title: Dilophosaurus

text: A nearly complete theropod skeleton (KMV 8701) was discovered in the Lufeng Formation, in Yunnan Province, China, in 1987. It is similar to "Dilophosaurus", with a pair of crests and a gap separating the premaxilla from the maxilla, but differs in some details. The paleontologist Shaojin Hu named it as a new species of "Dilophosaurus" in 1993, "D. sinensis" (from Greek "Sinai", referring to China). In 1998, the paleontologist Matthew C. Lamanna and colleagues found "D. sinensis" to be identical to "Sinosaurus triassicus", a theropod from the same formation, named in 1940. This conclusion was confirmed by paleontologist Lida Xing and colleagues in 2013, and though paleontologist Guo-Fu Wang and colleagues agreed the species belonged in "Sinosaurus" in 2017, they suggested it may be a separate species, "S. sinensis".


title: Dilophosaurus

text: "Dilophosaurus" was one of the earliest large predatory dinosaurs, a medium-sized theropod, though small compared to some of the later theropods. It was also the largest known land-animal of North America during the Early Jurassic. Slender and lightly built, its size was comparable to that of a brown bear. The largest known specimen weighed about , measured about in length, and its skull was long. The smaller holotype specimen weighed about , was long, with a hip height of about , and its skull was long. A resting trace of a theropod similar to "Dilophosaurus" and "Liliensternus" has been interpreted by some researchers as showing impressions of feathers around the belly and feet, similar to down. Other researchers instead interpret these impressions as sedimentological artifacts created as the dinosaur moved, though this interpretation does not rule out that the track-maker could have borne feathers.


title: Dilophosaurus

text: The skull of "Dilophosaurus" was large in proportion to the overall skeleton, yet delicate. The snout was narrow in front view, becoming narrower towards the rounded top. The premaxilla (front bone of the upper jaw) was long and low when seen from the side, bulbous at the front, and its outer surface became less convex from snout to naris (bony nostril). The nostrils were placed further back than in most other theropods. The premaxillae were in close articulation with each other, and while the premaxilla only connected to the maxilla (the following bone of the upper jaw) at the middle of the palate, with no connection at the side, they formed a strong joint through the robust, interlocking articulation between the hindwards and forwards directed processes of these bones. Hindwards and below, the premaxilla formed a wall for a gap between itself and the maxilla called the subnarial gap (also termed a "kink"). Such a gap is also present in coelophysoids, as well as other dinosaurs. The subnarial gap resulted in a diastema, a gap in the tooth row (which has also been called a "notch"). Within the subnarial gap was a deep excavation behind the toothrow of the premaxilla, called the subnarial pit, which was walled by a downwards keel of the premaxilla.


title: Dilophosaurus

text: The outer surface of the premaxilla was covered in foramina (openings) of varying sizes. The upper of the two backward-extending processes of the premaxilla was long and low, and formed most of the upper border of the elongated naris. It had a dip towards the font, which made the area by its base concave in profile. The underside of the premaxilla containing the alveoli (tooth sockets) was oval. The maxilla was shallow, and was depressed around the antorbital fenestra (a large opening in front of the eye), forming a recess that was rounded towards the front, and smoother than the rest of the maxilla. A foramen called the preantorbital fenestra opened into this recess at the front bend. Large foramina ran on the side of the maxilla, above the alveoli. A deep nutrient groove ran backward from the subnarial pit along the base of the interdental plates (or rugosae) of the maxilla.


title: Dilophosaurus

text: "Dilophosaurus" bore a pair of high, thin, and arched (or plate-shaped) crests longitudinally on the skull roof. The crests (termed the nasolacrimal crests) began as low ridges on the premaxillae and were mainly formed by the upwards expanded and . These bones were coossified together (fusion during bone tissue formation), so the sutures between them cannot be determined. The lacrimal bone expanded into a thick, rugose boss, forming an arc at the upper front border of the orbit (eye socket), and supported the bottom of the back of the crest. Uniquely for this genus, the rim above the orbit continued hindwards and ended in a small, almost triangular process behind the orbit, which curved slightly outwards. Since only a short part of the upper surface of this process is unbroken, the rest of the crest may have risen above the skull over a distance of ~. The preserved part of the crest in UCMP 77270 is tallest around the midpoint of the antorbital fenestra's length. UCMP 77270 preserves the concave shelf between the bases of the crests, and when seen from the front, they projected upwards and to the sides at an ~80° angle. Welles found the crests reminiscent of a double-crested cassowary, while Marsh and Rowe stated they were probably covered in keratin or keratinized skin. They pointed out that by comparison with helmeted guineafowl, the keratin on the crests of "Dilophosaurus" could have enlarged them much more than what is indicated by the bone. As only one specimen preserves much of the crests, whether they differed between individuals is unknown. CT scans show that air sacs (pockets of air that provide strength for and lighten bones) were present in the bones that surrounded the brain, and were continuous with the sinus cavities in the front of the skull. The antorbital fenestra was continuous with the side of the crests, which indicates the crests also had air sacs (a ridge of bone forms a roof over the antorbital fenestrae in most other theropods).


title: Dilophosaurus

text: The orbit was oval, and narrow towards the bottom. The jugal bone had two upwards pointing processes, the first of which formed part of the lower margin of the antorbital fenestra, and part of the lower margin of the orbit. A projection from the quadrate bone into the lateral temporal fenestra (opening behind the eye) gave this a reniform (kidney-shaped) outline. The foramen magnum (the large opening at the back of the braincase) was about half the breadth of the occipital condyle, which was itself cordiform (heart-shaped), and had a short neck and a groove on the side. The mandible was slender and delicate at the front, but the articular region (where it connected with the skull) was massive, and the mandible was deep around the mandibular fenestra (an opening on its side). The mandibular fenestra was small in "Dilophosaurus", compared to that of coelophysoids, and reduced from front to back, uniquely for this genus. The dentary bone (the front part of the mandible where most of the teeth there were attached) had an up-curved rather than pointed chin. The chin had a large foramen at the tip, and a row of small foramina ran in rough parallel with the upper edge of the dentary. On the inner side, the mandibular symphysis (where the two halves of the lower jaw connected) was flat and smooth, and showed no sign of being fused with its opposite half. A Meckelian foramen ran along the outer side of the dentary. The side surface of the had a unique pyramidal process in front of the articulation with the quadrate, and this horizontal ridge formed a shelf. The retroarticular process of the mandible (a backwards projection) was long.


