The Only Dinosaur More Terrifying In Real Life Than Movies

Hollywood and movies in general are well known for exaggerating things for dramatic effect and dinosaurs as well as other prehistoric animals are no exception to this throughout their history of being featured in films the vast majority have been altered in ways aimed at making them more intimidating than they were in life for example be it through an inaccurate size increase or durability buff however there is one dinosaur that is an exception to this despite being altered in movies it was actually even more more terrifying in real life than on the big screen it is a

dinosaur that was one of the first Kings of the Jurassic and the largest animal in its ecosystem during its Heyday this is the dilophosaurus despite only gaining worldwide recognition after the release of the iconic Jurassic Park the dilophosaurus has been known to paleontologist for over 80 years with the first remains being discovered in 1940 when three specimens of mixed sizes were found in the early Jurassic dated cayenta formation of Northern Arizona the find was remarkable as it included a nearly complete individual which led it to being one of the best known preserved therapods at the

time however because paleontology wasn't well developed at that point many new therapods were misclassified including the dilophosaurus which scientists initially believed to be a new species of Megalosaurus another Jurassic therapod this belief of it being a Megalosaurus quickly stuck and for two decades it went unchallenged that is until another specimen was located in the same area of the first three that was in even better condition the skull in particular was more complete and this revealed the presence of a Crest which had previously been missed the crest was located to the right of the midline indicating

that in life this dinosaur actually had two distinct crests making it clear that this therapod was no Megalosaurus and thus it was aptly renamed to Dilophosaurus meaning the two crusted lizard and moved into a new family named after it the dilophosaur which contains just one other member the Draco anator Not only was this new find important as it led to the discovery of the crests this newer Dilophosaurus specimen was also the largest individual ever found and has remained the largest to date it is thought to have been a fully matured adult that measured 7 m

or 23 ft from snout to tail making it roughly the same length as the catosaurus despite being the same length the dilophosaurus did sport a more Hollow skeleton and agile build resulting in it being lighter with paleontologist believing it to have weighed about 400 kg or 880 lb which is comparable to the weight of a brown bear while this doesn't make the dilophosaurus as large as later theropods it does still make it the largest known North American land animal during the early Jurassic and many times larger than the dilophosaurus featured in the Jurassic Park movies

which were downsized in order to avoid confusion with the Velociraptor this has unfortunately led to many people assuming that the dilophosaurus was a smaller Predator when in reality it was the biggest animal of its time another peculiar change made in the iconic franchise was the addition of a neck frill which was possibly inspired by the modern-day frilled lizard which uses its distinctive display to scare and ward off various predators and while a frill would admittedly be interesting the real Dilophosaurus likely didn't possess one but it still had as mentioned the two prominent crests that aided

the dilophosaurus in their own ways these relatively big crusts were composed of very thin bones that ran from its snout to behind its eye socket in life it's thought there would have been a layer of keratin as well meaning paleontologists are not entirely sure what the true shape of these crusts were originally it was thought these crusts would have been used for Thermo regulation due to their size and the dilophosaurus hot environment however now most agree that these crests true purpose was likely for individual recognition or sexual selection as the crests appear to have been

highly varied in appearance and size between each individual Dilophosaurus for some time the idea of the dilophosaurus using its crust as a battering ram against prey and competitors was also considered but this conjecture is today widely unsupported as the crests were extremely fragile in nature although thankfully for the dilophosaurus it had an array of other features that allowed it to deal with prey and competitors with perhaps the most important weapon being its vicious Jaws the jaw and subsequently the skull were both proportionally large for its body sometimes accounting for 10% of its entire length which

allowed enough space for its roughly 30 teeth which were all long curved thin and compressed sideways additionally each tooth possessed numerous serrations with sometimes over 70 serration being split amongst the front and back of the tooth these serration allowed the dilophosaurus to easily cut through flesh incurring rapid blood loss and death to the unfortunate animals it prayed upon but exactly what animals were its victims is a question that has been up to debate for a long time one reason for this is its unique Gap located at the front of its skull which made paleontologists first

believed that the dilophosaurus had a weakly built skull that would crack under high pressure thus leading to the idea that it was a scavenger that used a weak bite to carefully dissect carryon or would rather only hunt small creatures in its habitat the belief that Dilophosaurus being a weak biter also helped to create the later notion that it was actually a pous hunter other evidence of it being a fish specialist included its teeth forming an interlocking rosette shape towards the end of the Jaws which is similar to the pattern seen in the spine of Swords

which are known to have prayed on fish as well as the garel a living crocodilian that is known to eat the most fish out of any Croc however despite all the evidence the belief that the dilophosaurus specialized in fish and had a weak bite are now both considered likely debunked as new research has shown that the Gap that was once thought to be weak was actually immobile and extremely robust in life allowing the dilophosaurus to endure High forces while clamping down into struggling prey its size was another indication that a hunted larger terrestrial animals as

it was by far the largest Predator around at the time leading paleontologists to suspect that it grew larger than others as an adaptation specifically designed for killing big animals and some very strong evidence of this comes from the coexisting sasur this was a basil sarap pomor that was about half the size of the dilophosaurus and has shown signs of being prayed upon by this vicious therapod specifically the holotype located ated in 2018 bore various bite marks all across the body that match those of the dilophosaurus and were far too large to have come from any

