Deinonychus

Template:Dinosaur Infobox

Any creature whose name means 'terrible claw' is one that should be given respect. That's what you have there... a Deinonychus.

- Dr. Kajal Dua

Deinonychus is a genus of dromaeosaurid dinosaur that originated from Early Cretaceous North America. A close relative of Velociraptor, the Deinonychus bred by InGen can be distinguished by their head crest and distinctive red colouration. Deinonychus are unlocked by the Hammond Foundation on Isla Tacaño.

History

Deinonychus was not planned to be a featured dinosaur in the original Jurassic Park on Isla Nublar, and no Deinonychus populations were reported by InGen on either Nublar or their Site B facility on Isla Sorna in 1996.^[1]

However, a promotional art piece by Claire Dearing's Dinosaur Protection Group listing both extinct and extant species of dinosaur on Isla Nublar, listed Deinonychus as extinct, implying that the animal had previously been cloned for Jurassic World, only to fall back into extinction in the aftermath of the 2015 incident.^[2]

Description

// COSMETICS

ALPINE

Deino Rainforest

RAINFOREST

TAIGA

VIVID

A close relative of the Velociraptor, Deinonychus has a rooster-like comb on its head as well as another fleshy ridge along its tail. It also has a short skull with large pronounced eye ridges. The base genome has reddish-grey skin with a dark band along its body and around its eye.

Behaviour

Much like the Velociraptor, Deinonychus is a swift moving predator. Despite their similarities, they cannot coexist and will fight each other. In fact that genera seem extremely antagonistic towards one another and will hunt down the other even if food is available. Who is the victor in the battles can vary, though unmodified the Velociraptor has slightly higher base stats and may have an advantage. However Deinonychus can reap a higher benefit from some genome splices, meaning a heavily modified Deinonychus will be exponentially more dangerous than the base creature.

Also like Velociraptor, Deinonychus are social animals and will rapidly lose comfort and turn antagonistic if denied a pack. A bare minimum of 3 individuals per paddock can reduce rampages though a number of 4 to 6 is recommended. If given space and numbers, Deinonychus can be considered a more docile alternative to Dilophosaurus and Velociraptor.

Palaeontology

Deinonychus has been found in both the Cedar Mountain and Cloverly Formations. A relatively medium sized Dromaeosaur, it was also one of the earliest of its family yet showed advanced features that would be passed onto later theropods of the Coelurosauria line; such as a stiffened tail to keep the dinosaur steady while running and stereoscopic vision so it could gauge distances.

Deinonychus was somewhere in the middle of the food chain. It lived in packs and preyed on small to medium sized herbivores such as Tenontosaurus, Aquilops, and Zephryosaurus, but avoided the large sauropods such as Astrodon. It may have also taken on armored dinosaurs such as Sauropelta and Gastonia when in packs. It also lived alongside much larger predators, such as Utahraptor and the apex predator at the time, the large Acrocanthosaurus.

Trivia

In real life, Deinonychus was only 3 meters long, 0.87 meters tall, and was also quite very likely feathered. The comb and tail ridge present in Evolution is only artistic licence. Deinonychus only had a longer skull with no obvious eye ridges in real life. The look of the in-game genus is due to the developers using older reconstructions which had shorter and taller skulls to further differentiate it from the Velociraptor, which also uses the modern look for its head design.
The design for this dinosaur resembles the Green Basilisk (or Jesus Christ Lizard), especially in its Rainforest and Taiga colors.
In the Jurassic Park novel canon, Deinonychus is considered to be synonymous with Velociraptor, and also precisely, primarily used as the basis of the raptor's larger-than-life size.
Deinonychus was intended to be in Jurassic Park Operation Genesis, but was ultimately cut, due to time constraints.
The Deinonychus share some similar sounds with the Dilophosaurus in the game.