title: Dilophosaurus

text: "Dilophosaurus" had four teeth in each premaxilla, 12 in each maxilla, and 17 in each dentary. The teeth were generally long, thin, and recurved, with relatively small bases. They were compressed sideways, oval in cross-section at the base, lenticular (lens-shaped) above, and slightly concave on their outer and inner sides. The largest tooth of the maxilla was either in or near the fourth alveolus, and the height of the tooth crowns decreased hindwards. The first tooth of the maxilla pointed slightly forwards from its alveolus because the lower border of the prexamilla process (which projected backward towards the maxilla) was upturned. The teeth of the dentary were much smaller than those of the maxilla. The third or fourth tooth in the dentary of "Dilophosaurus" and some coelophysoids was the largest there, and seems to have fit into the subnarial gap of the upper jaw. Most of the teeth had serrations on the front and back edges, which were offset by vertical grooves, and were smaller at the front. About 31 to 41 serrations were on the front edges, and 29 to 33 were on the back. At least the second and third teeth of the premaxilla had serrations, but the fourth tooth did not. The teeth were covered in a thin layer of enamel, thick, which extended far towards their bases. The alveoli were elliptical to almost circular, and all were larger than the bases of the teeth they contained, which may therefore have been loosely held in the jaws. Though the number of alveoli in the dentary would seem to indicate that the teeth were very crowded, they were rather far apart, due to the larger size of their alveoli. The jaws contained replacement teeth at various stages of eruption. The interdental plates between the teeth were very low.


title: Dilophosaurus

text: "Dilophosaurus" had 10 cervical (neck), 14 dorsal (back), and 45 caudal (tail) vertebrae, and air sacs grew into the vertebrae. It had a long neck, which was probably flexed nearly 90° by the skull and by the shoulder, holding the skull in a horizontal posture. The cervical vertebrae were unusually light; their centra (the "bodies" of the vertebrae) were hollowed out by pleurocoels (depressions on the sides) and centrocoels (cavities on the inside). The arches of the cervical vertebrae also had pneumatic fossae (or chonoses), conical recesses so large that the bones separating them were sometimes paper-thin. The centra were plano-concave, flat to weakly convex at the front and deeply cupped (or concave) at the back, similar to "Ceratosaurus". This indicates that the neck was flexible, though it had long, overlapping cervical ribs, which were fused to the centra. The cervical ribs were slender and may have bent easily.


title: Dilophosaurus

text: The atlas bone (the first cervical vertebra which attaches to the skull) had a small, cubic centrum, and had a concavity at the front where it formed a cup for the occipital condyle (protuberance that connects with the atlas vertebra) at the back of the skull. The axis bone (the second cervical vertebra) had a heavy spine, and its postzygapophyses (the processes of the vertebrae that articulated with the prezygapophyses of a following vertebrae) were met by long prezygapophyses that curved upwards from the third cervical vertebra. The centra and neural spines of the cervical vertebrae were long and low, and the spines were stepped in side view, forming "shoulders" at the front and back, as well as taller, central "caps" that gave the appearance of a Maltese cross (cruciform) when seen from above, distinctive features of this dinosaur. The posterior centrodiapophyseal lamina of the cervicals showed serial variation, bifurcating and reuniting down the neck, a unique feature. The neural spines of the dorsal vertebrae were also low and expanded front and back, which formed strong attachments for ligaments. Uniquely for this genus, additional laminae emanated from the middle trunk vertebrae's anterior centrodiapophyseal laminae and posterior centrodiapophyseal laminae. The sacral vertebrae which occupied the length of the ilium blade did not appear to be fused. The rib of the first sacral vertebra articulated with the preacetabular process of the ilium, a distinct feature. The centra of the caudal vertebrae were very consistent in length, but their diameter became smaller towards the back, and they went from elliptical to circular in cross-section.


title: Dilophosaurus

text: The scapulae (shoulder blades) were moderate in length and concave on their inner sides to follow the body's curvature. The scapulae were wide, particularly the upper part, which was rectangular (or squared off), a unique feature. The coracoids were elliptical, and not fused to the scapulae. The lower hind portions of the coracoids had a "horizontal buttress" next to the biceps tuber, unique for this genus. The arms were powerful, and had deep pits and stout processes for attachment of muscles and ligaments. The humerus (upper arm bone) was large and slender, and the ulna (lower arm bone) was stout and straight, with a stout olecranon. The hands had four fingers: the first was shorter but stronger than the following two fingers, with a large claw, and the two following fingers were longer and slenderer, with smaller claws. The claws were curved and sharp. The third finger was reduced, and the fourth was vestigial (retained, but without function).


title: Dilophosaurus

text: The crest of the ilium was highest over the ilial peduncle (the downwards process of the ilium), and its outer side was concave. The foot of the pubic bone was only slightly expanded, whereas the lower end was much more expanded on the ischium, which also had a very thin shaft. The hind legs were large, with a slighter longer femur (thigh bone) than tibia (lower leg bone), the opposite of, for example, "Coelophysis". The femur was massive; its shaft was sigmoid-shaped (curved like an 'S'), and its greater trochanter was centered on the shaft. The tibia had a developed tuberosity and was expanded at the lower end. The astragalus bone (ankle bone) was separated from the tibia and the calcaneum, and formed half of the socket for the fibula. It had long, stout feet with three well-developed toes that bore large claws, which were much less curved than those of the hand. The third toe was the stoutest, and the smaller first toe (the hallux) was kept off the ground.


