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Humans
Nigel Marven
The player’s supervisor, a park administrator who introduces the player to the basics of running Prehistoric Kingdom, as well as to the creatures they’ll be looking after.
- Actor Allusion: Has several references to his role in Prehistoric Park.
- Animal Lover: A more realistic version; he’s well aware that some of the creatures in the park are extremely dangerous, and is clearly glad to be on the other side of the fences, but is clearly fascinated by them all regardless.
- Benevolent Boss: Quite friendly and affable towards the player. When he learns the player’s predecessor for the Training level took off for the new job in America without securing things very well at their old park, he immediately decides to have a word with the board of directors about them.
- Parrot Pet Position: His character artwork has a Microraptor in this position.
Animals
Dinosaurs
Acrocanthosaurus
Acrocanthosaurus atokensis
- Rating: 4 Stars
- Overshadowed by Awesome: Despite being the apex predator for a while in early Cretaceous North America, they're usually seen as "background dressing" animals in educational media about Deinonychus, or mentioned as relatives of the larger Carcharodontosaurus or Giganotosaurus. Somewhat ironically, Acrocanthosaurus was the only carcharodontosaur to be in the game at launch, until Carcharodontosaurus itself was announced for inclusion in Update 9.
Apatosaurus
Apatosaurus ajax
- Improbable Weapon User: While it's highly likely that most sauropods could use their tails for defense, Brontosaurus stands out for being the only one that seems explicitly geared to use its neck for defense, as it has sharp spines runnning down said neck's length.
- Token Minority: The first and so far only confirmed diplodicoid in the game.
Argentinosaurus
Argentinosaurus huinculensis
- Rating: 5 Stars
- The Big Guy: Biggest in the park, it absolutely towers over anything that isn't another Sauropod.
- Gentle Giant Sauropod: Given that there aren't any fighting animations in-game yet, they're this by necessity.
Brachiosaurus
Brachiosaurus altithorax
- Rating: 5 Stars
- Gentle Giant Sauropod: Given that there aren't any fighting animations in-game yet, they're this by necessity.
- Reality Is Unrealistic: A very accurate depiction of the animal, though it looks slightly different from most in popular media. This is because most popular depictions of Brachiosaurus are based off Giraffatitan, an African sauropod once thought to be a member of the genus.
Camarasaurus
Camarasaurus supremus/C. grandis/C. lentus
- Rating: 3 Stars
- The Generic Guy: Not as popular as their larger cousins, but still a big, successful sauropod in their own right.
- Long Neck: It's a sauropod. Comes with the territory.
- Palette Swap: Each skin is a different species, with slightly different proportions and sizes.
Carcharodontosaurus
Carcharodontosaurus saharicus
- Rating: 5 Stars
- The Big Guy: The longest and tallest fully terrestrial carnivore in the park. Spinosaurus is longer and heavier, but is semiaquatic, and Tyrannosaurus is shorter in length and height, but more heavily built.
- Shout-Out: The sound design for Carcharodontosaurus, as well as its "Ablaze" skin were inspired by the dinosaur's appearance in Jurassic Park: Operation Genesis.
- Threatening Shark: Evoked by its name, which means "Shark Toothed Lizard".
Word of God even confirms that tiger sharks were a basis for both its color and its skin patterns.
Coelophysis
Coelophysis bauri
- Com Mon: Very common and successful in its day, a fast and nimble predator found in large numbers all over the world, but not quite as impressive as later theropods. It's the first one star carnivore, making it one of the few animals that can be selected as a starter creature regardless of difficulty.
- Fragile Speedster: Compared to other animals in the park, or even in their heyday in the Triassic. They were completely outclassed by other, older groups of reptilian predators in terms of strength and endurance, but were far faster, nimbler, and with better stamina than most animals in their habitat.
- From Nobody to Nightmare: A relatively small, unremarkable-looking predator in its time, but later theropods would completely outclass any of Coelophysis' contemporaries.
- Token Minority: The only one-star carnivore in-game.
