- I'm Nathan Smith, I'm
an associate curator
in the Dinosaur Institute at
the Natural History Museum
of Los Angeles County.
(dramatic music)
I'm here to talk to you
about every dinosaur
that you can find in
the Jurassic Park films.
Welcome
to Jurassic Park.
(dramatic orchestra music)
(dinosaur yelling)
Brachiosaurus was a member
of the Sauropod group,
so these are the huge
long neck plant eaters.
Brachiosaurus was one of the
animals with longer forelimbs
and a vertically held neck
that it probably used for high browsing,
so in the first Jurassic Park movie
you see it up there in
the the tops of the trees
sneezing on the kids.
(dramatic orchestra music)
(dinosaur growling)
Parasaurolophus is one of the
crested duck billed dinosaurs.
They have kind of an
elongated crest on their head.
Some of these might of
been used for vocalization
or also, display characteristics
for kind of recognizing their own species
or for sexual display.
They also had a really
amazing battery of teeth
that helped them grind up plant material.
(dramatic orchestra music)
(dinosaurs hissing)
- Charlie!
- Velociraptor is probably
the most famous dinosaur
from Jurassic Park.
In real life, Velociraptor
was a much smaller animal,
probably about the size
of a really big turkey.
One of the most
interesting things about it
is that we know this animal
and the group that belongs to
are very close relatives of birds
and we actually have evidence now
that came out since the first film
that Velociraptor probably was
at least partially covered in feathers.
There are actually boney quill knobs
that are present on its forearm.
Velociraptor was kind of a
fleet-footed, fast animal
possibly more intelligent
than some other dinosaurs.
I'm not sure if they were
really as hyper intelligent
as they're portrayed in the film,
but there's gotta be a little
artistic license with that.
(dramatic orchestra music)
(dinosaur moaning)
Triceratops is another iconic dinosaur
known from the late cretaceous, of the,
the hell creek formation.
Three very large horns,
from the frill on the back,
this is an animal that
lived along side TYX
and is often depicted with Tyrannosaurus
and it plays a big role
in the early Jurassic Park films as well.
In fact, she an animal that gets sick
because of the, the plant
life that's been reproduced
alongside the dinosaurs in the first film.
(dramatic orchestra music)
(dinosaur roars)
Tyrannosaurus Rex, one of the most popular
dinosaurs of all time,
one of the greats of the
Jurassic Park film franchise.
T-Rex is always kind of
portrayed as the top dinosaur
because for the longest time,
it was the largest predatory
dinosaur that we knew of.
Some recent discoveries,
kind of only in the past 15 or 20 years,
have shown there are several other species
of large, carnivorous dinosaurs
that are now vying for that title.
So it's possible that
Tyrannosaurus has been de-throwned
as the largest carnivore.
So there's a big point
made in the first film
that T-Rex had relatively poor vision
and there is some evidence
that its other senses
might have been a little
more well-developed.
Its sense of smell, for instance,
but I find it a little unlikely
that T-Rex would have been unable to see
some of the humans standing
right in front of it.
So in the second Jurassic Park film,
T-Rex actually gets loose
I think in San Diego
and is running around
downtown and then the suburbs.
Again, I think this is an animal
that probably would
have been more confused
than anything else and
probably would have been
not quite on a rampage, but
just trying to get out of there
and away from everybody.
(dramatic orchestra music)
(dinosaur yelling)
Dilophosaurus also plays an
iconic role in Jurassic Park.
This is the animal that takes out Nedry
in one of the Jurassic Park
jeeps during the rainstorm.
Now, there is a little
bit of artistic license
used for the portrayal of Dilophosaurus
because it probably did
not have that large frill
and there's also no evidence
that it actually spat poison.
However, in reality some of the specimens
we have of Dilophosaurus were
much larger than the animal
that's portrayed in Jurassic Park.
So this is a rare instance
where the real thing
might have been even bigger and scarier.
It probably would have likely attacked
without first alerting someone like Nedry
to its presence, without using a frill
and without using poison,
just the old fashion, coming
right at him with the teeth.
(dramatic orchestra music)
(dinosaur yelling)
Gallimimus is an animal that is known
from one of the most famous
scenes of Jurassic Park,
where they're actually
herding through an open field
and coming right after the protagonist,
Alan Grant and the kids.
We learn shortly after that
they're actually fleeing
from a very hungry T-Rex.
These are probably
correctly portrayed as being
some of the speediest
animals that were around
during the late Cretaceous.
(dramatic orchestra music)
(dinosaur squealing)
Procompsognathus is another animal
that plays a big role in Jurassic Park,
but it's a little better described
in the actual book series.
So this is an animal that's very small,
carnivorous, or predatory, dinosaur.