title: Dilophosaurus

text: Welles thought "Dilophosaurus" a megalosaur in 1954, but revised his opinion in 1970 after discovering that it had crests. By 1974, Welles and the paleontologist Robert A. Long found "Dilophosaurus" to be a ceratosauroid. In 1984 Welles found that "Dilophosaurus" exhibited features of both Coelurosauria and Carnosauria, the two main groups into which theropods had hitherto been divided, based on body size, and he suggested this division was inaccurate. He found "Dilophosaurus" to be closest to those theropods that were usually placed in the family Halticosauridae, particularly "Liliensternus".


title: Dilophosaurus

text: In 1988, paleontologist Gregory S. Paul classified the halticosaurs as a subfamily of the family Coelophysidae, and suggested that "Dilophosaurus" could have been a direct descendant of "Coelophysis". Paul also considered the possibility that spinosaurs were late-surviving dilophosaurs, based on similarity of the kinked snout, nostril position, and slender teeth of "Baryonyx". In 1994, paleontologist Thomas R. Holtz placed "Dilophosaurus" in the group Coelophysoidea, along with but separate from the Coelophysidae. He placed the Coelophysoidea in the group Ceratosauria. In 2000, paleontologist James H. Madsen and Welles divided Ceratosauria into the families Ceratosauridae and Dilophosauridae, with "Dilophosaurus" as the sole member of the latter family.


title: Dilophosaurus

text: Lamanna and colleagues pointed out in 1998 that since "Dilophosaurus" was discovered to have had crests on its skull, other similarly crested theropods have been discovered (including "Sinosaurus"), and that this feature is, therefore, not unique to the genus, and of limited use for determining interrelationships within their group. Paleontologist Adam M. Yates described the genus "Dracovenator" from South Africa in 2005, and found it closely related to "Dilophosaurus" and "Zupaysaurus". His cladistic analysis suggested they did not belong in the Coelophysoidea, but rather in the Neotheropoda, a more derived (or "advanced") group. He proposed that if "Dilophosaurus" was more derived than the Coelophysoidea, the features it shared with this group may have been inherited from basal (or "primitive") theropods, indicating that theropods may have passed through a "coelophysoid stage" in their early evolution.


title: Dilophosaurus

text: In 2007, paleontologist Nathan D. Smith and colleagues found the crested theropod "Cryolophosaurus" to be the sister species of "Dilophosaurus", and grouped them with "Dracovenator" and "Sinosaurus". This clade was more derived than the Coelophysoidea, but more basal than the Ceratosauria, thereby placing basal theropods in a ladder-like arrangement. In 2012, Carrano and colleagues found that the group of crested theropods proposed by Smith and colleagues was based on features that relate to the presence of such crests, but that the features of the rest of the skeleton were less consistent. They instead found that "Dilophosaurus" was a coelophysoid, with "Cryolophosaurus" and "Sinosaurus" being more derived, as basal members of the group Tetanurae.


title: Dilophosaurus

text: Paleontologist Christophe Hendrickx and colleagues defined the Dilophosauridae to include "Dilophosaurus" and "Dracovenator" in 2015, and noted that while general uncertainty exists about the placement of this group, it appears to be slightly more derived than the Coelophysoidea, and the sister group to the Averostra. The Dilophosauridae share features with the Coelophysoidea such as the subnarial gap and the front teeth of the maxilla pointing forwards, while features shared with Averostra include a fenestra at the front of the maxilla and a reduced number of teeth in the maxilla. They suggested that the cranial crests of "Cryolophosaurus" and "Sinosaurus" had either evolved convergently, or were a feature inherited from a common ancestor. The following cladogram is based on that published by Hendrickx and colleagues, itself based on earlier studies:


title: Dilophosaurus

text: In 2019, paleontologists Marion Zahner and Winand Brinkmann found the members of the Dilophosauridae to be successive basal sister taxa of the Averostra rather than a monophyletic clade (a natural group), but noted that some of their analyses did find the group valid, containing "Dilophosaurus", "Dracovenator", "Cryolophosaurus", and possibly "Notatesseraeraptor" as the basal-most member. They therefore provided a diagnosis for the Dilophosauridae, based on features in the lower jaw. In the phylogenetic analysis accompanying their 2020 redescription, Marsh and Rowe found all specimens of "Dilophosaurus" to form a monophyletic group, sister to Averostra, and more derived than "Cryolophosaurus". Their analysis did not find support for Dilophosauridae, and they suggested cranial crests were a plesiomorphic (ancestral) trait of Ceratosauria and Tetanurae.


title: Dilophosaurus

text: Various ichnotaxa (taxa based on trace fossils) have been attributed to "Dilophosaurus" or similar theropods. In 1971, Welles reported dinosaur footprints from the Kayenta Formation of northern Arizona, on two levels and below where the original "Dilophosaurus" specimens were found. The lower footprints were tridactyl (three-toed), and could have been made by "Dilophosaurus"; Welles created the new ichnogenus and species "Dilophosauripus williamsi" based on them, in honor of Williams, the discoverer of the first "Dilophosaurus" skeletons. The type specimen is a cast of a large footprint catalogued as UCMP 79690-4, with casts of three other prints included in the hypodigm. In 1984, Welles conceded that no way had been found to prove or disprove that the footprints belonged to "Dilophosaurus". In 1996, the paleontologists Michael Morales and Scott Bulkey reported a trackway of the ichnogenus "Eubrontes" from the Kayenta Formation made by a very large theropod. They noted it could have been made by a very large "Dilophosaurus" individual, but found that unlikely, as they estimated the trackmaker would have been tall at the hips, compared to the of "Dilophosaurus".


title: Dilophosaurus

text: The paleontologist Gerard Gierliński examined tridactyl footprints from the Holy Cross Mountains in Poland and concluded in 1991 that they belonged to a theropod like "Dilophosaurus". He named the new ichnospecies "Grallator" ("Eubrontes") "soltykovensis" based on them, with a cast of footprint MGIW 1560.11.12 as the holotype. In 1994 Gierliński also assigned footprints from the Höganäs Formation in Sweden discovered in 1974 to "G. (E.) soltykovensis". In 1996, Gierliński attributed track AC 1/7 from the Turners Falls Formation of Massachusetts, a resting trace he believed to show feather impressions, to a theropod similar to "Dilophosaurus" and "Liliensternus", and assigned it to the ichnotaxon "Grallator minisculus". The paleontologist Martin Kundrát agreed that the track showed feather impressions in 2004, but this interpretation was disputed by the paleontologist Martin Lockley and colleagues in 2003 and the paleontologist Anthony J. Martin and colleagues in 2004, who considered them as sedimentological artifacts. Martin and colleagues also reassigned the track to the ichnotaxon "Fulicopus lyellii". Gierliński and Karol Sabath responded at a conference talk in 2005, pointing out that the algae mat imprint would not only have been present on the stomach, but also the footprints. Based on detailed photos and experiments, they found the traces similar to those left by the fibrous feathers (semiplumes) of modern birds, and different from those left by a scaly body.


title: Dilophosaurus

text: The paleontologist Robert E. Weems proposed in 2003 that "Eubrontes" tracks were not produced by a theropod, but by a sauropodomorph similar to "Plateosaurus", excluding "Dilophosaurus" as a possible trackmaker. Instead, Weems proposed "Kayentapus hopii", another ichnotaxon named by Welles in 1971, as the best match for "Dilophosaurus". The attribution to "Dilophosaurus" was primarily based on the wide angle between digit impressions three and four shown by these tracks, and the observation that the foot of the holotype specimen shows a similarly splayed-out fourth digit. Also in 2003, paleontologist Emma Rainforth argued that the splay in the holotype foot was merely the result of distortion, and that "Eubrontes" would indeed be a good match for "Dilophosaurus".


title: Dilophosaurus

text: The paleontologist Spencer G. Lucas and colleagues stated in 2006 that virtually universal agreement existed that "Eubrontes" tracks were made by a theropod like "Dilophosaurus", and that they and other researchers dismissed Weems' claims.


title: Dilophosaurus

text: In 2006, Weems defended his 2003 assessment of "Eubrontes", and proposed an animal like "Dilophosaurus" as the possible trackmaker of numerous "Kayentapus" trackways of the Culpeper Quarry in Virginia. Weems suggested rounded impressions associated with some of these trackways to represent hand impressions lacking digit traces, which he interpreted as a trace of quadrupedal movement. Milner and colleagues used the new combination "Kayentapus soltykovensis" in 2009, and suggested that "Dilophosauripus" may not be distinct from "Eubrontes" and "Kayentapus". They suggested that the long claw marks that were used to distinguish "Dilophosauripus" may be an artifact of dragging. They found that "Gigandipus" and "Anchisauripus" tracks may likewise also just represent variations of "Eubrontes". They pointed out that differences between ichnotaxa may reflect how the trackmaker interacted with the substrate rather than taxonomy. They also found "Dilophosaurus" to be a suitable match for a "Eubrontes" trackway and resting trace (SGDS 18.T1) from the St. George dinosaur discovery site in the Moenave Formation of Utah, though the dinosaur itself is not known from the formation, which is slightly older than the Kayenta Formation. Weems stated in 2019 that "Eubrontes" tracks do not reflect the gracile feet of "Dilophosaurus", and argued they were instead made by the bipedal sauropodopormph "Anchisaurus".


title: Dilophosaurus

text: Welles found that "Dilophosaurus" did not have a powerful bite, due to weakness caused by the subnarial gap. He thought that it used its front premaxillary teeth for plucking and tearing rather than biting, and the maxillary teeth further back for piercing and slicing. He thought that it was probably a scavenger rather than a predator, and that if it did kill large animals, it would have done so with its hands and feet rather than its jaws. Welles did not find evidence of cranial kinesis in the skull of "Dilophosaurus", a feature that allows individual bones of the skull to move in relation to each other. In 1986, the paleontologist Robert T. Bakker instead found "Dilophosaurus", with its massive neck and skull and large upper teeth, to have been adapted for killing large prey, and strong enough to attack any Early Jurassic herbivores. In 1988, Paul dismissed the idea that "Dilophosaurus" was a scavenger, and claimed that strictly scavenging terrestrial animals are a myth. He stated that the snout of "Dilophosaurus" was better braced than had been thought previously, and that the very large, slender maxillary teeth were more lethal than the claws. Paul suggested that it hunted large animals such as prosauropods, and that it was more capable of snapping small animals than other theropods of a similar size.


title: Dilophosaurus

text: A 2005 beam-theory study by the palaeontologist François Therrien and colleagues found that the bite force in the mandible of "Dilophosaurus" decreased rapidly hindwards in the tooth-throw. This indicates that the front of the mandible, with its upturned chin, "rosette" of teeth, and strengthened symphysal region (similar to spinosaurids), was used to capture and manipulate prey, probably of relatively smaller size. The properties of its mandibular symphysis were similar to those of felids and crocodilians that use the front of their jaws to deliver a powerful bite when subduing prey. The loads exerted on the mandibles were consistent with struggle of small prey, which may have been hunted by delivering slashing bites to wound it, and then captured with the front of the jaws after being too weakened to resist. The prey may then have been moved further back into the jaws, where the largest teeth were located, and killed by slicing bites (similar to some crocodilians) with the sideways-compressed teeth. The authors suggested that if "Dilophosaurus" indeed fed on small prey, possible hunting packs would have been of limited size.


title: Dilophosaurus

text: Milner and paleontologist James I. Kirkland suggested in 2007 that "Dilophosaurus" had features that indicate it may have eaten fish. They pointed out that the ends of the jaws were expanded to the sides, forming a "rosette" of interlocking teeth, similar to those of spinosaurids, known to have eaten fish, and gharials, which is the modern crocodile that eats the most fish. The nasal openings were also retracted back on the jaws, similar to spinosaurids, which have even more retracted nasal openings, and this may have limited water splashing into the nostrils during fishing. Both groups also had long arms with well-developed claws, which could help when catching fish. Lake Dixie, a large lake that extended from Utah to Arizona and Nevada, would have provided abundant fish in the "post-cataclysmic", biologically more impoverished world that followed the Triassic–Jurassic extinction event (wherein about three quarters of life on Earth vanished), 5 to 15 million years before "Dilophosaurus" appeared.


