr. Snyder thinks it’s foolish to fear the raptors? Well, I know who’ll be the first against the wall (to be eaten) when the revolution comes!
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I can’t think of a better way to end a once-funny joke whose returns have diminished way too far.
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Great.
Now *they* know that *we* know, and the Velociraptor arms race begins.
Thanks a lot, Snyder.
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… What amazes me the most is the fact that he read all your comics, I mean – don’t get me wrong here. I just can’t be arsed to read up on any comic that I’ve missed hundreds of posts on, I’d just read the recent ones.
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…But why CONCORD grape juice? Wouldn’t any other grape juice be as effective?
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What if the Velociraptors learn and start wearing hazmat suits or even just gas masks? aaaa
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But, what everyone is forgetting, is that the concord has been taken out of service, where can we find juice of grapes it has squeezed now!? Good grief, it must have been the Velociraptors that took the concord out of service, meaning that Velociraptors work for BA!? I always thought they looked a bit dodgy….
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I think this calls for Raptor + Grape Juice comic and T-Shirt. 😛
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Luke, I love the idea of that shirt…
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Hah, I love it.
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Cans of Grape Nehi in a bandolier. Pull tab to throw. Bring it scaly demons.
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Ah, excellent advice, and from an expert, no less!
My only concern is that, I have four parrots, and frankly, they love grapes. Now, that might not mean a damn thing (they eat a _lot_ of things that other birds wouldn’t touch), and a parrot definitely isn’t a velociraptor, but in light of what I’ve seen, it might be too much to say that “birds are repulsed by methyl anthranilate”, particularly since a search on the bigger brain seems to indicate that this exists primarily in the grape skin (which the parrots enjoy most of all).
In fact, seeing my grey tear into a grape is kind of disturbing, sort of like seeing a raptor tear into a human’s belly… gets juice all over the place…
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“Much as lab rats respond to drugs like humans, it is entirely possible that Velociraptor will respond to methyl anthranilate as does the common crow or European starling.”
ENTIRELY POSSIBLE? Sorry, that does not fill me with any level of confidence at all. In a life and death situation entirely possible really isn’t good enough. This isn’t a solution to the porblem! Without real world field testing, grape juice can only be one small part of our arsenel against raptors.
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If the grape juice has been concerated for communion, it will repel vampires as well
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Screw the raptors, I am much more frightended by OOmpA LOompAhS. No way I am spraying those knee biting little bastards with grape juice. You ever seen a rabid oompah coming at you groin level dripping grape juice.
Common knowledge that a rabid oompah attack can only be diverted by judicious use of grain alcohol, a lighter, and highly developed allergies to said oompah loompahs. *(Remember to check your windage prior to oompah defense application.)
**(Additionally the only thing scarier than a rabid oompah loompah is a rabid oompah loompah ninja jedi of which any instant mental comparisons between Yoda and mini-me are you the results of your own highly developed and midly unstable thinking process and have nothing what so ever to do with this comment.)
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What about bears? There are still bears outside!
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OOmpA LOompAhS aren’t real, Velociraptors are.
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I’m diabetic – the grape juice will kill me and the Velociraptors will kill me.
Damn!
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The greatest trick the Oompahs have ever achieved was convincing the world they don´t exsist.
Well except for that damn nutjob Wonka!
We are watching, we are waiting, and you shall feel our Loompah fury.
Or if thats not scary enough perphaps you would prefer Loompah furries.
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Concord Grape Juice Box Hand Grenades.
or the plastic bottles with a rag, i’m making some moltov juice-cocktails.
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In fact, seeing my grey tear into a grape is kind of disturbing, sort of like seeing a raptor tear into a human’s belly… gets juice all over the place…
Clearly this “Dr. Snyder” is nothing more than a velociraptor posing as a paleontologist in order to aid the raptor cause. I find it interesting that he suggests Concord grapes, as they seem to be one of the sweeter varieties, contradicting his own evidence. I rccomend a remedy which I already use: a Super Soaker filled with cheap American Cabernet, a wine is made from grapes less sweet than the concord. This remedy also proves effective if ever attacked by a swarm of snooty Frenchmen.
