Dilophosaurus
0Loading crowd target
0Loading crowd target
7correct to beat the crowd
40 free Dilophosaurus trivia questions with answers — science & nature quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Dilophosaurus is one of the most recognisable dinosaurs on Earth, and much of what people recognise about it was made up. Jurassic Park turned it into a small roadside ambusher; the fossils describe a bigger, stranger animal that lived in North America long before Tyrannosaurus existed. These Dilophosaurus facts come as a quiz. The questions cover how the first skeletons were found and named, what the crests on its head were for, how it hunted and moved, which animals shared its world, and where the screen version parts company with the science. It suits dinosaur fans, film buffs, teachers building a lesson and anyone who wants fun facts about Dilophosaurus that hold up. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so a wrong guess still teaches something.
30 of 40 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which made-up ability did the novel Jurassic Park give Dilophosaurus to explain how it killed prey?
Spitting venom
Spitting venom was pure invention: the real animal's jaws were once thought too weak to kill, so the story armed it with poison. No fossil shows any sign of it.
Q 02Which feature, unknown from any fossil, did designers of the film Jurassic Park add to Dilophosaurus?
A neck frill
A neck frill that expands and vibrates, like that of the living frill-necked lizard, was the filmmakers' idea. A real one would have left attachment marks on the bones.
Q 03Long but slender and lightly built, Dilophosaurus has been compared in size to which living animal?
A brown bear
A brown bear is the usual comparison: the largest known Dilophosaurus weighed about 400 kilograms, though it stretched some 7 metres from snout to tail.
Q 04How did Samuel Welles, who named Dilophosaurus, react to the dinosaur's fictionalised role in Jurassic Park?
He was thrilled
He was thrilled, by his own account: Welles noted the inaccuracies but called them minor, enjoyed the movie and liked seeing his dinosaur become an international star.
Q 05The film Jurassic Park shrank its Dilophosaurus so audiences would not confuse it with which other dinosaur?
Velociraptor
Velociraptor was the reason: to keep the animals apart on screen, the film's Dilophosaurus stands about 1.2 metres tall, less than half the height assumed for the real animal.
Q 06Which technique brought the Jurassic Park Dilophosaurus to life on film with no help from computers?
A physical puppet
A physical puppet did all the work: a full body with three swappable heads, plus separate legs built for a shot where the animal hops past.
Q 07A resting trace left by a Dilophosaurus-like dinosaur may show impressions of which body covering?
Feathers
Feathers, of a downy kind, are what some scientists see around the belly and feet of the trace. Others argue the marks were made by sediment as the animal moved.
Q 08Studies of how Dilophosaurus could move its short arms suggest which body part reached prey first?
The mouth
The mouth led the attack: the long head and neck reached much further than the hands, which could only seize prey already pinned beneath the chest.
Q 09In which US state, near the town of Tuba City, were the first Dilophosaurus skeletons collected?
Arizona
Arizona's north held three skeletons arranged in a triangle, first spotted in 1940. The best one took ten days to encase in plaster before it was trucked away.
Q 10Too weak for fighting, the thin head crests of Dilophosaurus are thought to have served what purpose?
Visual display
Visual display is the leading idea: the crests could have helped the animals recognise their own kind or impress mates, perhaps with bright colours.
Q 11Which Jurassic Park character, fleeing with stolen embryos, is killed by a Dilophosaurus?
Dennis Nedry
Dennis Nedry, the park's disgruntled programmer, had switched off the security system to steal the embryos, then got lost in the rain and crashed his jeep.
Q 12In the Greek-based name Dilophosaurus, 'lophos' means crest and 'sauros' means lizard; what does 'di' mean?
Two
Two crests gave the animal its name, coined by Samuel Welles in 1970. Before that, the crushed crests on the first skull had been mistaken for a misplaced cheek bone.
Q 13Which novelist wrote Dilophosaurus into Jurassic Park in 1990, three years before the film version?
Michael Crichton
Q 21Which US state named Dilophosaurus its state dinosaur because of fossil tracks found there in 1966?
Connecticut
Connecticut chose it in 2017 because the Rocky Hill tracks were probably made by a similar dinosaur. The site became a state park, home to the first life-sized Dilophosaurus sculpture.
Q 22A crested dinosaur from which country was named a new species of Dilophosaurus in 1993, then moved to another genus?