title: Dilophosaurus

text: In 2018, Marsh and Rowe reported that the holotype specimen of the sauropodomorph "Sarahsaurus" bore possible tooth marks scattered across the skeleton that may have been left by "Dilophosaurus" ("Syntarsus" was too small to have produced them) scavenging the specimen after it died (the positions of the bones may also have been disturbed by scavenging). An example of such marks can be seen on the left scapula, which has an oval depression on the surface of its upper side, and a large hole on the lower front end of the right tibia. The quarry where the holotype and paratype specimens of "Sarahsaurus" were excavated also contained a partial immature "Dilophosaurus" specimen. Marsh and Rowe suggested in 2020 that many of the features that distinguished "Dilophosaurus" from earlier theropods were associated with increased body size and macropredation (preying on large animals). While Marsh and Rowe agreed that "Dilophosaurus" could have fed on fish and small prey in the fluvial system in its environment, they pointed out that the articulation between the premaxilla and maxilla of the upper jaw was immobile and much more robust than previously thought, and that large-bodied prey could have been grasped and manipulated with the forelimbs during predation and scavenging. They considered the large bite marks on "Sarahsaurus" specimens alongside shed teeth and the presence of a "Dilophosaurus" specimen within the same quarry as support for this idea.


title: Dilophosaurus

text: In a 2021 article, paleontologist Matthew A. Brown and Rowe stated that these remains showed that "Dilophosaurus" had jaws strong enough to puncture bone. The fleshy air sacs from its respiratory system that grew into the vertebrae both strengthened and lightened the skeleton, and allowed unidirectional airflow through its lungs, similar to birds and crocodiles, and thereby more oxygen than a bidirectional respiratory system of mammals (wherein the air flows in and out of the lungs). Unidirectional breathing indicates relatively high metabolic rates and therefore high levels of activity, indicating that "Dilophosaurus" was likely a fast, agile hunter. Brown and Rowe considered "Dilophosaurus" to have been an apex predator in its ecosystem, and not a scavenger.


title: Dilophosaurus

text: Welles envisioned "Dilophosaurus" as an active, clearly bipedal animal, similar to an enlarged ostrich. He found the forelimbs to have been powerful weapons, strong and flexible, and not used for locomotion. He noted that the hands were capable of grasping and slashing, of meeting each other, and reaching two-thirds up the neck. He proposed that in a sitting posture, the animal would rest on the large "foot" of its ischium, as well as its tail and feet. In 1990, paleontologists Stephen and Sylvia Czerkas suggested that the weak pelvis of "Dilophosaurus" could have been an adaptation for an aquatic lifestyle, where the water would help support its weight, and that it could have been an efficient swimmer. They found it doubtful that it would have been restricted to a watery environment, though, due to the strength and proportions of its hind limbs, which would have made it fleet-footed and agile during bipedal locomotion. Paul depicted "Dilophosaurus" bouncing on its tail while lashing out at an enemy, similar to a kangaroo.


title: Dilophosaurus

text: In 2005, paleontologists Phil Senter and James H. Robins examined the range of motion in the forelimbs of "Dilophosaurus" and other theropods. They found that "Dilophosaurus" would have been able to draw its humerus backward until it was almost parallel with the scapula, but could not move it forwards to a more than vertical orientation. The elbow could approach full extension and flexion at a right angle, but not achieve it completely. The fingers do not appear to have been voluntarily hyperextensible (able to extend backwards, beyond their normal range), but they may have been passively hyperextensible, to resist dislocation during violent movements by captured prey. A 2015 article by Senter and Robins gave recommendations for how to reconstruct the fore limb posture in bipedal dinosaurs, based on examination of various taxa, including "Dilophosaurus". The scapulae were held very horizontally, the resting orientation of the elbow would have been close to a right angle, and the orientation of the hand would not have deviated much from that of the lower arm.


title: Dilophosaurus

text: In 2018, Senter and Corwin Sullivan examined the range of motion in the fore limb joints of "Dilophosaurus" by manipulating the bones, to test hypothesized functions of the fore limbs. They also took into account that experiments with alligator carcasses show that the range of motion is greater in elbows covered in soft tissue (such as cartilage, ligaments, and muscles) than what would be indicated by manipulation of bare bones. They found that the humerus of "Dilophosaurus" could be retracted into a position that was almost parallel with the scapula, protracted to an almost vertical level, and elevated 65°. The elbow could not be flexed past a right angle to the humerus. Pronation and supination of the wrists (crossing the radius and ulna bones of the lower arm to turn the hand) was prevented by the radius and ulna joints not being able to roll, and the palms, therefore, faced medially, towards each other. The inability to pronate the wrists was an ancestral feature shared by theropods and other dinosaur groups. The wrist had limited mobility, and the fingers diverged during flexion, and were very hyperextensible.


title: Dilophosaurus

text: Senter and Sullivan concluded that "Dilophosaurus" was able to grip and hold objects between two hands, to grip and hold small objects in one hand, to seize objects close beneath the chest, to bring an object to the mouth, to perform a display by swinging the arms in an arc along the sides of the ribcage, to scratch the chest, belly, or the half of the other forelimb farthest from the body, to seize prey beneath the chest or the base of the neck, and to clutch objects to the chest. "Dilophosaurus" was unable to perform scratch-digging, hook-pulling, to hold objects between two fingertips of one hand, to maintain balance by extending the arms outwards to the sides, or to probe small crevices like the modern aye aye does. The hyperextensibility of the fingers may have prevented the prey's violent struggle from dislocating them, since it would have allowed greater motion of the fingers (with no importance to locomotion). The limited mobility of the shoulder and shortness of the forelimbs indicates that the mouth made first contact with the prey rather than the hands. Capture of prey with the forelimbs would only be possible for seizing animals small enough to fit beneath the chest of "Dilophosaurus", or larger prey that had been forced down with its mouth. The great length of the head and neck would have enabled the snout to extend much further than the hands.