Deinocheirus
Deinocheirus mirificus
- Rating: 4 Stars
- Artistic License – Paleontology: All of its currently-implemented skins have either too many or too few feathers according to most contemporary theories of giant maniraptoriform integument. The two feathered skins are probably overly shaggy for a multi-tonne animal indigenous to a relatively humid, swampy habitat, but the third skin overcompensates by lacking feathers altogether (paleontologists are almost certain that Deinocheirus would've at least had feathers on its arms and tail, and possibly its dorsum as well).
- Creepily Long Arms: It has extremely long arms, over 8 feet long (2.5 meters), giving it the largest forelimbs of any bipedal animal to have ever lived, alongside its contemporary Therizinosaurus. Notably, this was all we knew of this dinosaur up until the early mid 2010s.
- Extreme Omnivore: Gameplay-wise, it has the most varied diet at launch, being able to eat plants, fruit, and fish (though the latter is not in the game yet).
- Long Neck: While all ornithomimosaurs have long necks, Deinocheirus stands out in this regard due to the animals proportion making said neck comparable to a sauropods. It overall has one of the longest necks of any theropod dinosaur, alongside fellow Asian giant theropods Therizinosaurus and Gigantoraptor.
- Mix-and-Match Critters: The best description of this dinosaur is a bear crossed with an ostrich, a camel, and a duck.
- Vegetarian Carnivore: Is a member of the theropod group, but eats mostly plants and fruit. Downplayed in that it can also eat fish, which is true to the fossil record.
Dilophosaurus
Dilophosaurus wetherilli
- Chromatic Arrangement: As their distinctive head-crests were made of relatively soft bone, and show signs of having been enlarged by softer tissue, their three skins have crests and heads that look slightly different: a blue one with minimal growth and simple semi-circular crests, a yellow one that takes clear cues from “Jurassic Park”, and a red one that has a more “front-heavy” design favored in modern paleo-art. That said, the difference in appearance is entirely cosmetic.
- Dark Is Not Evil: Despite the fearsome Red and Black and Evil All Over color scheme one of its skins has, it’s simply a predatory animal.
- Lean and Mean: Considerably more slender than most other large theropods, but still a competent hunter.
- Moveset Clone: It shares a rig and animations with Coelophysis, due to both having similar anatomies.
- Obsolete Mentor: The apex predator of its day, and one of the tallest, fastest, most dangerous predators on Earth up to that time – but somewhat light and frail compared to later theropods of the same height and length.
- Real Is Brown: Downplayed with the snowmelt skin - while most of its body is grey, its head crests are the most vibrant of the three, being bright blue and purple with black stripes.
- Spikes of Villainy: It's only a predatory animal, but one of its skins features a distinct row of spikes on the upper half of its neck and a curved one around each eye socket.
- Snakes Are Sinister: The artbook states that most of its color patterns are based on snakes, and while its not evil, just an animal, it still looks very intimidating.
Dryosaurus
Dryosaurus altus
- Rating: 1 Star
- Com Mon: A one-star animal in terms of viewer popularity, but they can be kept in large groups.
- Foil: To Leaellynasaurua, the other small, non ceratopsian bipedal ornithischian in the game. Dryosaurus is an extremely well understood dinosaur known from mulitple skeletons the very well known Morrison Formation among other locales, while Leaellynasaura is only known from a single fossil excavated from Dinosaur Cove. The former dinosaur fits the classic image of a small hypsilophodont while the latter is famouns for its large eyes and having a tail longer than the rest of its body. Dryosaurus is from a locale that seasonally became a desert while Leaellynasaura lived inside the Antarctic Circle and probably experienced polar winters with snow. Finally, as a corollary to the above, while Dryosaurus only has one feathered skin, all of Leaellynasaura's skins are feathered.
- Fragile Speedster: Small and fast, but if their speed can't save them from bigger Theropods, they're out of luck.
- Ridiculously Cute Critter: Cute little bipeds that come in feathered and scaled skins.
