Dilophosaurus

Dilophosaurus (sometimes nicknamed the "spitting lizard" or just "spitter") is a venomous dinosaur (specifically, a coelophysoid theropod) from the early Jurassic period of Arizona (another species was found in Yunnan Province in China). Dilophosaurus was once thought to be a carnosaur due to its 20 ft size, because back then the carnosaurs were considered to be the big theropods and the coelurosaurs were the little theropods. Dilophosaurus measured around six meters (20 ft) long and may have weighed half a ton. The most distinctive characteristic of Dilophosaurus is the pair of rounded crests on its skull.It lived in the early Jurassic Period and shared its environment with dinosaurs like Anchisaurus, Megapnosaurus, and Scutellosaurus, among others.

More real-life information: Dilophosaurus at Wikipedia.

Dilophosaurus is one of the least understood dinosaurs. Michael Crichton, Steven Spielberg and Mark "Crash" McCreery filled this data vacuum with their own imagination. Therefore the creature that appears in the Jurassic Park series has some characteristics for which there is either no scientific evidence or contradicts existing data

Sexual dimorphism
The pair of rounded crests on the skull of Dilophosaurus were possibly used for display. In the novel the crests are red (page 300), one sex (maybe male) has darker crests than the other. One sex is also smaller than the other. Studies by Robert Gay show no indication that sexual dimorphism was present in the skeleton of Dilophosaurus, but says nothing about crest variation.

Venom
The connection between the ry and ry bones of the skull was very weak. This created a notch behind the first row of teeth. This conformation led to the early hypothesis that Dilophosaurus scavenged off dead carcasses, with the front teeth being too weak to bring down and hold large prey.

The Dilophosaurus in the Jurassic Park Series paralyzes its prey by spitting blinding venom in the eyes (like a ). It's said in the Jurassic Park novel that it's venom contains seven different enzymes, it's said that the Dilophosaurus is able to spit venom too, but the reach of the venom varies, in the Dinosaur Encyclopedia in the Jurassic Park DVD extras, it can spit distances of 20 feet, but in the novel it can spit up to 50 feet. In this way the creature is still a predator despite it's weak jaws and teeth. There is no evidence that Dilophosaurs had venom glands, but glands don't have structures that are hard enough to fossilise. These venom glands don't contradict existing data.

Neck frill
Steven Spielberg added another dubious feature to the Dilophosaurus: a retractable neck frill around its neck (much like a of Northern Australia). It is not considered accurate by paleontologists that Dilophosaurus had a frill. Bret Bennington said wrote about the frill in the American Paleontologist: "If Dilophosaurus did have a frill, we would know about it. There would be fossil evidence of bones or some other rigid structure required to hold the frill up and there would be markings on the bones of the neck indicating where muscles could attach that would be required to move the frill up and down. We don't see either of these."

Jurassic Park Franchise
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, eventually causing paralysis. While it is only seen in Jurassic Park, it has been used on many different items of merchandise for The Lost World and Jurassic Park III. Though living on Isla Sorna it was never seen in the movie.

Jurassic Park novel
In the novels and books, 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 (slightly) venomous. The poison could knock its victim unconscious.

Nedry's death
Dennis Nedry enters the Dilophosaurus territory to smuggle Dinosaur embryos out of the Park. But Dennis didn't check what kind of Dinosaurs lived in that area, not long after his arrival he is confronted by a large and dangerous predator. The following is a direct excerpt from the novel:

''The dinosaur stared at him and then snapped its head in a single swift motion. Nedry felt something smack wetly against his chest. He looked down and saw a dripping glob of foam on his rain-soaked shirt. He touched it curiously, not comprehending. . . . It was spit. The dinosaur had spit on him.''

''It was creepy, he thought. He looked back at the dinosaur and saw the head snap again, and immediately felt another wet smack against his neck, just above the shirt collar. He wiped it away with his hand.''

''Jesus, it was disgusting. But the skin of his neck was already starting to tingle and burn. And his hand was tingling, too. It was almost like he had been touched with acid.''

''Nedry opened the car door, glancing back at the dinosaur to make sure it wasn't going to attack, and felt a sudden, excruciating pain in his eyes, stabbing like spikes into the back of his skull, and he squeezed his eyes shut and gasped with the intensity of it and threw up his hands to cover his eyes and felt the slippery foam trickling down both sides of his nose. Spit. The dinosaur had spit in his eyes.''

''Even as he realized it, the pain overwhelmed him, and he dropped to his knees, disoriented, wheezing. He collapsed onto his side, his cheek pressed to the wet ground, his breath coming in thin whistles through the constant, ever-screaming pain that caused flashing spots of light to appear behind his tightly shut eyelids.''

''The earth shook beneath him and Nedry knew the dinosaur was moving, he could hear its soft hooting cry, and despite the pain he forced his eyes open and still he saw nothing but flashing spots against black. Slowly the realization came to him. He was blind.''

''The hooting was louder as Nedry scrambled to his feet and staggered back against the side panel of the car, as a wave of nausea and dizziness swept over him. The dinosaur was close now, he could feel it coming close, he was dimly aware of its snorting breath.''

