PECTINODON

Pectinodon bakkeri

Etymology: Bakker's combtooth

Nickname: "Pectin" or "Odon"

Classification: Neocoelurosauria, Troodontidae

Diet: Omnivore

Size: 1.5 to 2.5 meters long

Provenance: Lance Formation, Wyoming, USA - Late Cretaceous, Maastrichtian stage, 68 - 66 million years ago

Movie appearances: Jurassic World: Dominion (2022)

Pectinodon bakkeri was a troodontid neocoelurosaur that lived in the late Cretaceous period in the United States, hailing from the Lance Formation and potentially also the Hell Creek Formation.

By 2022, all resurrected individuals were small juveniles. Their coloration is typically of a reddish brown, with reddish or orange splotches and patterns appearing around the face, eyes, hips and the tail.

Pectinodon was living alongside Tyrannosaurus vannus and Tyrannosaurus rex, possibly pecking their teeth for rotten flesh, as has been observed, in at least one instance, in living resurrected juvenile individuals. Pectinodon were initially held in the wilderness of the Biosyn Sanctuary in 2022, but they were probably evacuated to the Biosyn headquarters during the Locustrix induced forest fires.

FILM vs. REALITY

DISCLAIMER: Pectinodon does not show up in the Jurassic Park films, and is instead, here, meant to be a plausible replacement to the films' Moros. In reality, Moros was a much larger animal than it is depicted in the films, with the holotype specimen suggesting an animal of around 3 meters long at a nearly mature size. The individuals in the film are much smaller, not even reaching the height of an average adult human's lower leg, though its possible these are all juveniles. Beyond that, the film Moros shows characteristics expected to be in its real life counterpart, such as reduced forelimbs with two digits. Although the hands of Moros have not been preserved in fossils, this species sits relatively near the two-fingered eutyrannosaurs, so it would be expected for this to be present in the real life animal. Moros is depicted as feathered in the film, and although feathers are well present in primitive tyrannosaurs, such as Yutyrannus and Dilong, it being phylogenetically closer to tyrannosaurids, known for being scaly, could be hinting at a different integumentary arrangement in real life. Unlike the film Moros, which is depicted living alongside Tyrannosaurus rex, in prehistoric times, the real life one lived 30 million years before the end of the Cretaceous, when its larger relative was living, so it would never have encountered it.

Pectinodon is chosen here as a replacement for Moros, for being an animal known to have existed alongside Tyrannosaurus rex, respecting, therefore, the intended setting of the Jurassic World: Dominion prologue. In the film, Moros is depicted hunting small mammals, pecking on the teeth of giant carnivores, and feeding from the hand of a young girl, indicating a varied diet. The real life Moros probably was a much more active cursorial predator, judging by its huge legs, so it would be fitted to hunt mostly sizeable live prey and avoid larger predators at any instance. Pectinodon, however, being an advanced troodontid with specially shaped teeth, could have been more broad in its dietary range, not only incorporating plenty of plant matter, but being quite formatted to go after small mammals and perhaps also seeking carrion if the opportunity shows itself. Although the real life Pectinodon was likely around 2 meters long as an adult, its babies were born precocially, already capable of hunting on their own, allowing them to appropriate from this generalistic and opportunistic diet at a young independent age.