Dilophosaurus was a lightly built meat-eating dinosaur with a distinctive twin-crest on its head. It was the first theropod dinosaur found with such flashy ornaments on the top of its skull. It lived in the Early Jurassic about 195 million years ago and was the largest predator at the time.
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History: The first Dilophosaurus skeleton was discovered in Tuba City, Northern Arizona, USA, in 1942. It was excavated by the University of California Museum of Paleontology and named as a new species of Megalosaurus (M. wetherilli) by paleontologist Samuel Welles in 1954. The skeleton of a larger and more complete individual was discovered in 1964, and included a complete skull that showed that the dinosaur had a pair of crests on its head – these were broken off and missing from the original 1942 skeleton.
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Scientific Name: Dilophosaurus wetherilli
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Characteristics: Dilophosaurus is a medium-sized two-legged carnivorous dinosaur about the size of a van. It has a long tail and long arms with three-fingered hands and sharp claws, as our Dilophosaurus toy depicts. It has a noticeable notch in the tooth row of the upper jaw, and a striking pair of decorative crests run along the top of its head.
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Size: This Dilophosaurus toy model is 5.27 inches long and 4.29 inches high.
- The Dilophosaurus is part of the Wild Safari® Prehistoric World collection
- Non-toxic and BPA free