I'm Nathan Smith, I'm an associate curator

in the Dinosaur Institute at the Natural History Museum

of Los Angeles County.

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I'm here to talk to you about every dinosaur

that you can find in the Jurassic Park films.

Welcome

to Jurassic Park.

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(dinosaur yelling)

Brachiosesaurus was a member of the Sauropod group,

so these are the huge long neck plant eaters.

Brachiosesaurus 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.

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(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.

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(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.

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(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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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(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.

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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.

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(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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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(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.

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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, Brachiosesaurus.

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(dinosaur moaning)

Apatosaurus is another large, plant eating Sauropod dinosaur

so really long necked, although compared to Brachiosesaurus,

this animal would have held its neck more horizontally.

It's possible that the difference in, in neck

between animals like Apatosaurus and Brachiosesaurus

probably reflects feeding differences.

These animals were probably browsing at different heights

in the trees that were around during the late Jurassic

with Brachiosesaurus 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?

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(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.

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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.

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Welcome to Jurassic World.