Thanks to its cameo in the first Jurassic Park movie, Dilophosaurus is an immensely popular dinosaur. Here's the story of the discovery and naming of this Jurassic meat-eater.
Illustration of Dilophosaurus: Alain Beneteau
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Thanks to its cameo in the first Jurassic Park movie, Dilophosaurus is an immensely popular dinosaur. Here's the story of the discovery and naming of this Jurassic meat-eater.
Illustration of Dilophosaurus: Alain Beneteau
Comments
The reason Crichton endowed dilophosaurus with the frills and neurotoxin spitting was a large part of the theme of Jurassic Park. We can observe quite a lot about dinosaurs from their fossil remains and even extrapolate some aspects of their behaviour; however, there are always going to be unknown factors as exemplified by the dilophosaurus that we can’t predict. As a result of not being able to control for these aspects, resurrecting those unknowns is potentially fraught with danger. (That’s why Ian Malcolm, the chaotician, was included as a character.) It’s a modern iteration of the old “There are things that man was not meant to do/know” axiom that goes all the way back to Frankenstein.