Mating calls
- Headscratcher from the book: During the tour, when they pass the Othnielsaurus and Hypsilophodon enclosure the dinosaurs are hiding in the tall grass, so the car plays a sound clip to call their attention: a mating call...but as far as they know, all the animals are female. How did they know what a male's call sounded like?
- All the dinosaurs in the park are females. It's possible that, when they were first starting the research, they cultivated both males and females, before deciding to limit them to females in the park specifically.
- Even if there are no males around, the females might still go into estrous and make a mating call. Though if they're playing the female mating call for a pack of female dinosaurs, it's no surprise none of them respond.
The Dilophosaurus Couple
- In the book, we discover the five species that are breeding are the ones with frog DNA. But later Grant and the kids see both a male and female Dilophosaurus doing a mating dance with no frog DNA in sight.
- Just teasing your wording here, but "in sight"?
- It may be a hint that there were other ways for the dinos to breed or change gender. Grant can noticeably tell that the two are different genders, but unfortunately we never find out how their case happened.
That Dragonfly
- The book does a great job explaining the fictitious cloning technology. It even addresses some problems extinct animals needed to deal with if brought back. This world is all new to them, it's got new bacteria, new diseases and so on. But there is one small scene that seems far-fetched, even under these circumstances. When Grant and the kids travel through the park, a giant dragonfly sits on Tim's arm. So how exactly did they manage to clone that one? And how does it fly? Giant dragonflies like Meganeura lived in the Carboniferous period, approximately 300 million years ago. There is almost certainly no amber from that period. Even if they did find one in-universe, such an insect could not survive. The arthropods of the Carboniferous could only grow so big because the atmosphere's oxygen level was incredibly high. If Meganeura existed today, it would simply suffocate. Moreover, they could only fly because the air was much denser than it is today. Nowadays, it's physically impossible for such insects to lift off. That makes the dragonfly a very mysterious addition to the novel's Jurassic Park.
- A bit of Accidentally-Correct Writing here; amber from the Carboniferous period has recently been found and identified, and while no giant arthropods have been found within, the idea of a Meganeura (or part of one) being preserved in amber well enough to clone with Jurassic Park tech isn't too far-fetched compared to the rest of the book. That said, the same problems with oxygen seem to be plaguing the dinosaurs to a lesser extent, but they're still alive. Since arthropods reproduce extremely quickly, finding a mutation that could survive in a lower-oxygen environment might not be too far off.
- That's a very good explanation. In any case, Jurassic Park's Meganeura would require a lot of engineering. It's not just the breathing apparatus that needed to be fixed, it's also the wings, bodily weight, and so on. Flight physics and mechanics play a big role here. The larger an animal gets, the more it has to rely on gliding rather than flapping its wings. An oversized dragonfly would function very differently compared to real insects. But Crichton never contradicts that, so yes, it's not impossible.
Raptor intelligence
- The intelligence of the raptors in the book seems to vary as the plot demands. Early on, they execute a perfect plan to kill a character - except for the big electric fence in their way. Which, if they're intelligent, they should know, given that they've spent most of their lives in that paddock with that electric fence around it. Then some get on the boat, but it is not explained why, in the multi-hour trip to the mainland, none of them attack the crew or are even noticed by them. Later, they use fairly complex traps and coordination to kill other characters, but two raptors seeing another eat an egg and immediately start dying doesn't seem to cause them to think "huh, maybe we shouldn't eat those eggs".