Edmontosaurus
Edmontosaurus regalis/E. annectens/E. kuukpikensis
- Rating: 4 Stars
- The Big Guy: E. annectens is the biggest of the three. Based on the fossil content of its home range, it's filling in for sauropods, with some specimens noticeably dwarfing even the mighty Tyrannosaurus in size.
- Divergent Character Evolution: The three species prefer different-sized herds, enclosures, and habitats, owing to the different areas their fossils were found in.
- Social Ornithopod: They tend to be happiest in decent-sized herds.
Iguanodon
Iguanodon bernissartensis
- Rating: 4 Stars
- The Generic Guy: Since their discovery, they often come across as among the most "generic" herbivores among dinosaurs; neither particularly large or small (though a good bit larger than average), or well-armed or defenseless. That being said, it is still a very popular dinosaur, being a four star animal in-game.
- Improbable Weapon User: Their thumbs. Or more accurately, a big spike where their thumbs should be.
- Social Ornithopod: They tend to be happiest in good-sized herds.
- Token Minority: The sole Cretaceous British animal in the game. It was originally the only animal from the British Isles, but lost this after Scelidosaurus was added.
Lambeosaurus
Lambeosaurus lambei
- Rating: 4 Stars
- Social Ornithopod: Tend to be happiest in groups of 2-7.
Leaellynasaura
Leaellynasaura amicagraphica
One of the more bizarre dinosaurs to come out of Australia, famous for its adaptations to live in polar winters.
- Foil: To Dryosaurus - while both share the same overall body plan, they're otherwise quite different. Dryosaurus is a fairly standard small ornithischian while Leaellynasaura is more bizarre, belonging to the family elasmaria. Dryosaurus is primarily scaly while all of Leaellyansaura's skins are covered in feathers. Dryosaurus is intended as a Ridiculously Cute Critter while Leaellynasaura has Exotic Eye Designs and Scary Teeth that make it more unnerving to look at, with one skin giving it red eyes that make it look more like a fluffy gremlin than anything else, though it still looks pretty cute.
- Ridiculously Cute Critter: Downplayed - while Leaellynasaura is a very fluffy dinosaur and most of its skins accentuate its cuteness, it also has Scary Teeth and one of its skins invokes Red Eyes, Take Warning, making it less cute overall than, say, Dryosaurus.
Muttaburrasaurus
Muttaburrasaurus langdoni
- Rating: 2 Stars
- Token Minority: Currently the only Australian animal in the game. Update 11 would subvert this with the arrival of Leaellynasaura.
Nasutoceratops
Nasutoceratops titusi
- Rating: 2 Stars
Ouranosaurus
Ouranosaurus nigeriensis
- Rating: 3 Stars
- Token Minority: The only African herbivore in the game.
Pachyrhinosaurus
Pachyrhinosaurus canadensis/P. lakustai/P. perotorum
- Rating: 3 Stars
- Artistic License – Paleontology: There's no actual physical evidence for the downy coat on P. perotorum. That said, it is known that it lived much further north than any other ceratopsians, and even in the Cretaceous, it got plenty cold in the winter.
- Divergent Character Evolution: P. canadensis is the largest of the three, P. lakustai has the most pronounced horns, and P. perotorum, smallest of the three, has a thick, downy coat to cope with the frigid environment where it lived.
- Non-Indicative Name: {{Downplayed|Trope)) - while all of them have horns as their family name, Ceratopsia ("horned face") would suggest, P. perotorum is the only one who doesn't actually have them on its face. Its only horns are on the top of its frill.
Parasaurolophus
Parasaurolophus walkeri/P. cyrtocristatus/Charonosaurus jiayinensis
- Rating: 5 Stars
- Divergent Character Evolution: P. walkeri, the most famous, has a mid-sized crest, and is originally from Canada. P. cyrtocristatus, with a shorter crest, is from further south, in Utah and New Mexico. Charonosaurus, largest of the three, is from northern Asia.
- Social Ornithopod: Most comfortable in herds.