other known predator in the area and because theasaurus is one of the biggest animals in its environment paleontologists now believe this nightmare was an expert at taking down large animals but still would have likely prayed upon smaller creatures and fish if the chance arose which is to say that absolutely nothing was safe and its bite wasn't the only weapon to be feared as the dilophosaurus also had potent arms that were just as deadly as its jaws studies on its arms showed that they were relatively long yet still surprisingly strong thanks to deep pits that allowed

for muscle and ligament attachment along with its strength the arms were also highly flexible and equipped with three well-developed claws each with the first one being much larger than the other two these claws combined with its strength allowed the dilophosaurus to use its arms to prevent prey from escaping and inflict further damage through various slashing motions which is one more reason for wanting to avoid the dilophosaurus during the early Jurassic and again to the dismay of coexisting creatures the dilophosaurus toolbox doesn't just end with its claws as it also had another quite foolproof way of

capturing prey despite being on the heavier side and no unfortunately this technique of catching prey did not involve spitting Venom to Blind them as seen in Jurassic Park rather it was simply a speed demon that would run prey down the agil of this therapod was demonstrated by its highly developed legs lighter frame and the presence of fleshy air sacks these air sacks grew in its vertebrae and created uni directional breathing a trait seen in birds and crocodiles this indicates that it likely had a high metabolic rate and level of activity hinting that it was a

swift Hunter and if its agility bite jaws and size were not enough to completely dominate its ecosystem there is also a chance that the dilophosaurus was a pack Hunter this stems from the original find of its bones as the three specimens were all found right next to each other leading some to believe that they lived in hunted impacts but if this was the case paleontologists think that three individuals may have been the limit which is due to this therapod being the giant of its Homeland hence it would be quite difficult to sustain more than three

individuals even with all the advantages the dilophosaurus had going for it it turns out that life as a king is not an easy one as the dilophosaurus are notorious for bearing signs of wounds and disease in fact the holotype is known for having the highest number of damaged bones out of any therapod with eight being affected while the theropod with the next highest number of damaged bones is just half of that at four the injuries seen in this Dilophosaurus seem to have been concentrated in its arms and involved the growth with a bony tumors stress

fractures torsions and deformities these injuries were disabling in life as reconstructions have found that this individual would not have been able to properly use one of its arms and hands leading it to rely more heavily on the other it's not exactly known how the dilophosaurus obtained all these injuries but some speculate that it may have occurred through failed hunts or fights with competitors what's interesting though is that despite many Dilophosaurus having banged up arms a study of over 60 individuals found no fractures on their legs and feet which confirms just how useful their arms were

as weapons and tools additionally all paleontologists agree that the number of wounds found across all specimens showed that this was one tough animal that likely had a seriously High pain tolerance and this isn't all that surprising as it lived during a time when the Earth was no joke specifically fossil dating shows that it existed roughly 183 million years ago during the early Jurassic in what is now North America at the time both the super continent of Pangia and the super ocean panthalassa were still around and the Earth was still recovering from the Triassic Jurassic Extinction

event which means there wasn't that much life around and this certainly wasn't helped by the environment as the Earth was still relatively hot the dilophosaurus environment seems to have been particularly grueling characterized by extreme dry seasons during which Dunes would migrate in in out of its habitat however during that era the presence of the large prehistoric lake lake Dixie would have provided a source of relief and a food supply during these extreme dry seasons wet Seasons occurred as well and during those times rivers and streams would come alive creating habitats akin to Desert oases seen

today despite its harsh environment and the fairly recent Extinction event the dilophosaurus was by no means alone and it was even joined by other dinosaurs such as the previously mentioned caurus as well as others including the meganos surus cayinator and scutosaurus non- dinosaurs were also present and were represented by various hybodont sharks bony fish lungfish lizards and salamanders other animals also included the pro salaris yo quilia cayena Kellis the crocodil morphs calcus eaas sucus cayenta sucus protos sucus and the terrasaur ramian meanwhile synapses in the area came in the form of the denodon cayen theum

and oligo kyus even early mammals called these land's home as showcased by the tiny den ethereum and yet despite the remarkable amount of life none held a candle to the dilophosaurus size or ferocity which allowed it to be the Undisputed apex predator of the the early Jurassic North America and with its True Legacy being that much greater than that seen in Hollywood we can only hope that one day we will be able to witness Dilophosaurus is True Glory on the big screen but Dilophosaurus isn't the only animal that has a different modern Legacy compared to

the past and if you want to see some other examples of animals which had very different legacies compared to their modern day perceptions check out my last video where I talked about seven different animals that we generally think of being as quite small and docile but it had one point or another in its evolutionary history been absolute Giants and before I end this video I'd like to make a quick announcement so the reason why I started this channel is because one of course I absolutely love everything about dinosaurs paleontology and extinct animals but then two

because I wanted to bring free educational paleo content to everyone and to that extent I'd love to further expand this Mission so to speak and bring paleontology content to other countries and other languages that I can't speak so where I'm going with this is that if you speak a different language and are interested in potentially bringing extinct Zoo content to your own country language shoot me an email at extinct zrod gmail.com I'll put more of this in the description uh we've actually also begun this process uh with our polish channel so feel free to check

that out if you want to see what it looks like and well if you made it this far thanks for watching I hope you really enjoyed this video uh and until next time onx Zoo