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Scientists' understanding of dinosaurs has come a long way since Jurassic Park hit cinema screens back in 1993. But it's easy to forget that, at the time, Jurassic Park was praised for its accuracy: Steven Spielberg having brought in leading American paleontologist Jack Horner to advise on its portrayals of iconic species. "Jurassic Park for the first time shows them being behaviourally complex animals – not just souped-up lizards," says Paul Barrett, president of the Palaeontographical Society and a researcher at London's Natural History Museum.

The film's box office success also created a huge bounce in popularity for dinosaurs and paleontology. "It was probably the single most important thing to happen to the field of paleontology over the past several decades," says Steve Brusatte, paleontologist at the University of Edinburgh. "The film led to more people studying paleontology, more funding for the field and more jobs. So many of my colleagues who are 25-35 years old were hooked into dinosaurs by Jurassic Park."


But, while the first film pushed our understanding of dinosaurs to greater heights, Hollywood has since lagged behind the research. Most notably: we now know that many dinosaurs had feathers. But when Jurassic World arrives on June 11, these discoveries -- to many fans' dismay -- haven't found their way onto the screen, with its creators instead choosing to stick to the scaly, lizard-like creatures we already know. And in fact, the film's primary big bad isn't even a real species, but a genetically-enhanced mash-up called Indominus Rex.

But how do the rest of the dinosaurs in the trailer stack up?

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Velociraptor

Firstly, real-life raptors were much smaller than the man-sized killing machines you see on screen. The real thing "were little poodle-sized things you could have as pets if they weren't liable to disembowel you," says Brusatte. They also had feathers. "Velociraptor had feathers, and it had a wing, but it probably couldn't fly and we don't know what colour it is," says Brusatte. "As for pack hunting, there is some evidence from footprints and one amazing fossil site where a bunch of Deinonychus (close relative of Velociraptor) fossils are found together, along with a prey species, showing that the closest relatives of Velociraptor may have been social animals. So pack hunting is plausible, but not really a slam dunk." As for whether they could 'talk', as seen in Jurassic Park III? "No signs that they could communicate, but some recent studies using CAT scans to look into dinosaur skulls reveal that the olfactory bulbs, the parts of the brain controlling sense of smell, were huge in Velociraptor and its closest cousins. So they were smart dinosaurs: big brains, great sense of smell."


As for being 'trained', as in Jurassic World, Brusatte is less worried. "It seems a little bit risky to me -- a bad type of animal to have as a pet. But hey, if it makes a good monster movie, then I'm all for it."

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Mosasaur

The trailer for Jurassic World introduces its first sea-life attraction. "They are not dinosaurs, but close relatives of snakes and monitor lizards that lived in water during the latter part of the Cretaceous period," says Brusatte. "They're much more closely related to Komodo Dragons," says Barrett. It's also way too big on film. "Some of them are pretty big – they might get up to say 15-18m long. If that's feeding on a great white shark, it's definitely bigger than any that we know about."

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Ankylosaurus

The Jurassic World trailer shows the park gyrospheres being smashed by a pack of angry ankylosaurus: another new addition to the series. But could its mace-like tail really smash glass? "Some scientists have done computer modeling studied that have shown that the club could be swung at a fast speed, and could impact at a strong enough force to shatter bone," says Brusatte. "But ankylosaurs were plant-eaters, so they wouldn't have used their tail clubs to kill prey or anything like that. There is some evidence that some ankylosaurs -- Pinacosaurus, which lived in the Gobi Desert -- may have been social, because several of their skeletons are found together."

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Apatosaurus

"That actually seemed to be reasonably good," says Barrett."They were long-necked, plant-eaters, up to 25m long. “There might be some small things with some of the sizes things are depicted at, but it's difficult to get a sense of scale."

Does it even matter?

Of course, Jurassic World isn't meant to be realistic – it's sci-fi. "The paleontology is as real as it could possibly be, but obviously with a few asterisks," director Colin Trevorrow tells WIRED. "In the [Michael Crichton] novel, the dinosaurs have frog DNA – those weren't 'real' dinosaurs, any of them. There's a scene in the film where PD Wong lays it out: look, there's nothing in Jurassic Park that is natural. We've always put in DNA from other animals. If you wanted reality, then you came to the wrong place." "I don't think anyone should look to this film for accuracy. It's a monster movie," says Brusatte. "The franchise has moved on, predictably into the realm of the make-believe, and is now more like one of these big mega-action superhero flicks."

Still, some experts are bound to be disappointed with the lack of feathered raptors this time around. “For me, it feels like a missed opportunity,” says Barrett. "For something that is going to be watched by a billion people worldwide, it would have been a great way to get some of these ideas across. But this is a movie -- you have to cut them some slack. If this was a documentary I would be outraged. But it's entertainment."