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So we can fight both velociraptors and existentialists with the same weapon? Awesome.
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I guess reading the entire comic is common. A friend of mine mentioned this response to ‘the webcomic author’s apparent fear of raptors’ and I immediately knew it was xkcd, although I had no idea that he read the comic.
I like the comic RB–it seems to be slightly contagious, because I found it and got curious: read through from the beginning. Then I sent it to a friend (and fellow physics student), and he read it all the way through. I thought it was the physics, but a paleontologist did it too? Maybe it’s an alphabetically-academically propagated contagion!
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And this makes me think of the can of shark repellent in that Batman movie. Maybe it wasn’t such a silly approach after all …
Besides the obvious merit of the letter in question, I simply find it refreshing to know that I am not the only person in the world for whom the concept of “Shark Repellent” is inexorably linked with all thoughts of Batman.
(Also, as I have never until now posted a comment to this blog, I would just like to note that I check the comic religiously (scientifically?) every week and find it to be consistently funny and intelligent – a rare combination, especially on this-here internet. Thanks for all the laughs, and keep up the good work.)
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Raptor are smarter than you give them credit for. Remember the flying ferret comic? I think that, given the prevalence of anti-raptor defenses, the logical next step for the enemy is flying raptors. God help us.
As for raptors as a whole, I think that every community needs an enemy. ZeFrank has ‘hardchargers’. ODN had DF.net. /b/ had everyone besides /b/. The US had communists. XKCD has velociraptors.
“Clearly this “Dr. Snyder†is nothing more than a velociraptor posing as a paleontologist in order to aid the raptor cause.”
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“Clearly this “Dr. Snyder†is nothing more than a velociraptor posing as a paleontologist in order to aid the raptor cause.â€
Maybe he’s a raptor and a paleontologist? I mean, let’s face it, the species peaked and blew it 70 million years ago, so who’d really have anything to gain from studying them, except one of their own, desperate to find a way to return the race to their former prominence?
Now the question is, has “Dr. Snyder” got a secret anti-human agenda in his studies and advice, as suggested by some, or has raptor-kind become peaceful and enlightened since the great extinction? Maybe Snyder and others like him are seeking to provide the conditions for peacful co-existence?
Suppose you were a modern, ethical velociraptor (i.e. eating meat grown in crowded barns and slaughtered by machines before being packaged in environmentally unfriendly celophane and stayrofoam, as opposed to hunting down live free-range meat in a process that culls out the weak and unhappy in their own appointed time), and suppose that you were about to engage in a program to breed velociraptors from ancient DNA. How would you act in a responsible way towards your fellow sentient species?
I would suggest that you would gently condition the human society around you to prepare them for the vast social changes coming. You would use museums to appeal to the brainy and cultured, shock movies with a fuzzy core to appeal to the masses, and eventually start dropping pieces of outright advice where they will be seen and remembered albeit with some disbelief.
Sure, Snyder and others like him are urbane and friendly, but they also know that their ancestors had their brutish side. They do not allow their discomfort at this to deter them from their plan to reintroduce raptor-kind to the world. Rather, they look forward with a mixture of hope and pragmatism. I applaud their bold efforts, and thank them for their efforts to make the coming transition as painless and non-fatal as possible.
Let us join together in welcoming our velociraptor brothers back into the world, and let us not make any hasty judgements should there be any unpleasant incidents in the early days of the new era.
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The prospect of this development of anti-raptor technologies (i.e. grapejuice) is too intriguing to ignore. However, how can we possibly feel safe with a mere possibility of protection? Should this technique fail, we will be defenselesss.
We have therefore begun to bioengineer various raptor species, in a controlled environment, so that we can test the effectiveness of various grape juices.
Everything here is super-safe. What’s the worst that could possibly happen?
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I was disappointed to see the advice about “a” loaded supersoaker instead of “your” loaded supersoaker, referencing the recent existentialist cartoon (yes Brad).
@Ludvig Ericson: Actually, I did do this when I discovered xkcd a few months ago, and graphed the density of my favourites: http://www.hop.hop.hop.scum.org/xkcd/
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