title: Dilophosaurus

text: The "Dilophosauripus" footprints reported by Welles in 1971 were all on the same level, and were described as a "chicken yard hodge-podge" of footprints, with few forming a trackway. The footprints had been imprinted in mud, which allowed the feet to sink down . The prints were sloppy, and the varying breadth of the toe prints indicates that mud had clung to the feet. The impressions varied according to differences in the substrate and the manner in which they were made; sometimes, the foot was planted directly, but often a backward or forward slip occurred as the foot came down. The positions and angles of the toes also varied considerably, which indicate they must have been quite flexible. The "Dilophosauripus" footprints had an offset second toe with a thick base, and very long, straight claws that were in line with the axes of the toe pads. One of the footprints was missing the claw of the second toe, perhaps due to injury. In 1984, Welles interpreted the fact that three individuals were found close together, and the presence of criss-crossed trackways nearby, as indications that "Dilophosaurus" traveled in groups. Gay agreed that they may have traveled in small groups, but noted that no direct evidence supported this, and that flash floods could have picked up scattered bones from different individuals and deposited them together.


title: Dilophosaurus

text: Milner and colleagues examined the possible "Dilophosaurus" trackway SGDS 18.T1 in 2009, which consists of typical footprints with tail drags and a more unusual resting trace, deposited in lacustrine beach sandstone. The trackway began with the animal first oriented approximately in parallel with the shoreline, and then stopping by a berm with both feet in parallel, whereafter it lowered its body, and brought its metatarsals and the callosity around its ischium to the ground; this created impressions of symmetrical "heels" and circular impressions of the ischium. The part of the tail closest to the body was kept off the ground, whereas the end further away from the body made contact with the ground. The fact that the animal rested on a slope is what enabled it to bring both hands to the ground close to the feet. After resting, the dinosaur shuffled forwards, and left new impressions with its feet, metatarsals, and ischium, but not the hands. The right foot now stepped on the print of the right hand, and the second claw of the left foot made a drag mark from the first resting position to the next. After some time, the animal stood up and moved forwards, with the left foot first, and once fully erect, it walked across the rest of the exposed surface, while leaving thin drag marks with the end of the tail.


title: Dilophosaurus

text: Crouching is a rarely captured behavior of theropods, and SGDS 18.T1 is the only such track with unambiguous impressions of theropod hands, which provides valuable information about how they used their forelimbs. The crouching posture was found to be very similar to that of modern birds, and shows that early theropods held the palms of their hands facing medially, towards each other. As such a posture therefore evolved early in the lineage, it may have characterized all theropods.


title: Dilophosaurus

text: Theropods are often depicted with their palms facing downwards, but studies of their functional anatomy have shown that they, like birds, were unable to pronate or supinate their arms. The track showed that the legs were held symmetrically with the body weight distributed between the feet and the metatarsals, which is also a feature seen in birds such as ratites. Milner and colleagues also dismissed the idea that the "Kayentapus minor" track reported by Weems showed a palm imprint made by a quadrupedally walking theropod. Weems had proposed the trackmaker would have been able to move quadrupedally when walking slowly, while the digits would have been habitually hyperextended so only the palms touched the ground. Milner and colleagues found the inferred pose unnecessary, and suggested the track was instead made in a similar way as SGDS 18.T1, but without leaving traces of the digits.


title: Dilophosaurus

text: Welles conceded that suggestions as to the function of the crests of "Dilophosaurus" were conjectural, but thought that, though the crests had no grooves to indicate vascularization, they could have been used for thermoregulation. He also suggested they could have been used for species recognition or ornamentation.


title: Dilophosaurus

text: The Czerkas pointed out that the crests could not have been used during battle, as their delicate structure would have been easily damaged. They suggested that they were a visual display for attracting a mate, and even thermoregulation. In 1990, paleontologist Walter P. Coombs stated that the crests may have been enhanced by colors for use in display.


title: Dilophosaurus

text: In 2011 the paleontologists Kevin Padian and John R. Horner proposed that "bizarre structures" in dinosaurs in general (including crests, frills, horns, and domes) were primarily used for species recognition, and dismissed other explanations as unsupported by evidence. They noted that too few specimens of cranially ornamented theropods, including "Dilophosaurus", were known to test their evolutionary function statistically, and whether they represented sexual dimorphism or sexual maturity. In a response to Padian and Horner the same year, the paleontologists Rob J. Knell and Scott D. Sampson argued that species recognition was not unlikely as a secondary function for "bizarre structures" in dinosaurs, but that sexual selection (used in display or combat to compete for mates) was a more likely explanation, due to the high cost of developing them, and because such structures appear to be highly variable within species.


title: Dilophosaurus

text: In 2013, paleontologists David E. Hone and Darren Naish criticized the "species recognition hypothesis", and argued that no extant animals use such structures primarily for species recognition, and that Padian and Horner had ignored the possibility of mutual sexual selection (where both sexes are ornamented). Marsh and Rowe agreed in 2020 that the crests of "Dilophosaurus" likely had a role in species identification or intersexual/intrasexual selection, as in some modern birds. It is unknown if the air sacs in the crests supported such functions.


title: Dilophosaurus

text: Welles originally interpreted the smaller "Dilophosaurus" specimens as juveniles, and the larger specimen as an adult, later interpreting them as different species. Paul suggested that the differences between the specimens was perhaps due to sexual dimorphism, as was seemingly also apparent in "Coelophysis", which had "robust" and "gracile" forms of the same size, that might otherwise have been regarded as separate species. Following this scheme, the smaller "Dilophosaurus" specimen would represent a "gracile" example.


title: Dilophosaurus

text: In 2005 Tykoski found that most "Dilophosaurus" specimens known were juvenile individuals, with only the largest an adult, based on the level of co-ossification of the bones. In 2005 Gay found no evidence of the sexual dimorphism suggested by Paul (but supposedly present in "Coelophysis"), and attributed the variation seen between "Dilophosaurus" specimens to individual variation and ontogeny (changes during growth). There was no dimorphism in the skeletons, but he did not rule out that there could have been in the crests; more data was needed to determine this. Based on the tiny nasal crests on a juvenile specimen, Yates had tentatively assigned to the related genus "Dracovenator", he suggested that these would have grown larger as the animal became adult.


