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Jurassic Park Iv Dino Candidates – Balaur Bondoc
The first article in a series about extinct creatures that should be encountered in the upcoming Jurassic Park IV movie.
Image via olddeadstuff.blogspot.com
It has been approximately 10 years since the movie Jurassic Park III was released. In was a moderate success “only” grossing 368 million dollars and a lot of fans were disappointed with the film. There has been talk about a 4th installment in this great movie franchise ever since the 3rd film’s release in 2001. During the ten years since the 3rd movie the knowledge in the field of paleontology has increased significantly and new dinosaurs have been discovered and among the new species some very unique and of course plain awesome dinos have emerged. The first 2 Jurassic Park movies were directly based on Michael Crichton’s novels Jurassic Park and The Lost World, but there is actually still a lot of unused material and dinosaurs that haven’t appeared in any of the movie versions yet.
This is the first of a series of articles where I will discuss possible candidates for the hopefully upcoming Jurassic Park IV movie. I will choose some overlooked and unique extinct creatures but also creatures mentioned in the novels that have yet to see the light of day in a movie adaption. This first article will be about the newly discovered theropod – Balaur Bondoc!
If you thought the velociraptor was the coolest raptor species you might think again after reading this. In 2010 scientists described a very odd dromaeosaurid theropod discovered in Romania. This relatively small dinosaur, which belongs to the same group as velociraptor, wasn’t just another new dinosaur species, it was very unique and well totally awesome! Balaur Bondoc had adapted to life on small islands resulting over time in it’s relatively small size, but the most fascinating detail about this predator was the fact that it had 2 sickle claws on each foot! Sounds like something from turned down Jurassic Park IV script am I right? But this creature actually existed, in what is present day Romania during the late cretaceous period. The velociraptor’s in the previous Jurassic Park movies were menacing enough with just 1 sickle claw on each foot just imagine the terror Balaur Bondoc could bring with it!
Another unique thing about this new dino is that it only has 2 fingers on each hand. Paleontologists aren’t a 100% sure why this is, but naturally there are theories to explain it. Some argue that the lack of a 3rd finger might indicate Balaur Bondoc actually had adapted to an omnivorous or perhaps even herbivorous way of life, since it’s believed that normal raptors used their three fingers to hold on to prey.
As you may have noticed I’ve also tried to make a drawing of Balaur Bondoc, it may not be 100% paleontologically correct, but it gives you a tiny idea about what this animal may have looked like. Enjoy. In any case I guess it makes this article look a bit more interesting!
Before you dismiss my idea with stuff like “That dino could never be in a Jurassic Park film, it wasn’t on InGen’s list of cloned dinosaurs!” or “Jurassic Park was made in the 90’s and you said yourself Balaur wasn’t discovered until 2008!” just listen to me, ok!? Nobody knows the plot for Jurassic Park IV yet and for all we know Biosyn (The company Dennis Nedry tried to sell dino embryos to) could have stolen InGen’s cloning technology and begun another park with newly discovered extinct creatures.
Read the other parts of the series below:
