Dilophosaurus
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| Dilophosaurus
Conservation status: Fossil | ||||||||||||||||||
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| Missing image Spitting.dinosaur.arp.750pix.jpg Dilophosaurus animatronic model | ||||||||||||||||||
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Dilophosaurus wetherilli is an Early Jurassic theropod dinosaur. It had paired rounded crests on its skull, mostly likely for display. It measured around 6 meters long and may have weighed half a ton. The fossils of Dilophosaurus come from the Navajo Indian Reservation, just west of Tuba City, Arizona. Just a few tens of feet below the level of the bones, large footprints of carnivorous dinosaurs are found, and these may belong to Dilophosaurus. The original description was published in 1954 by the renowned paleontologist Samuel Welles; however, at the time, it was thought to be another genus of theropod (Megalosaurus). In 1970, it was recognized to be distinct and given its own generic name Dilophosaurus (meaning "two-crested lizard"). Welles later redescribed the entire taxon in 1984 in a much more complete paper. Dilophosaurus may be a primitive member of the clade containing both ceratosaurian and tetanuran theropods. Alternatively, some paleontologists classify this genus as a large coelophysoid.
There is another species of Dilophosaurus (D. sinensis) which may or may not belong to this genus. It is possibly closer to the bizarre Antarctic theropod Cryolophosaurus, based on fact that the anterior end of the jugal does not participate in the internal antorbital fenestra and that the maxillary tooth row is completely in front of the orbit and ends anterior to the vertical strut of the lacrimal. This species was recovered from the Yunnan Province of China in 1987 with the prosauropod Yunnanosaurus, and later described and named in 1993 by Shaojin Hu.
Dilophosaurus was also included in the 1993 movie Jurassic Park (and the book by Michael Crichton on which the film was based). It sported a retractable frill around its neck, much like a frilled lizard, and was able to spit poison, aiming for the eyes to blind and paralyse its prey. There is no evidence to support this representation. In the film, director Steven Spielberg also reduced its size, from moderately large to about 3 feet tall and 5 feet long - this was to keep competition low for the main star of the movie, Tyrannosaurus rex.de:Dilophosaurus fr:Dilophosaurus pt:Dilofossauro