By Brenden Bobby
Reader Columnist
Among the inaccuracies in the Jurassic Park franchise, none have quite had the staying power as the portrayal of the Dilophosaurus — the spitting, neck-frilled dinosaur that brings an end to the story’s tragic fool and plot catalyst, Dennis Nedry. These inaccuracies are so linked to its image that it has influenced the appearance of Dilophosaurus across 30 years of filmmaking, public commentary and even unrelated video games such as 2015’s Ark: Survival Evolved.
To be fair, having played Ark: Survival Evolved and numerous expansions and maps, I can confidently say that the game leans heavily into its betrayal of realism, as none of the dinosaurs accurately depict what dinosaurs actually looked like. Also there are dragons.
Being a dinosaur kid at heart, I can also safely say that every interaction I’ve had with anyone regarding Dilophosaurus has gone something like this:
“The Dilophosaurus was a really cool dinosaur.”
“The what?”
“The spitting one from Jurassic Park.”
“Oh, I guess.”
The fact that the dinosaur is identified as “the spitting one” is among the worst offenses to the actual animal. There is absolutely no evidence that suggests Dilophosaurus could spit, let alone expel toxic venom. Modern reptiles capable of spitting venom, such as various species of cobra, have adaptations visible on their skulls that would suggest the presence of internal tissue venom sacs or hollow teeth from which to eject the venom. Dilophosaurus had no such features present in the skull, and it certainly didn’t have hollow teeth.
The second largest issue is that Dilophosaurus did not possess any evidence of a neck frill. A reptilian neck frill was likely inspired by two separate sources: the neck-frilled lizard of northern Australia and New Guinea, and the adaptation of hackle-raising by birds, particularly roosters.
The latter was a curious source of inspiration, as the Jurassic Park dinosaur clearly lacked any form of feathering, yet the actual dinosaur likely was covered in pin-like protofeather fluff.
It’s obvious why Steven Spielberg leaned toward featherless dinosaurs in the movie. Humans have two distinct reactions to scaly reptiles: fear and awe. We lack those responses when looking at birds, which we’ve raised as a domesticated food source for thousands of years. Until a 12-inch spicy lizard special is on the menu at Mr. Sub, it’s unlikely that we will ever shed our preprogrammed response to reptiles.
One of the more curious changes to Dilophosaurus in the movie was its size. Michael Crichton depicted the Dilophosaurus in his book Jurassic Park as accurate to its actual scale. Spielberg, however, decided to deviate heavily in the film to make the dinosaur distinctly different from the movie’s chief protagonist, the Velociraptor. This was an interesting design choice for another reason we will explore later in this article; however, it’s worth noting that the Dilophosaurus was not a labrador-sized reptile. Fossils recovered point to this dinosaur reaching a height of up to eight feet and a length of up to 23 feet, with a weight somewhere around 880 pounds. It was taller than most horses and longer than two of them standing in a line, while curiously being lighter than a single horse.
Spielberg shrank the Dilophosaurus so audiences could differentiate it from the Velociraptors later in the film. This is especially curious because the real-life Velociraptor was much closer in size to the portrayal of the Dilophosaurus in the movie, being a small turkey-sized creature. The Velociraptor in Jurassic Park is much closer to a Utahraptor, but the name was changed to sound more memorable and menacing.
Despite this change, the construction of the Dilophosaurus is not only inaccurate to the actual fossils in a lot of ways, but very closely mirrored to the Velociraptor in the film, despite the two animals having completely different skull shapes. The real-life Dilophosaurus had a strange, narrow skull with two, protruding sail-like crests on the top of its head. The strangest part was a pair of oddly shaped divots in the maxilla, where its upper teeth were located. There are a few hypotheses for why this adaptation existed.
Similar features are commonly seen in animals that eat a lot of fish or slippery prey, including crocodilians. It creates extra surface area that improves the grip and won’t let fish slide away during a struggle. Sometimes this is augmented by a set of larger teeth on the lower jaw, creating a recess, so the teeth don’t gouge the maxilla or the roof of the mouth.
Another hypothesis is that this adaptation served somewhat like a slashing sickle for Dilophosaurus’ particular method of hunting, which was to grab prey with its powerful arms and rapidly slash and exsanguinate the unlucky creature. Its teeth seem to be adapted for both hunting fish as well as larger game, leading us to believe it was an especially adaptive and opportunistic predator. We know it had immense range, covering most of North America during the Jurassic 166 million years ago, and we have a plethora of fossils that lead us to believe it bred abundantly on the continent. It was likely the apex predator of its time.
We even have numerous footprint fossils, giving us a pretty good idea of what its feet looked like without having to guess about muscles or skin. Unsurprisingly, its feet were similar to large flightless birds like the emu.
One of the best fossilized remains is actually an imprint from where a Dilophosaurus sat down in the sand. There are clear impressions of the animal’s feet and even its cloaca, which is pretty wild. That’s the dinosaur equivalent of using a photocopier to capture an image of your butt, except someone found it 166 million years later and added it to the scientific record.
Stay curious, 7B.