title: Dilophosaurus

text: The paleontologist J.S. Tkach reported a histological study (microscopical study of internal features) of "Dilophosaurus" in 1996, conducted by taking thin-sections of long bones and ribs of specimen UCMP 37303 (the lesser preserved of the two original skeletons). The bone tissues were well vascularized and had a fibro-lamellar structure similar to that found in other theropods and the sauropodomorph "Massospondylus". The plexiform (woven) structure of the bones suggested rapid growth, and "Dilophosaurus" may have attained a growth rate of per year early in life.


title: Dilophosaurus

text: Welles found that the replacement teeth of "Dilophosaurus" and other theropods originated deep inside the bone, decreasing in size the farther they were from the alveolar border. There were usually two or three replacement teeth in the alveoli, with the youngest being a small, hollow crown. The replacement teeth erupted on the outer side of the old teeth. When a tooth neared the gum line, the inner wall between the interdental plates was resorbed and formed a nutrient notch. As the new tooth erupted, it moved outwards to center itself in the alveolus, and the nutrient notch closed over.


title: Dilophosaurus

text: Welles noted various paleopathologies (ancient signs of disease, such as injuries and malformations) in "Dilophosaurus". The holotype had a sulcus (groove or furrow) on the neural arch of a cervical vertebra that may have been due to an injury or crushing, and two pits on the right humerus that may have been abscesses (collections of pus) or artifacts. Welles also noted that it had a smaller and more delicate left humerus than the right, but with the reverse condition in its forearms. In 2001, paleontologist Ralph Molnar suggested that this was caused by a developmental anomaly called fluctuating asymmetry. This anomaly can be caused by stress in animal populations, for example due to disturbances in their environment, and may indicate more intense selective pressure. Asymmetry can also result from traumatic events in early development of an animal, which would be more randomly distributed in time. A 2001 study conducted by paleontologist Bruce Rothschild and colleagues examined 60 "Dilophosaurus" foot bones for signs of stress fractures (which are caused by strenuous, repetitive actions), but none were found. Such injuries can be the result of very active, predatory lifestyles.


title: Dilophosaurus

text: In 2016 Senter and Sara L. Juengst examined the paleopathologies of the holotype specimen and found that it bore the greatest and most varied number of such maladies on the pectoral girdle and forelimb of any theropod dinosaur so far described, some of which are not known from any other dinosaur. Only six other theropods are known with more than one paleopathology on the pectoral girdle and forelimbs. The holotype specimen had eight afflicted bones, whereas no other theropod specimen is known with more than four. On its left side, it had a fractured scapula and radius, and fibriscesses (like abscesses) in the ulna and the outer phalanx bone of the thumb. On the right side it had torsion of its humeral shaft, three bony tumors on its radius, a truncated articular surface of its third metacarpal bone, and deformities on the first phalanx bone of the third finger. This finger was permanently deformed and unable to flex. The deformities of the humerus and the third finger may have been due to osteodysplasia, which had not been reported from non-avian dinosaurs before, but is known in birds. Affecting juvenile birds that have experienced malnutrition, this disease can cause pain in one limb, which makes the birds prefer to use the other limb instead, which thereby develops torsion.


title: Dilophosaurus

text: The number of traumatic events that led to these features is not certain, and it is possible that they were all caused by a single encounter, for example by crashing into a tree or rock during a fight with another animal, which may have caused puncture wounds with its claws. Since all the injuries had healed, it is certain that the "Dilophosaurus" survived for a long time after these events, for months, perhaps years. The use of the forelimbs for prey capture must have been compromised during the healing process. The dinosaur may therefore have endured a long period of fasting or subsisted on prey that was small enough for it to dispatch with the mouth and feet, or with one forelimb.


title: Dilophosaurus

text: According to Senter and Juengst, the high degree of pain the dinosaur might have experienced in multiple locations for long durations also shows that it was a hardy animal. They noted that paleopathologies in dinosaurs are underreported, and that even though Welles had thoroughly described the holotype, he had mentioned only one of the pathologies found by them. They suggested that such features may sometimes be omitted because descriptions of species are concerned with their characteristics rather than abnormalities, or because such features are difficult to recognize. Senter and Sullivan found that the pathologies significantly altered the range of motion in the right shoulder and right third finger of the holotype, and that estimates for range of motion may therefore not match those made for a healthy forelimb.


title: Dilophosaurus

text: "Dilophosaurus" is known from the Kayenta Formation, which dates to the Sinemurian and Pliensbachian stages of the Early Jurassic, approximately 196–183 million years ago. The Kayenta Formation is part of the Glen Canyon Group that includes formations in northern Arizona, parts of southeastern Utah, western Colorado, and northwestern New Mexico. It is composed mostly of two facies, one dominated by siltstone deposition and the other by sandstone. The siltstone facies is found in much of Arizona, while the sandstone facies is present in areas of northern Arizona, southern Utah, western Colorado, and northwestern New Mexico. The formation was primarily deposited by rivers, with the siltstone facies as the slower, more sluggish part of the river system. Kayenta Formation deposition was ended by the encroaching dune field that would become the Navajo Sandstone. The environment was seasonally dry, with sand dunes migrating in and out of the wet environments where animals lived, and has been likened to a river oasis; a waterway lined with conifers and surrounded by sand. A definitive radiometric dating of this formation has not yet been made, and the available stratigraphic correlation has been based on a combination of radiometric dates from vertebrate fossils, magnetostratigraphy, and pollen evidence. "Dilophosaurus" appears to have survived for a considerable span of time, based on the position of the specimens within the Kayenta Formation.