That is, because of its size,
maybe a little unassuming,
but actually plays a major role
both in the beginning of
the movie and at the end
and some of the, the
folks that it takes out.
We don't actually have
direct evidence of, kind of,
social behavior,
this kind of gregarious
for Procompsognathus,
but what we do have is some evidence
of mass death assemblages of
the same species of dinosaur
that suggested these
animals might of hung out
kind of in large groups.
(dramatic orchestra music)
(dinosaur yelling)
Stegosaurus, another iconic dinosaur,
one of people's favorites.
This is kind of the armor plated dinosaur
with a big series of spikes
on the back of its tail.
That tail was probably very
much a defensive weapon
for Stegosaurus and certainly,
it probably would have
used it to protect itself
or to protect its offspring.
One interesting fact about Stegosaurus
is that we still don't
really have a good handle
on what those plates were used for.
(dramatic orchestra music)
(dinosaur growling)
Pachycephalosaurus,
another iconic dinosaur
from Jurassic Park and this
is a member of the group
the Pachycephalosaurus that
have the big domed heads
that often get portrayed in popular media
as being used for headbutting each other
or in Jurassic Park, for
headbutting those rangers
that are trying to corral it
or even ramming into
the side of a jeep door.
(dramatic orchestra music)
(dinosaur growls)
Ceratosaurus is an animal
that's not quite as well known.
It actually gets its name
from a horn that it has
right on the tip of the snout.
So it is a carnivorous dinosaur,
a member of the Theropod group.
One interesting thing about Ceratosaurus
is that it represents
an evolutionary lineage
that's gonna kinda branch off
and be a little bit separate
from most of the other
carnivorous dinosaurs
that we see in the Jurassic Park films.
(dramatic orchestra music)
(dinosaurs yelling)
Corythosaurus, this animal
is a duck billed dinosaur,
a member of the Lambeosaur group.
A plant eater, its doesn't
have the really elongated crest
of animals like Augustynolophus
or Parasaurolophus,
but it does have this
kind of high domed crest
that actually looks superficially
kind of like what you might see
on the head of a Cassowary today.
(dramatic orchestra music)
(dinosaur growling)
Ankylosaurus is another
very famous dinosaur.
So these are the heavily
armored dinosaurs.
They're quadrupedal, very short and stout.
Ankylosaurus is very well known for having
this really robust and big tail club
situated at the end of the tail
that it probably did use
as a defensive weapon.
Although it's interesting to note
that not all Ankylosaurus
possess that tail club.
(dramatic orchestra music)
(dinosaur roaring)
Spinosaurus this is an
animal that plays a big role
in the third Jurassic Park film,
as kind of the main villain of that film
and it's recognized by its huge sail
that comes across the back.
Now, this is a group of animals
that we really didn't know
much about until recently
with kind of a flurry of new discoveries.
Although, some of the first ones
were discovered almost 100 years ago.
So Spinosaurus and the larger
group, the Spinosauridae
that it belongs to are animals
that were actually semi-aquatic.
It's probably spending
some time in the water.
It's probably living and
doing a lot of its feeding
near the water, including
from some of the large fish
that were around during
this time in the Cretaceous.
Whether or not it was using that sail
to help propel itself through the water
is maybe a little more doubtful
and a little bit of artistic license.
There's definitely the
case of these animals
were more adapted to life in the water
than we had previously
given them credit for.
So Spinosaurus is also famous
from the third Jurassic Park film
for doing battle with Tyrannosaurus.
One of the, the largest
dinosaurs of all time
and recent studies of new
specimens of Spinosaurus
have also suggested that this animal
probably rivaled Tyrannosaurus in size.
(dramatic orchestra music)
(dinosaur yelling)
Pteranodon shows up in a lot
of the Jurassic Park films.
It's probably one of the most well known
Pterosaurs in the films.
So this is an animal that's
actually not a dinosaur.
It's a flying reptile, a member
of the group Pterosauria,
that are closely related to dinosaurs,
but not dinosaurs themselves.
So in Jurassic World there's also a,
a very famous scene where there's kind of
a Pteranodon attack on
the main part of the park
where everybody's running
around and fleeing,
sometimes drink in hand,
and we see Pteranodon
swoop in and actually
grab people and pick them up with their,
their hind feet which definitely
would have been impossible.
These animals wouldn't
have been able to hold
that much weight and they
also probably aren't using
their feet for grasping and attacking prey
the way kind of a eagle or a hawk would.
These animals are probably
attacking and taking prey
more similar to like a modern stork.
(dramatic orchestra music)
(dinosaur growling)
Mosasaurus and the Mosasauria
are not actually dinosaurs.
These are animals that are actually
closely related to lizards.