Protoceratops
Protoceratops andrewsi
- Rating: 1 Star
- Amazing Technicolor Wildlife: Comes in forms that range from brown, black, and white striped, sand-colored with a brown striped tail, or vibrant green.
- Com Mon: A one-star animal, very common, and relatively cheap.
Psittacosaurus
Psittacosaurus sibiricus/P. mongoliensis
- Rating: 1 Star
- Beware My Stinger Tail: Has a bristle of large spines down the back of its tail to deter predators.
- Com Mon: A one-star animal, small, and very common in its day.
- Divergent Character Evolution: Known from 12 species, though only two made it into the game (plus an unnamed species based on the discovery of a Chinese animal preserved so well that its skin pigmentation was recently deciphered). P. sibiricus is the most distinct, with the large horns on its jaws and cheeks.
- Ridiculously Cute Critter: Cute little bipedal ceratopsians with parrot-like heads.
Scelidosaurus
Scelidosaurus harrisonii
- Four Legs Good, Two Legs Better: Though traditionally a quadruped, this dinosaur is able to move on his front legs in order to run faster.
- Fragile Speedster: Well, in comparison to its relations. Dinosaurs from the early Jurassic tended to be fairly small and lightly built, and it’s far smaller, speedier, and more lightly armored than its later relatives. That said, it’s still a Tough Armored Dinosaur, so it’s still bulkier, slower, and tougher than, say, Dryosaurus.
- Ridiculously Cute Critter: Cute armored little fellas.
Spinosaurus
Spinosaurus aegyptiacus
- Rating: 5 Stars
- Artistic License – Paleontology: The "Sobek" and "Ammit" skins feature crocodile-like scutes and osteoderms, a common paleoart meme in depictions of Spinosaurus despite having no precedence in the fossil record. Almost as a compromise, the "Tawaret" and "Hapi" skins feature smaller, pebbly scales similar to skin impressions known from a fellow spinosaur, Baryonyx.
- The Big Guy: Only the biggest guy of its kind in the park! Spinosaurus is undoubtedly the longest theropod to ever live, but whether it or T. rex was the heaviest is a point of contention among paleontologists.
- Green Gators: While not a crocodilian, greatly resembles a bipedal croc, and the olive green coloration of its "Sobek" skin takes notes from modern day Nile crocodiles.
- Mix-and-Match Critters: Has a remarkably crocodilian head, a heron-like gait and feeding animations, duck-like proportions, and a tail similar to a newt's.
- Savage Spinosaurs: Refreshingly and completely averted, due to Spinosaurus's realistic depiction with shorter hindlimbs, a notched jaw, head crest, M-shaped sail, and finned tail.
- Spinosaurus Versus T. rex: Invoked in Nigel's commentary on the species, but averted for now, as fighting animations aren't present yet.
- Shout-Out: Fitting for a dinosaur discovered in Egypt, all of Spinosaurus's skins take their names from gods and demons in Egyptian Mythology.
Styracosaurus
Styracosaurus albertensis
- Rating: 3 Stars
Torvosaurus
Torvosaurus tanneri/T. gurneyi
- Rating: 3 Stars
- The Generic Guy: They lack the distinctive crests or ornamentation or sheer size of many other Theropods, but as of Early Access, still made it as one of the first three Theropods to be included in-game.
- Lean and Mean: Has a lighter build than the large Theropods that succeeded it in the Cretaceous, giving it a distinctively sleek, lanky look.
- Shout-Out: The Volcanic skin has colourations very similar to the Torvosaurus from Dinosaur Revolution, particularly in the head region.
- Token Minority: The only megalosauroid in the game until Update 9 added Spinosaurus, and still the only member of the megalosauridae family proper.
Triceratops
Triceratops horridus/T. prorsus
- Rating: 5 Stars
- Palette Swap: The two species can be distinguished by the length of their nose horns, the curve of their brow horns and beaks.
- Token Minority: While there are five other ceratopsians currently in the game, Triceratops is the only chasmosaur among them — the rest are either centrosaurs or predate the centrosaur-chasmosaur split.
