Jurassic World

Yeah, the compies have a lot to fear from natural predators. There are only 11 of them, and they don't have the bulk that the larger dinosaurs have to protect them.

Realistically speaking, they should almost certainly be whittled away to nothing by year's end. But that's not going to be the next film's take, I'm sure.

Jurassic Park is very bad at treating dinosaurs as admittedly large animals, instead acting like they're terminators.

This short was pretty good about that. The allosaurus took two crossbow bolts near the eye and was like, "F*ck this, I'm out."

I'm still impressed and baffled by dinosaurs' willingness to shred metal with their faces.

I'm still impressed and baffled by metal's willingness to be shredded by dinosaur faces.

JP 3 is the worst offender in this regard. Looking at you, heavy-duty security fence literally designed to resist the kind of force the spinosaurus used to smash through you like papier-mache.

I can forgive it in this case. The metal or fiberglass trailers like that are made of is pretty thin. It doesn't take much to break them open.

The T. rex busted through a similar fence in the first film. The idea was always that the electric current would teach the dinos to stay away and thus not punch through the fence.

Nah, Rexy ate through the cables of a dead electric fence to open a section and escape.

The Spino broke through a fence made out of big steel bars (probably hollow rather than solid) and a metallic net by slamming its body on it.

All in a single thrust.

It's significantly less plausible.

On compys being less dangerous in small groups, their still wild animals with sharp teeth and that parent was extremely irresponsible for allowing them to just film them chasing their kid.

Honestly, those compies had eyes larger than their stomachs. In a fistfight with three chicken-sized lizards, I'd put my money on the eight-year-old.

Have you ever fought an eight-year-old? They're scrappy as f*ck.

Edited by TobiasDrake on Sep 16th 2019 at 8:30:56 AM

Yeah, the only thing keeping that kid from just squashing the little lizards is just her being too afraid of being near them. I've seen that same reaction to big dogs, small dogs, chickens, and beards. Heck, one of them even gets tired of chasing her and just drops out near the end.

Incidentally, real compies apparently ate small lizards, so it's not like they lack an available and familiar food source in North America. Or maybe they ate specially prepared food back at the park from handlers. They might even be chasing that kid because they're expecting her to feed them.

"THIS IS HOW I LEARNED TO ACT"

Snakes are pretty small but an eight year old against a dozen snakes is cause for concern.

Well, that was a fun short. This is actually making me interested in the next one since I've always wanted to see them on the continents and not on an island. In a minor bit of fridge horror... Nasutoceratops was definitely not in the last film at all or any of the ones before it. I think people are starting to make more dinosaurs and releasing them into the wild. Either that or it was invisible last film. Seriously though, I think we're learning what happens when the secret to making dinosaurs is now loose in the world.

Now for a bit of paleontology moment, these two were actually not hideously bad accuracy wise. The Nasutoceratops has a tad too many claws on its feet and the male's horns seemed a tad on the big side. The Allosaurus was definitely too goddamn big (Its supposed to be 30 feet long to Rex's 40 and yet it matched the rex in size here) and of course pronated hands. Otherwise though, this was a solid showing for two dinosaurs that typically don't get the limelight (Nasuto for only being discovered recently and Allo for being overshadowed by Rexie and the like) and a fun little story of a family in a bad situation

Unless Saurophaganax is really just a large Allosaurus.

The Jurassic Park wiki has a list of all known escaped animals from the 2018 outbreak. It includes two adult nasutos.

The list:

• Allosaurus (at least four; three confirmed to escape)
• Ankylosaurus (at least four adults; three confirmed to escape)
• Apatosaurus (at least four adults)
• Baryonyx (at least three adults; two confirmed to escape)
• Brachiosaurus (at least two adults; one confirmed to escape)
• Carnotaurus (at least two adults)
• Compsognathus (at least eleven adults)
• Gallimimus (at least eight adults)
• Indoraptor (one adult)†
• Nasutoceratops (at least two adults)
• Pachyrhinosaurus (at least one adult)
• Parasaurolophus (at least five adults)
• Pteranodon (at least three adults)
• Sinoceratops (at least five adults)
• Stegosaurus (at least six adults: five confirmed to escape)
• Stygimoloch (at least five adults)
• Triceratops (at least five, four adults and one juvenile)
• Tyrannosaurus (one adult)
• Velociraptor (one adult)

Edited by TobiasDrake on Sep 16th 2019 at 9:37:35 AM

Relevant to where Jurassic World is going: Tier Zoo - "Should Dinosaurs Be Unbanned?"

Tier Zoo is a Nature Channel, but it has fun by treating animals and the world as if everything was part of an MMORPG, talking about what classes and stats animals have, which ones are OP or what roles they play in team combos, etc. This episode talks about what if dinosaurs were "reintroduced to the meta" and how their existence would change things.

On average, they found that dinosaurs would be a mixed bag in today's "meta". Hadrosaurs couldn't defend themselves or outrun most pack hunters. Ceratopsians could defend themselves somewhat, but most of today's predators do have strategies for avoiding tusks or horns. T-rexes aren't mobile enough or fast enough to compete with other predators but their smaller cousins could fare better.

Saurapods were a coin toss. A fully grown one could go around unchallenged, but the babies are as strong as wet paper and need the adults for protection. So the question is whether enough could survive to adulthood in the face of modern predators to be able to breed and protect the next generation.

