47 Facts About Dilophosaurus

Dilophosaurus has been considered a member of the family Dilophosauridae along with Dracovenator, a group placed between the Coelophysidae and later theropods, but some researchers have not found support for this grouping.

Dilophosaurus is known from the Kayenta Formation, and lived alongside dinosaurs such as Scutellosaurus and Sarahsaurus.

Dilophosaurus was featured in the novel Jurassic Park and its movie adaptation, wherein it was given the fictional abilities to spit venom and expand a neck frill, as well as being smaller than the real animal.

Dilophosaurus was the first well-known theropod from the Early Jurassic, and remains one of the best-preserved examples of that age.

Dilophosaurus maintained that both genera bore crests, but that the exact shape of these was unknown in Dilophosaurus.

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In 1999, amateur paleontologist Stephan Pickering privately published the new name Dilophosaurus "breedorum" based on the 1964 specimen, named in honor of Breed, who had assisted in collecting it.

Paleontologists Christophe Hendrickx and Octavio Mateus suggested in 2014 that the known specimens might represent two species of Dilophosaurus based on different skull features and stratigraphic separation, pending thorough description of assigned specimens.

Dilophosaurus was one of the earliest large predatory dinosaurs, a medium-sized theropod, though small compared to some of the later theropods.

Skull of Dilophosaurus was large in proportion to the overall skeleton, yet delicate.

Dilophosaurus bore a pair of high, thin, and arched crests longitudinally on the skull roof.

The mandibular fenestra was small in Dilophosaurus, compared to that of coelophysoids, and reduced from front to back, uniquely for this genus.

Dilophosaurus had four teeth in each premaxilla, 12 in each maxilla, and 17 in each dentary.

In 1984 Welles found that Dilophosaurus exhibited features of both Coelurosauria and Carnosauria, the two main groups into which theropods had hitherto been divided, based on body size, and he suggested this division was inaccurate.

Dilophosaurus found Dilophosaurus to be closest to those theropods that were usually placed in the family Halticosauridae, particularly Liliensternus.

In 1988, paleontologist Gregory S Paul classified the halticosaurs as a subfamily of the family Coelophysidae, and suggested that Dilophosaurus could have been a direct descendant of Coelophysis.

Lamanna and colleagues pointed out in 1998 that since Dilophosaurus was discovered to have had crests on its skull, other similarly crested theropods have been discovered, and that this feature is, therefore, not unique to the genus, and of limited use for determining interrelationships within their group.

The lower footprints were tridactyl, and could have been made by Dilophosaurus; Welles created the new ichnogenus and species Dilophosauripus williamsi based on them, in honor of Williams, the discoverer of the first Dilophosaurus skeletons.

The attribution to Dilophosaurus was primarily based on the wide angle between digit impressions three and four shown by these tracks, and the observation that the foot of the holotype specimen shows a similarly splayed-out fourth digit.

Weems stated in 2019 that Eubrontes tracks do not reflect the gracile feet of Dilophosaurus, and argued they were instead made by the bipedal sauropodopormph Anchisaurus.

Welles found that Dilophosaurus did not have a powerful bite, due to weakness caused by the subnarial gap.

Dilophosaurus thought that it used its front premaxillary teeth for plucking and tearing rather than biting, and the maxillary teeth further back for piercing and slicing.

Dilophosaurus thought that it was probably a scavenger rather than a predator, and that if it did kill large animals, it would have done so with its hands and feet rather than its jaws.

In 1988, Paul dismissed the idea that Dilophosaurus was a scavenger, and claimed that strictly scavenging terrestrial animals are a myth.

Dilophosaurus stated that the snout of Dilophosaurus was better braced than had been thought previously, and that the very large, slender maxillary teeth were more lethal than the claws.

The authors suggested that if Dilophosaurus indeed fed on small prey, possible hunting packs would have been of limited size.

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Brown and Rowe considered Dilophosaurus to have been an apex predator in its ecosystem, and not a scavenger.

Dilophosaurus found the forelimbs to have been powerful weapons, strong and flexible, and not used for locomotion.

Dilophosaurus noted that the hands were capable of grasping and slashing, of meeting each other, and reaching two-thirds up the neck.

Dilophosaurus proposed that in a sitting posture, the animal would rest on the large "foot" of its ischium, as well as its tail and feet.

In 1990, paleontologists Stephen and Sylvia Czerkas suggested that the weak pelvis of Dilophosaurus could have been an adaptation for an aquatic lifestyle, where the water would help support its weight, and that it could have been an efficient swimmer.

Paul depicted Dilophosaurus bouncing on its tail while lashing out at an enemy, similar to a kangaroo.

Senter and Sullivan concluded that Dilophosaurus was able to grip and hold objects between two hands, to grip and hold small objects in one hand, to seize objects close beneath the chest, to bring an object to the mouth, to perform a display by swinging the arms in an arc along the sides of the ribcage, to scratch the chest, belly, or the half of the other forelimb farthest from the body, to seize prey beneath the chest or the base of the neck, and to clutch objects to the chest.

Dilophosaurus was unable to perform scratch-digging, hook-pulling, to hold objects between two fingertips of one hand, to maintain balance by extending the arms outwards to the sides, or to probe small crevices like the modern aye aye does.

Welles conceded that suggestions as to the function of the crests of Dilophosaurus were conjectural, but thought that, though the crests had no grooves to indicate vascularization, they could have been used for thermoregulation.

Dilophosaurus suggested they could have been used for species recognition or ornamentation.

In 2005 Tykoski found that most Dilophosaurus specimens known were juvenile individuals, with only the largest an adult, based on the level of co-ossification of the bones.

Since all the injuries had healed, it is certain that the Dilophosaurus survived for a long time after these events, for months, perhaps years.

Dilophosaurus appears to have survived for a considerable span of time, based on the position of the specimens within the Kayenta Formation.

Dilophosaurus was featured in the 1990 novel Jurassic Park, by the writer Michael Crichton, and its 1993 movie adaptation by the director Steven Spielberg.

Geologist J Bret Bennington noted in 1996 that though Dilophosaurus probably did not have a frill and could not spit venom like in the movie, its bite could have been venomous, as has been claimed for the Komodo dragon.

Dilophosaurus found that adding venom to the dinosaur was no less allowable than giving a color to its skin, which is unknown.

Dilophosaurus added that if it did have a frill, it would not have used it to intimidate its meal, but rather a competitor.

Bakker pointed out in 2014 that the movie's Dilophosaurus lacked the prominent notch in the upper jaw, and concluded that the movie-makers had done a good job at creating a frightening chimaera of different animals, but warned it could not be used to teach about the real animal.

Cliffs in Arizona that contained the bones of Dilophosaurus have petroglyphs by ancestral Puebloans carved onto them, and the criss-crossing tracks of the area are called Naasho'illbahitsho Biikee by the Navajo, meaning "big lizard tracks".

In 2017 Dilophosaurus was designated as the state dinosaur of the US state of Connecticut, to become official with the new state budget in 2019.

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Dilophosaurus was chosen because tracks thought to have been made by similar dinosaurs were discovered in Rocky Hill in 1966, during excavation for the Interstate Highway 91.

Dilophosaurus was proposed as the state dinosaur of Arizona by a 9-year-old boy in 1998, but lawmakers suggested Sonorasaurus instead, arguing that Dilophosaurus was not unique to Arizona.