Chris Pratt’s Owen Grady gets some assistance from a dinosaur other than Blue, and we give you a little info on exactly which dino it is.
Note: There are, of course, some Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom spoilers in here, but they are relatively mild as spoilers go. Just doing the responsible thing here and letting you know.
If you’ve seen Jurassic World, you already know all about the bond that Owen Grady (played by Chris Pratt) has with the velociraptor he helped train, Blue. The characters in that movie also got a helping hand from the T. rex from the original Jurassic Park, though that dinosaur did what it did for its own reasons.
There’s another dinosaur who falls into that latter category in Jurassic Park: Fallen Kingdom, and it plays a key role in both freeing Grady and Claire Dearing and breaking up the impromptu dinosaur auction thanks to its tendency to lower its head and charge directly at any obstacle — literally.
So what is this mysterious headbutting dinosaur? It’s called a Stygimoloch, and it’s a pachycephalosaur that just happens to have a big, domed skull with to backward-facing horns. Biologically speaking, it was definitely properly equipped to just ram its way through problems as it does in Fallen Kingdom.
But did the Stygimoloch really have a fondness for headbutting as depicted in the movie? That’s still up for debate among scientists. In fact, recent research suggests that the Stygimoloch might not really even be its own dinosaur species, but instead may simply be a juvenile Pachycephalosaurus.
Next: Is Jurassic Park: Fallen Kingdom okay for kids?
Regardless about what the people with the fancy degrees finally decide, there’s no doubt that Stygimoloch plays a welcome role in Jurassic Park: Fallen Kingdom that is equal parts action and comic relief. Impress your friends when you go back for a second viewing and tell them you know exactly what that headbutting dinosaur is called.