Raptor Red
The main character of the novel, a female Utahraptor.
- Foil: To her sister — Raptor Red is everything her sister is not, being cautious, reasonable, and capable of learning from her mistakes.
- Foolish Sibling, Responsible Sibling: The Responsible to her sister’s Foolish — Raptor Red is more concerned with keeping the pack together than her own personal issues.
- Raptor Attack: Averted in many ways. While she's the victim of Science Marches On, she's very accurate for her time and still holds up somewhat well even today.
The Old White Dactyl
An ornithocheirid pterosaur who befriends Raptor Red's pack.
- Author Avatar: Essentially Robert T. Bakker's self-insert.
- Celibate Hero: He's reached the age where he's no longer interested in finding a mate. Until the end, that is.
- Cool Old Guy: He's fairly old but nonetheless quirky and helpful.
- Giant Flyer: He has an impressive wingspan.
- Scavengers Are Scum: Averted. Raptor Red’s pack happily allows him to scavenge their kills, something he accepts wholeheartedly.
- The Trickster: On occasion, he likes to mess with other creatures for his own amusement.
The whip-tail
A diplodocid sauropod.
- Dying Race: It’s made clear that his kind are dying out, due to being decimated by a plague.
- Foil: To Raptor Red — both are animals that are relatively unknown in the Utah area (Raptor Red's kind are recent immigrants, while the whip-tails are few in number) that possess skills and weapons that no creature had adapted to (Raptor Red’s intelligence and sickle claws vs the whip-tail's.....tail) and are very intelligent (Raptor Red avoids trying to eat a dead Astrodon so that she can be sure it is dead, while the whip-tail repeatedly strikes Raptor Red's sister after she goes down for exactly the same reason).
- Hero Killer: He mortally wounds Raptor Red's sister.
- No-Nonsense Nemesis: He does not waste time dealing with the raptors. He whips them with his tail to knock them off their feet, them whips them with it some more to make sure they don't get up again.
- Tail Slap: A given, being part of a sauropod family known for their whiplash-like tails.
