Director Colin Trevorrow teases via Twitter

There may be a year or so before the premier of the new Jurassic Park film (Jurassic World), but already there has been intense speculation about which sorts of prehistoric animals are going to feature in the fourth movie in the JP franchise.  Visitors to Everything Dinosaur’s Facebook page will have seen snippets about “Diablo rex“, a genetically modified, super-predator which is going to feature, look out for a general release date of around June 12th, 2015.  In the original Jurassic Park film based on the Michael Crichton novel, frog DNA was used to complete the genome and DNA sequencing that led to the creation of the dinosaurs.

“Jurassic World”

It seems in the forthcoming, “Jurassic World”, this work has been continued further, leading to dinosaur DNA being mixed with the genes of other reptiles and cephalopods to create a fearsome predator with chromatophores in its skin, giving this beastie the ability to camouflage itself amongst its surroundings – nasty!

Director Colin Trevorrow has been adding to the fervent speculation as last week he tweeted a picture of the silhouette of a huge set of jaws onto his Twitter account.  Apparently, during a break in the filming, Colin took an intriguing snap shot of the shadow cast by the huge, teeth-lined jaws of one of the dinosaur stars.  The picture, simply entitled “Nights” seems to show a shadow cast by street lights.

A Glimpse of a Dinosaur Movie Star

Tantalising glimpse of dinosaur in forthcoming movie.

Picture credit: Colin Trevorrow/Twitter

Dinosaurs

The conical shaped teeth of what evidently is a carnivore can be clearly made out and although the photograph is deliberately misleading (good old Hollywood PR machine in play), our dinosaur experts have been trying to shed some light as to what the picture actually reveals. Firstly, the photograph gives the impression that the two jaw bones are of very different sizes, with one jaw looking three times thicker than the other.  Such a difference in jaw thickness between the dentary of the lower jaw and the maxilla is not unknown in the Dinosauria.

Both the abelisaurids and the tyrannosaurids exhibited such characteristics with the lower jaw (dentary) being less thick than the upper jaws in many cases.  There are certainly a large number of teeth depicted.  The teeth in the thin jaw are almost crocodilian in shape and number, or should we describe the dentition and their numbers resembling an example from the Spinosauridae.  Spinosaurs had long, pointed conical teeth very similar to today’s Nile crocodile (Crocodylus niloticus).

On first impression the jaws don’t look very much like the typical jaws of a Tyrannosaurus rex that’s for sure.

Interestingly, when the picture is rotated through 180 degrees, the thin jaw element becomes the lower jaw.  The shadow cast looks almost Crocodilian.

The “Teaser” Photograph Turned Upside Down

The image rotated through 180 degrees.

Picture credit: Colin Trevorrow/Twitter

In this view the photograph reminds us of the head and jaws of the Triassic carnivore, Postosuchus, a reptile but not a member of the Order Dinosauria.

A Model of the Triassic Predator Postosuchus

A model of Postosuchus from Safari Ltd.

Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur

To view models and replicas of prehistoric animals: Wild Safari Dinos Models and Figures.

In the upside down picture, two triangular bumps can be seen on what would be the top of the upper jaw. Could these be nose horns?

Is Colin really toying with us, is the picture he posted actually a clever shot that when turned the other way up reveals more about this prehistoric animal?

Addendum, the newly created dinosaur in the film is called Indominus rex.