Dilophosaurus

Dilophosaurus is a carnivorous dinosaur (specifically, a coelophysoid theropod) from the Early Jurassic period of Arizona.

In Jurassic Park
Jurassic Park features a juvenile Dilophosaurus which made up for its small size with a waving frill, and a highly corrosive venom that temporarily blinded its prey, and eventually caused paralysis. (The adults feature in various factfiles and the like) While it is only seen in Jurassic Park, it has been on many different items of merchandise for The Lost World and Jurassic Park III. It is also depicted on the screensaver in the trailers in The Lost World, confirming its presence on Isla Sorna.

In the novels, it is far more accurate, not having the frill and appearing as an adult, but still spits venom. Interestingly, another coelophysoid theropod, Procompsognathus, is also venomous in the novels. In real life however,they much larger, due to its age.



In the novel the ability to spit venom is a natural ability. Because Dilophosaurs had very weak jaw muscles, it used venom to hunt. However, there is no proof that it had a frill, nor that it spit venom. The frill and the ability to spit venom could be easily explained as a side effect. As John Hammond's movie theater explained, the dinosaurs had their DNA combined with the DNA of frogs and there's a possibility that Dilophosaurs DNA was combined with the DNA of a frill lizard and a spitting cobra, along with or without the DNA of a frog. In the novel, no frog DNA is used to clone the Dilophosaurs.

Because no frog DNA was used to clone the Dilophosaurs they don't reproduce in the first novel. However, in the first novel Grant sees a couple of Dilophosaurs (both male and female sex) at the river, which are performing a mating ritual.

In both the novel and film versions of Jurassic Park, a Dilophosaurus blinded and killed Dennis Nedry as he attempted to deliver stolen embryos to Dodgson's man on the boat at the East Dock. In the novels, he fared a much more gruesome death, he actually held his intestines in his hands before realizing where he'd been hit.

In Operation Genesis
Seen in Jurassic Park: Operation Genesis as a two-star small carnivore, the game's dilophosaur shares all of the characteristics of the one in the movie, from the frill to the small stature (which would suggest that all of the dilophosaurs in the game are juveniles, though this makes little sense). It can spit venom at prey but does not, however, spit venom at the visitors, despite the spaces between the bars on the fence. If not in the fence though, they then can hunt visitors, as well as cleaners, even though the cleaners will most likely never be killed by the dinosaurs, no matter how many times they've been hit by venom. This is most likely a game play error.