Alison McLain

Biology 1610
October 23, 2015

Jurassic Park
For this assignment I have decided to watch Jurassic Park. This is
obviously a movie that mostly everyone has seen and is familiar with.
We are all aware of the big dinosaurs and amphibians, but how
accurate is it all?
We know that the movie shows dinosaurs with feathers, but is it
true? According to research it is (pg. 714 & 715). The earliest known
fossil to be found with feathers was discovered in 1862 and the species
was named Archaeopteryx. The impressions of the birds feather were
very visible within the limestone in which it was found. When the
species was discovered, it was belied to be at least 150 million years
old.
It is also shown that certain female dinosaurs randomly change
from female to male. It is a known fact that certain animal species
have the capability to change their sex (pg. 1085 & 1086). The process
is known as sequential hermaphroditism. It is mostly predominant in
fish such as the coral reef fish. The fish live in schools and the largest
males are usually the ones to go under sequential hermaphroditism.

However, if there are no males then the largest female goes through
sequential hermaphroditism.
In the movie they show scientists merging reptile and amphibian
DNA. By just watching the movie and having no biological experience, I
absolutely believed it. I believe it is probably something most people
believe. To my shock, I was absolutely wrong. Species will mate with
the species they are apart of and fertile offspring is the result. Species
that mate with other species will product sterile (pg. 437). If species
that mate cannot produce fertile offspring, then scientists doing it in a
lab would be no different. The sterile offspring will not be able to
reproduce and inevitably become extinct.
One of the first things the movie shows is the dinosaur fossil that
is just completely exposed. Fossils are formed after millions of years
and are embedded into rock; one would not simply be exposed (pg.
510 & 511). Year after year the Earth changed and layers upon layers
of sediment were deposited on top of the fossils, thus embedding them
into the rocks. It would take hours upon hours to be able to reveal an
entire fossil within the rock.
I believe this movie may be an underlying cause of confusion in
certain aspects of biology. Though they did mean well when shooting
this film, some of it is completely far fetched. However, people that
are not familiar with biology can easily be fooled into thinking this is
how it really is. This can definitely be seen as a negative impact. It puts

a false impression in our mind of what happened, rather than look at

the absolute facts that have been proven or closely proven. I will
admit that I absolutely believed some of the aspects this movie
portrayed.

Dr. Ray Bohlin. "The World View of Jurassic Park." The World View of
Jurassic Park. N.p., 1995. Web. 23 Oct. 2015.