China
China's Yunnan Province produced the skeleton in 1987. Named Dilophosaurus sinensis in 1993, it was later shown to be Sinosaurus, a dinosaur from the same rocks named back in 1940.
Q 23Cryolophosaurus, a crested dinosaur once grouped with Dilophosaurus as a close relative, was found on which continent?
Antarctica
Michael Crichton gave the animal abilities no fossil supports. The book about the making of the film calls Dilophosaurus the movie's only serious departure from scientific accuracy.
Q 14Apart from Dilophosaurus, which is the only dinosaur in the film Jurassic Park that lived in the Jurassic?
Brachiosaurus
Brachiosaurus shares the honour: despite the title, every other species in the film did not exist until the Cretaceous.
Q 15Jaw tips shaped like a rosette of interlocking teeth hint that Dilophosaurus, like the spinosaurs, ate what?
Fish
Fish may have been on the menu: the nostrils also sat far back on the snout, which could have kept water from splashing into them while the animal fished.
Q 16A man from which Native American nation found the first Dilophosaurus bones and led scientists to them?
Navajo
Navajo man Jesse Williams found the bones in 1940 and showed them to a fossil-hunting expedition in 1942. Fossil footprints from the same area were later named in his honour.
Q 17Dilophosaurus, an active bipedal hunter of the Early Jurassic, belonged to which major group of dinosaurs?
Theropods
Theropods count Dilophosaurus among their earliest large members: it lived about 186 million years ago in what is now North America.
Q 18Three Dilophosaurus skeletons lying close together led Samuel Welles to suggest the animals did what?
Moved in groups
Moved in groups: that was his reading of the bones and of criss-crossing trackways nearby. A later researcher warned that a flash flood could have washed scattered bones together.
Q 19Gregory Paul once depicted Dilophosaurus lashing out at an enemy in the manner of which living animal?
A kangaroo
A kangaroo was his model: in 2000 he showed Dilophosaurus bouncing on its tail while it lashed out. Another study put its top speed at 43 to 69 kilometres an hour.
Q 20Who proposed in 1998 that Dilophosaurus become the official dinosaur of the state where it was first found?
A nine-year-old boy
A nine-year-old boy made the pitch, but lawmakers preferred Sonorasaurus, and the bill died when it emerged that the Dilophosaurus fossils had been taken without permission.
Antarctica yielded Cryolophosaurus, the first meat-eating dinosaur discovered there. A 2007 study grouped it with Dilophosaurus, though later work placed the animals further apart.
Q 24Bone-puncturing bite marks led researchers to call Dilophosaurus which kind of animal in its ecosystem?
An apex predator
An apex predator, they argued, not the weak-jawed scavenger of older accounts. The marks sit on bones of Sarahsaurus, a plant-eater found in the same quarry as a young Dilophosaurus.
Q 25During the Early Jurassic, Dilophosaurus held which distinction among the animals of North America?
Largest land animal
Largest land animal known from that time and place, it was still only medium-sized next to the giant meat-eaters that evolved later.
Q 26Samuel Welles likened the head crests of Dilophosaurus to those of which living flightless bird?
Cassowary
Cassowary casques came to his mind. Only one skeleton preserves much of the crests, so their full shape, and whether it varied between animals, is unknown.
Q 27The gentle first calls of the Jurassic Park Dilophosaurus were built partly from which bird's voice?
A swan
A swan supplied the pleasant notes, mixed with a dog. When the animal turns nasty, the soundtrack adds a hawk, a howler monkey, an egret and a rattlesnake.
Q 28A rare crouching trace shows that early meat-eaters like Dilophosaurus held their hands in which position?
Palms facing inward
Palms facing inward, as if about to clap: the trace is the only one of its kind with clear hand prints, and it overturns the downward-facing hands seen in many reconstructions.
Q 29Eight damaged bones in the shoulders and arms of the first Dilophosaurus skeleton show the animal did what?
Survived and healed
Survived and healed, probably for months or years. Its fractured shoulder blade, bony tumours and unbendable finger form the largest set of shoulder and arm ailments described in any meat-eating dinosaur.
Q 30What grew into the neck bones of Dilophosaurus, leaving them hollow and unusually light?
Air sacs
Air sacs from the breathing system hollowed out the bones, in places leaving walls as thin as paper, and made the skeleton both lighter and stronger.