Dilophosaurus: what is it?

The image of the dilophosaurus among the general public is intimately linked to that of the small dinosaur with collar of Jurassic Park. This image is however far from the appearance that this predator actually had.

The dilophosaurus is a dinosaur with a well-known name but its characteristics are often less so. The Dilophosaurus has often in any case the image of the frilled dinosaur spitting venom before killing a careless computer scientist. Its genus name is Dilophosaurus, which comes from the Greek and means “two-crested lizard”. It is one of the saurischian dinosaurs whose pubis is oriented forward, unlike the dinosaurs ornithischians. It is also classified among the theropods who count the dinosaurs predators and are the origin of modern birds. Dilophosaurus lived in the Jurassic period and was, in North America, one of the largest predators in the region.

He was much larger than a human being as he could measure up to six meters in length, which is half the size of a tyrannosaurus rex. It weighed nearly 750 kilos and could therefore easily tackle small sauropods of the Jurassic. It also had strong jaws attached to powerful muscles.

A distinctive crest

One of its distinguishing features is the presence of a double bony ridge on the skulldistributed between the nostrils and the back of orbits. This was probably very colorful and could no doubt be used to attract the attention of sexual partners or to intimidate rivals or predators.

This crest also had spaces and one hypothesis suggests that these were perhaps connected to air sacs that the specimens could inflate, as frigates do, for example.

Other bones also had pockets ofair and therefore lightened the skeleton, which for example allowed Dilophosaurus to become one of the first great dinosaurs North American predators.