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- "The compies didn't look dangerous at first sight. They were the size of a hen and walked nervously like a hen. But he (John Hammond) knew that they were venomous. Their bites delivered a slow-acting poison that they used to kill wounded animals."
- —Michael Crichton, Jurassic Park(src)
Procompsognathus (pronounced /ˌproʊkɒmpˈsɒɡnəθəs/) is a genus of small theropod dinosaur that lived during the Late Triassic Period, about 222 to 219 million years ago. Procompsognathus was named by Eberhard Fraas in 1913. He named the type species, P. triassicus, on the basis of a poorly-preserved skeleton found in Württemberg, Germany.
Procompsognathus may have been about 1.2 meters long (4 feet). A biped, it had long hind legs, short arms, large clawed hands, a long slender snout with many small teeth, and a stiff tail. It lived in a relatively dry, inland environment and may have eaten insects, lizards, and other small prey.
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History[]
The Lost World: Jurassic Park[]
In the film adaptation of The Lost World, Procompsognathuses were ultimately replaced with the distantly related coelurosaur Compsognathus. However, Robert Burke refers to them as Compsognathus triassicus (triassicus being the type species of Procompsognathus). Interestingly, the Brazilian Portugese dub or the English subtitles refer to those as Procompsognathus too.
A group of Compsognathus stalk Dieter Stark when he gets lost in the jungle. Though they were most likely hunting him because he was alone, it is ironic that he is killed by them due to how he had treated at least two Compys cruelly earlier. This scene is the allusion to the death of John Hammond in the first novel and small details from Howard King's death in the second novel.
Cards[]
Trivia[]
- Because of their prominent appearance in the novel as the first dinosaur encountered, Procompsognathus appeared in various forms across the earlier script for the first movie. Some, like a draft script by Michael Crichton, maintained a vast majority of their appearances in the novel. Several other drafts replaced the genus' role with Compsognathus or juvenile Velociraptors. By the time of the Rick Carter script, the plot line of dinosaurs escaping to the mainland was dropped and the role for Procompsognathus role was cut down to a cameo appearance that was cut from the final film at the last minute.