Tyrannosaurus
Tyrannosaurus rex/Tarbosaurus bataar
- Rating: 5 Stars
- The Aloner: Tyrannosaurus rex will not tolerate the presence of rivals — the only way to house more than one of them is if they are male and female, at which point they become a mated pair. Tarbosaurus is more social, being able to live in groups of three.
- Amazing Technicolor Wildlife: Its skin colorations are as follows:
- Green and faded black and yellow (leatherhide)
- Faded red and black (molten)
- Black, white, and a bit of blue (brumal)
- Desert red (scorched, which represents Tarbosaurus bataar).
- Artistic License – Paleontology: Besides the Brumal Tyrannosaurus being a little too feathered according to modern research and all skins having lipless jaws with exposed teeth (though the latter at least is acknowledged as an intentional case of Artistic License by the developers), Tarbosaurus is more social than Tyrannosaurus, yet its environmental preferences lean toward drier environments, which aren't as able to sustain larger animals as other locales. It would make more sense for Tyrannosaurus to be more social, as it lives in areas that are more likely to be filled with larger numbers of prey. That being said, Tarbosaurus is known from places where the most common prey animals were significantly larger than it was, so it may have lived in packs to aid in hunting these creatures.
- Divergent Character Evolution: Tyrannosaurus and Tarbosaurus are close relatives, but they have different appearances and preferences in regards to biome and social interaction.
- Tyrannosaurus (represented by the Leatherhide, Molten, and Brumal skins) is The Aloner (at most it can live in mated pairs), is the only one of the two that has feathers (the Brumal skin), and prefers to live in Coastal, Tropical, Wetland, or Temperate areas.
- Tarbosaurus (represented by the Scorched skin) has a dewlap on its throat, can live in groups of three regardless of gender, and trades the preference for Coastal environments for one to Scrubland areas.
- Feathered Fiend: The "Brumal" skin has feathers.
- Shout-Out: The Brumal skin is strikingly similar to the creature's design from the original Walking with Dinosaurs series, with the only changes being the feather coat and the blue areas on the head.
- Token Minority: The only tyrannosaur currently in the game.
Velociraptor
Velociraptor mongoliensis
- Badass Adorable: They're small dinosaurs covered in fuzzy feathers. They can also rip you to shreds.
- Feathered Fiend: Albeit in a Badass Adorable way.
- Overshadowed by Awesome: Due to just how different it is from the classic image of raptors, Velociraptor is relegated to a two star animal in-game. Concept art and early renders indicate that Utahraptor, its larger cousin, will be a five-star because the latter fits the previously mentioned classic image of raptors.
- Raptor Attack: Averted. The Velociraptors are roughly turkey-sized predators that are generally quite accurate to the fossil record.
- Ridiculously Cute Critter: For a infamous predator, these guys look rather cute.
Mammals
Coelodonta
Coelodonta antiquitatis
- Rating: 3 Stars
- Horn Attack: their distinctive, oversized horn is far larger than any Rhino's alive today. It's theorized it may have been used as a "Snow Shovel" to clear snow away from edible plants.
- Only Known by Their Nickname: Hardly anyone knows what a Coelodonta is, but most people are at least aware of the Woolly Rhinoceros.
- Rhino Rampage: Averted, at least for the moment. Seeing as combat behaviour hasn't been implemented yet, it's currently just as docile as every other animal.
Elasmotherium
Elasmotherium sibiricum/Sinotherium lagrelii
- Depending on the Artist: While Elasmotherium was traditionally depicted with a massive rhino-like horn on its head, its closest relatives were indeed horned, and its skull shape heavily suggests the presence of such a horn, no such horn has ever actually been found, and newer studies suggest its proportions were ill-equipped for such a large, heavy growth. As a result, it has two skins, one with the enormous horn often seen in traditional paleoart, and one with a much shorter “boss” largely seen as more likely by modern paleontologynote .