Stegasaurs and ankylosaurs actually got the best chance to survive in the modern environment, as their natural defenses were better suited to warding off modern predators than the rest of the herbivores. Velociraptors, and Dromaeosaurids in general, also got placed in S-tier, because they could easily reoccupy their old environmental niche and be competative with wolves and coyotes.

Now, granted, this is with old fashion dinosaurs, not genetically tampered dinosaurs. Rexie in her prime was three times faster than an actual T-rex.

Wouldn't a lion or a cougar go for the neck, though?

Actually, the Allo in the short is the first time a JP dinosaur has been depicted with non-pronated hands.

There are some shots near the campfire where his arms are illuminated and they can be seen being held with the palms facing inwards.

Also, according to some rumors Jurassic World 3 is set to include its first fully feathered raptor, engineered after the Lockwood Manor incident.

Oh, and some people speculate that the short might have been initially intended to feature the already introduced Baby and Mama Trikes, but it got changed to Nasutos during production for merchandise reasons (all the games have been pushing Allo and Nasuto lately, and several new toys got released promoting them).

Edited by MrSeyker on Sep 16th 2019 at 8:53:55 AM

My favourite part of that was the credits montage of dinosaurs just hanging around and ruining everything.

x5 Oh thank you! I was actually completely unaware of that listing. A tad annoying that they didn't really have the Nasutos in the film then because I think kids would have loved them (I use dinosaur figures for teaching about dinosaurs and kids enjoy the many weird types of ceratopsians I bring out like Nasutoceratops or Regaliceratops.)

I just double checked the video and you are completely right... I am so used to JP's pronated hands that I think I kinda blanked and just assumed that it had them. My bad on that.

The main issue is that both of those animals have armor on their neck with Steggies actually having it on their throat. Plus the cougar or lion would basically have to pray that they can do it with one bite because large animals like Stegosaurus and Ankylosaurus can very easily injure smaller creatures with movements that don't seem so rough. This is why most zoos do not allow keepers inside the same area as large animals.

x4 The main issue with some of those assumptions is that size of these animals is sometimes a tad... understated. Case in point, most of those Hadrosaurs are around 20-30 feet in length and weigh around 3-4 tons. They also likely lived in herds. The polar bear, the largest carnivore on land in this day and age, is only 7-10 feet long and weighs typically 330-990 pounds. I don't really buy the argument that adult versions of these had much to fear from modern predators. Their young are definitely more at risk, but hadrosaurs and sauropods typically lived in herds (Although quite a few sauropods were like sea turtles and abandoned their young after laying eggs. Those young still formed herds though and only later joined adult herds.) Herd based lifestyle means that while the young and sick do have increased chances of death, they are unlikely to be that easily taken and predators' odds of being injured skyrocket. Also Hadrosaurs actually had some very solid muscles in their tails. You would not want one hitting you and neither would most predators.

Ceratopsians were also likely herd animals (Well, some were likely. Triceratops is a tad iffy on that front last I checked) and so were Stegosaurs. Ankylosaurs (and their Nodosaur relatives) were most likely solitary based on the fossils we typically find of them. I think the main issue most dinosaurs would run into with the modern day world is us... or more specifically the amount of habitat we take up. This small amount of habitat left for them would doom any serious sauropod herd and most other large plant eaters. The large carnivores would also struggle (Granted, T. rex in general would struggle because it is a highly specialized creature that is not well suited to ecosystems without prey that is around its size and able to be taken down in one bone crushing bite. The larger sauropods are more likely targets for creatures like Carcharodontosaurus and Mapusaurus who have more blade like teeth) while the smaller carnivores like Velociraptor and Deinonychus would thrive due to prey being close to their size and needs. The smaller plant eaters would probably also be relatively fine due to not needing as many resources. It would really come down to the ecosystem though as for which ones would live and die.

The amount of animals released into the ecosystem in the film would probably not do the damage they're implying it will, but hey more animals and more generations cost money and time. I can accept it as long as we get our Jurassic World apocalypse going. Also I think I'm overthinking this subject.

The montage of dinosaurs ruining everything reminded me of a PG version of the Dinosaurs Attack cards.

Rexy was feeding on goats and made it to a grand age (as well as acclimatising to farm animals = food) so while as a species they are specialised to larger prey she herself will probably get by okay. And if she (the biggest of the surviving theropods) can live off such a diet then the relatively smaller ones like the carnotaurs or Baryonyx should find modern ecosystems survivable albeit not ideal. It was "only" one year but the allosaurus seemed in pretty good condition all things considered.

I wonder if Blue losing her pack will have any effect on her mind you. She'll probably be able to live and hunt just fine but mentally it might have an impact if she's a social animal forced to live a more solitary lifestyle. Her time alone on the island didn't seem to have improved her temperament much.

Edited by jakobitis on Sep 17th 2019 at 3:49:12 AM

If anything the biggest threat is probably the Mosasaurus. Plenty of stuff and people in the sea.

It occurred to me yesterday that the dinosaurs might actually be in larger danger than the humans.

The moment it was reported that live dinosaurs escaped captivity, millions of poachers and game hunters all would have perked up at once. You could sell a freshly-killed allosaurus head or a taxidermied triceratops at auction for the annual GDP of Europe. Do you know how much a billionaire would pay to be the only person in history to ever taste stegosaurus steak? Even just a stuffed compsognathus would set you up for life.

What game hunter wouldn't want to Instagram himself standing over a fresh velociraptor kill?

Edited by TobiasDrake on Sep 17th 2019 at 12:48:41 PM