So the movie kind of portrays Mosasaurus
as hunting its prey near the water's edge
and there might be some evidence for that
because many of them are found
in shallow marine settings,
but it's also quite likely
that they were hunting other
animals actively in the water,
including large Ammonoids
that lived in this
Western interior sea way.
(dramatic orchestra music)
(dinosaur roaring)
Baryonyx is an animal that shows up
in one of the new Jurassic Park films.
People will immediately recognize
it looks a lot like Spinosaurus,
but just lacking that giant sail
and that is because it's a member
of that same group of
dinosaurs Spinosauridae.
(dramatic orchestra music)
(dinosaur growling)
Carnotaurus is another
animal that shows up
in the new Jurassic Park film.
This animal gets its name for the kind of
low, bulbous horns that are
sticking out just above the eyes
and if you're not looking too quick,
this animal might look like just another
large, predatory dinosaur
similar to T-Rex.
You might even be thrown off by the fact
this animal has very stubby forelimbs,
but this is actually a member of the group
called the Abelisaurs,
which are common during
the late Cretaceous on
the Southern continent.
So they kind of, in many
ways, might have played a role
similar to T-Rex,
but on the Southern
continents during that time.
(dramatic orchestra music)
(dinosaur growling)
Allosaurus is another well known dinosaur.
So this animal would
have been a large bodied,
predatory dinosaur, kind of
near the top of the food chain
during the late Jurassic.
Would have been a contemporary
of animals like Stegosaurus,
Apatosaurus, Brachiosaurus.
(dramatic orchestra music)
(dinosaur moaning)
Apatosaurus is another large,
plant eating Sauropod dinosaur
so really long necked, although
compared to Brachiosaurus,
this animal would have held
its neck more horizontally.
It's possible that the
difference in, in neck
between animals like
Apatosaurus and Brachiosaurus
probably reflects feeding differences.
These animals were probably
browsing at different heights
in the trees that were around
during the late Jurassic
with Brachiosaurus kind of able to reach
a lot more of the high vegetation.
So one of the most interesting
facts about Apatosaurus
has to do with another
dinosaur, Brontosaurus.
Brontosaurus and Apatosaurus
looked very, very similar
and Brontosaurus might actually
just be the adult version
of Apatosaurus, since the
Apatosaurus had been named first,
it had priority.
The animals were kind of sunk
into each other as one species.
Some new studies have
suggested that the specimens
that make up the material of Brontosaurus
may be distinct enough to warrant
them being its own genus.
So in the past couple years,
Brontosaurus has been brought back,
whether it stays that way
who's to say?
(dramatic orchestra music)
(dinosaur roaring)
There are scenes in Jurassic Park
where B.D. Wong or Dr. Henry talks about
how they've modified the genes
of some of these dinosaurs
and that, some of the traits
that they've selected for
have had unintended consequences
which play out throughout the film.
So Indominus Rex in the
new Jurassic World movie
allows the folks at the
park to kind of play around
a little more and
actually combine together
several different
dinosaurs to make something
even bigger and even scarier.
I think it makes for a
great villain in the movies
and it allows the film to
go in a little bit more
of a horror movie direction,
or kind of a Frankenstein's
monster type style
which allows for a lot
more suspenseful moments
and kind of new themes
and topics in the film.
So there's one scene in the film
where Indominus kind of
starts to communicate
with the Velociraptors.
You learn that Indominus Rex actually
has some Velociraptor DNA.
That might be more of a stretch
than some of the other
aspects of the film,
but at this point, we've
kind of already bought in
to the world they've created.
(dramatic orchestra music)
(dinosaur growling)
Indoraptor is the new villainous dinosaur
in the Jurassic World
franchise called Kingdom
and what they seem to do
is taken Indominus Rex
and combined it with more raptor DNA.
So almost kind of an event vision
Christopher Walken
somewhere shaking a cow bell
and shouting, I need more raptor,
I need more raptor in this dinosaur.
So they kind of crank up
the raptor a little bit
and create an animal that's supposedly
is even more dangerous, even
more deadly for the new film.
So I think Jurassic
Park and Jurassic World
sometimes take a lot of
flack from scientists
for inaccuracies, like any films do
when they're trying to natural history,
but in reality they've actually done
a really great job of trying to focus on
getting the anatomy of the animals right,
getting inferences about their behavior,
their vocalizations, other things correct.
Now certainly, they take artistic license
like any films do, but more
so than a lot of the films
that have featured dinosaurs in the past.
Jurassic Park and that
franchise have really tried to
involve the scientists and
get a accurate depications
of what these animals
might have looked like
and I think that just
adds to how fascinating
the films actually are.
(dinosaur yelling)
- Welcome to Jurassic World.