''But he couldn't see. He couldn't see anything, and his terror was extreme. He stretched out his hands, waving them wildly in the air to ward off the attack he knew was coming.''

''And then there was a new, searing pain, like a fiery knife in his belly, and Nedry stumbled, reaching blindly down to touch the ragged edge of his shirt, and then a thick, slippery mass that was surprisingly warm, and with horror he suddenly knew he was holding his own intestines in his hands. The dinosaur had torn him open. His guts had fallen out.''

''Nedry fell to the ground and landed on something scaly and cold, it was the animal's foot, and then there was new pain on both sides of his head. The pain grew worse, and as he was lifted to his feet he knew the dinosaur had his head in its jaws, and the horror of that realization was followed by a final wish, that it would all be ended soon.''

Nedry's body is later found by Muldoon and Gennaro, with Muldoon remarking ''"They blinded him, then ripped him down the middle. Not a nice way to go. Maybe there's justice in this world after all." ''

River Adventure
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 were performing a mating ritual. This seeming contradiction is never explained.

Jurassic Park film
thumb A juvenile 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 less gruesome of the two versions, Nedry's death in the film is shown as him being blinded by the Dilophosaur venom, and then stumbling into his Jeep where he is met possibly by a second Dilophosaur, which pounced on him from the passenger seat. The camera then cuts to the outside of the Jeep as it rocks back and forth as Nedry screams. In the novel, he suffered a much more gruesome death, he actually held his intestines in his hands before realizing where he'd been hit.

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 Dilophosaurus DNA was combined with the DNA of a frilled lizard and a spitting cobra, along with or without the DNA of a frog. Curiously, the sizes of Dilophosaurus and Velociraptor were swapped, with the film's Dilophosaurus closer in size to the real-life Velociraptor, while raptors were around the size of real dilophosaurs.

The Lost World: Jurassic Park
Dilophosaurus is also depicted on the screen saver and in the trailers of The Lost World, confirming its presence on Isla Sorna, but they were never seen in the film.

Jurassic Park inspired games
All of the games used the juvenile Dilophosaurus seen in the first film to depict adult Dilophosaurs.


 * Dilophosaurus appeared in the NES game Jurassic Park. It jumps from behind trees, objects, walls and spits poison.


 * Spitting Dilophosaurs are an enemy in the SNES game Jurassic Park. Their spit doesn't cause a lot of damage and they can be easily killed.


 * Spitters are an enemy in the game Jurassic Park Interactive.


 * Dilophosaurs are encountered in Area 1 and 4 in the arcade game Jurassic Park.


 * Spitters appear in Chaos Island: The Lost World. They are the only dinosaurs in the game with ranged attack.


 * Few Spitters are encountered in the Stage 1 of the arcade game The Lost World: Jurassic Park.


 * 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. 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. The Dilophosaurus (the weakest of the small carnivores) will only attack and kill small herbivores such as Dryosaurus, Homalocephale, and Gallimimus and is unable to take down large or armoured small herbivores.


 * In the PC game Jurassic Park Dinosaur Battles Dilophosaurus is a opponent. It is a fast opponent, advanced Dilophosaurs have strong piercing attacks.


 * Dilophosaurus is an enemy in Jurassic Park III: Island Attack, in the level The Laboratory the player has to defeat a pack of Dilophosaurs in a boss fight.


 * The creature is nr. 008 of the Carnivore Twos that can be created in Jurassic Park III: Park Builder.


 * In Jurassic Park III: The DNA Factor Dilophosaurus is one of the 12 encountered dinosaurs on Isla Sorna.


 * In the arcade game Jurassic Park III Dilophosaurus appears in Areas 1 and 4.


 * Dilophosaurus is featured in the DVD game Jurassic Park: Explorer. A player earns a dinosaur when he/she wins a minigame, when the earned dinosaur is a Dilophosaurus this video will be shown. The video shows that the animal is 7 meters (23 ft) long, as it was in reality, but it still has the neck frill (since the game is about InGen-made dinosaurs, not "natural-made" dinosaurs).


 * Dilophosaurs appear in the upcoming Jurassic Park: The Game, when Nima is investigating near Nedry's Jeep. She is scared off and eventually is injured/poisoned by a group of Troodons. It also attacks Billy later.
 * They are herd in the back round in jurassic park lost world game on the the first compy level.

Toy lines
Dilophosaurus appeared in almost every JP toy line except the Chaos Effect toy line even though Dilophosaurus did sort of appear as part of the Dilophospinus, and later was going to appear in the unreleased Chaos Effect Night Hunter toy line.

Trivia

 * It, along with Compsognathus and Troodon, are the only known venomous dinosaurs in the franchise.
 * The Dilophosaurus in Jurassic Park is possibly a juvenile. This may be reinforced by Nedry saying "[...] I thought you might've been one of your big brothers."
 * The Dilophosaurus is the only dinosaur to appear in the movies that did not use CGI, only animatronics.
 * In Jurassic Park: The Game, the skin pattern on the Dilophosaurus resembles a snake pattern, which is how it appeared in the novels.
 * Dilophosaurus may have roved in packs, since 3 fossils were found together.
 * Jurassic Park: The Game states that the Dilophosaurus seen in the film and the game, are juvenile.