- Divergent Character Evolution: The Sinotherium skin is a bit smaller than the Elasmotherium, and is portrayed as largely hairless, rather like a modern rhino. The Sinotherium itself is an ancestral relative that lived from the late Miocene to the early Pliocene across central Asia.
- Rhino Rampage: Even bigger and bulkier than the Woolly Rhino, but (possibly) lacking the huge horn.
Mammuthus
Mammuthus primigenius
- Rating: 5 Stars
- Mammoths Mean Ice Age: Averted; while they can live in snowy regions, they tend to prefer open fields with Boreal Forest trappings.
- Only Known by Their Nickname: Best known as the "Woolly Mammoth".
Panthera
Panthera spelea/P. atrox
- Divergent Character Evolution: The Eurasian Cave Lion has sandy colored coat and thick short mane, with thick fur running across its underbelly. In contrast, its North American cousin American Lion has semi-fading spots and thick patch of fur hanging from its neck, which gives an impression of beard.
- King of Beasts: Subverted. It's a prehistoric lion but doesn't have a very high star rating compared to other animals in the game. Given that it's extremely similar to modern lions in terms of anatomy and behaviour, just slightly larger and with a shorter mane, it's likely that guests just don't find it exotic enough.
- Panthera Awesome: Prehistoric lions which once used to roam Eurasia and North America during the Ice Ages.
Paraceratherium
Paraceratherium bugtiense/P. transouralicum/Juxia sharamurenensis
- Rating: 3 Stars
- Divergent Character Evolution: Downplayed between P. bugtiense and transouralicum, which are very similar and have relatively minor model differences (transouralicum is slightly smaller, darker, and has small skin nodules like a rhino). However, the third skin is a different, far smaller and earlier Genus named Juxia, and it looks quite different from its relatives.
- Gentle Giant: The largest mammals in the game, dwarfing even the Mammoths. Since interspecies combat has not been implemented in the game at the time of their release, they’re this by default.
- Long Neck: Roughly equal to a giraffe’s in length, though attached to a much bigger, bulkier body.
- Non-Standard Character Design: Downplayed; while their proportions are very different from other rhinos, their thick armored hide, distinctive head shape, and triangular upper lip reveal their relatives.
Smilodon
Smilodon fatalis/S. populator
- Rating: 4 Stars
- Only Known by Their Nickname: They're best known by their popular name of "Saber-toothed Tigers" - though they weren't related to tigers very closely at all, and are sometimes more accurately called "Saber-toothed Cats".
- Panthera Awesome: Big, tough felines specifically adapted to taking down much larger prey.
- Scary Teeth: They have some BIG fangs.
- Superior Successor: Fatalis was a North American species that first appeared roughly 1.6 mya. Populator was a bigger, more robust South American species that first appeared roughly 1 mya. Note that this is only reflected in their models - both species are four-star animals.
Mini-Aviary Exhibits
Archaeopteryx
Archaeopteryx lithographica
- Amazing Technicolor Wildlife: Comes in many colors, ranging from white to blue to brown.
- Growing Wings: One of the first dinosaurs with feathered wings.
- Toothy Bird: Has a row of small, pointed teeth in its snout.
- Mix-and-Match Critters: It looks like a cross between a jay and a dromaeosaur.
- Ridiculously Cute Critter: As mentioned above, they look like dinosaurified jays.
Microraptor
Microraptor gui
- Dark Is Not Evil: Their feathers are a glossy blue-black (which, as a couple particularly well-preserved fossils show, is accurate), but it's just another animal (and an adorable one, at that). Nigel Marven's in-game portrait actually has one roosting on his shoulder at all times (a nod to this dinosaur being his personal favorite)!
- Growing Wings: Their arms serve as primitive wings, as was the case with many small Theropods. Unlike others, however, their legs doubled as a second pair.
- Toothy Bird: Blurs the line between "Bird" and "Dinosaur", not that there ever was much of a line.
- Ridiculously Cute Critter: One of them even sits on Nigel Marven's shoulder!