title: Dilophosaurus

text: The Kayenta Formation has yielded a small but growing assemblage of organisms. Most fossils are from the siltstone facies. Most organisms known so far are vertebrates. Non-vertebrates include microbial or "algal" limestone, petrified wood, plant impressions, freshwater bivalves and snails, ostracods, and invertebrate trace fossils. Vertebrates are known from both body fossils and trace fossils. Vertebrates known from body fossils include hybodont sharks, indeterminate bony fish, lungfish, salamanders, the frog "Prosalirus", the caecilian "Eocaecilia", the turtle "Kayentachelys", a sphenodontian reptile, lizards, and several early crocodylomorphs including "Calsoyasuchus", "Eopneumatosuchus", "Kayentasuchus", and "Protosuchus", and the pterosaur "Rhamphinion". Apart from "Dilophosaurus", several dinosaurs are known, including the theropods "Megapnosaurus", and "Kayentavenator", the sauropodomorph "Sarahsaurus", a heterodontosaurid, and the thyreophoran "Scutellosaurus". Synapsids include the tritylodontids "Dinnebitodon", "Kayentatherium", and "Oligokyphus", morganucodontids, the possible early true mammal "Dinnetherium", and a haramiyid mammal. The majority of these finds come from the vicinity of Gold Spring, Arizona. Vertebrate trace fossils include coprolites and the tracks of therapsids, lizard-like animals, and several types of dinosaur.


title: Dilophosaurus

text: Welles outlined the taphonomy of the original specimens, changes that happened during their decay and fossilization. The holotype skeleton was found lying on its right side, and its head and neck were recurvedcurved backwardsin the "death pose" in which dinosaur skeletons are often found. This pose was thought to be opisthotonus (due to death-spasms) at the time, but may instead have been the result of how a carcass was embedded in sediments. The back was straight, and the hindmost dorsal vertebrae were turned on their left sides. The caudal vertebrae extended irregularly from the pelvis, and the legs were articulated, with little displacement. Welles concluded that the specimens were buried at the place of their deaths, without having been transported much, but that the holotype specimen appears to have been disturbed by scavengers, indicated by the rotated dorsal vertebrae and crushed skull. Gay noted that the specimens he described in 2001 showed evidence of having been transported by a stream. As none of the specimens were complete, they may have been transported over some distance, or have lain on the surface and weathered for some time before transport. They may have been transported by a flood, as indicated by the variety of animals found as fragments and bone breakage.


title: Dilophosaurus

text: "Dilophosaurus" was featured in the 1990 novel "Jurassic Park", by the writer Michael Crichton, and its 1993 movie adaptation by the director Steven Spielberg. The "Dilophosaurus" of "Jurassic Park" was acknowledged as the "only serious departure from scientific veracity" in the movie's making-of book, and as the "most fictionalized" of the movie's dinosaurs in a book about Stan Winston Studios, which created the animatronics effects. For the novel, Crichton invented the dinosaur's ability to spit venom (explaining how it was able to kill prey, in spite of its seemingly weak jaws). The art department added another feature, a neck frill or cowl folded against its neck that expanded and vibrated as the animal prepared to attack, similar to that of the frill-necked lizard. To avoid confusion with the "Velociraptor" as featured in the movie, "Dilophosaurus" was presented as only tall, instead of its assumed true height of about . Nicknamed "the spitter", the "Dilophosaurus" of the movie was realized through puppeteering, and required a full body with three interchangeable heads to produce the actions required by the script. Separate legs were also constructed for a shot where the dinosaur hops by. Unlike most of the other dinosaurs in the movie, no computer-generated imagery was employed when showing the "Dilophosaurus".


title: Dilophosaurus

text: The geologist J. Bret Bennington noted in 1996 that though "Dilophosaurus" probably did not have a frill and could not spit venom like in the movie, its bite could have been venomous, as has been claimed for the Komodo dragon. He found that adding venom to the dinosaur was no less allowable than giving a color to its skin, which is also unknown. If the dinosaur had a frill, there would have been evidence for this in the bones, in the shape of a rigid structure to hold up the frill, or markings at the places where the muscles used to move it were attached. He also added that if it did have a frill, it would not have used it to intimidate its meal, but rather a competitor (he speculated it may have responded to a character in the movie pulling a hood over his head). In a 1997 review of a book about the science of "Jurassic Park", the paleontologist Peter Dodson likewise pointed out the wrong scale of the film's "Dilophosaurus", as well as the improbability of its venom and frill. Bakker pointed out in 2014 that the movie's "Dilophosaurus" lacked the prominent notch in the upper jaw, and concluded that the movie-makers had done a good job at creating a frightening chimaera of different animals, but warned it could not be used to teach about the real animal. Brown and Marsh stated that while these traits were fictitious, they were made believable by being based on the biology of real animals. Welles himself was "thrilled" to see "Dilophosaurus" in "Jurassic Park": he noted the inaccuracies, but found them minor points, enjoyed the movie, and was happy to find the dinosaur "an internationally known actor".


title: Dilophosaurus

text: According to Navajo myth, the carcasses of slain monsters were "beaten into the earth", but were impossible to obliterate, and fossils have traditionally been interpreted as their remains. While Navajo people have helped paleontologists locate fossils since the 19th century, traditional beliefs suggest that the ghosts of the monsters remain in their partially buried corpses, and have to be kept there through potent rituals. Likewise, some worry that the bones of their relatives would be dug up along with dinosaur remains, and that removing fossils shows disrespect to the past lives of these beings. In 2005, the historian Adrienne Mayor stated Welles had noted that during the original excavation of "Dilophosaurus", the Navajo Williams disappeared from the excavation after some days, and speculated this was because Williams found the detailed work with fine brushes "beneath his dignity". Mayor instead pointed out that Navajo men do occupy themselves with detailed work, such as jewellery and painting, and that the explanation for Williams' departure may instead have been traditional anxiety as the skeletons emerged and were disturbed. Mayor also pointed to an incident in the 1940s when a Navajo man helped excavate a "Pentaceratops" skeleton as long as he did not have to touch the bones, but left the site when only a few inches of dirt were left covering them. In a 1994 book, Welles said Williams had come back some days later with two Navajo women saying "that's no man's work, that's squaw's work".


title: Dilophosaurus

text: The cliffs in Arizona that contained the bones of "Dilophosaurus" also have petroglyphs by ancestral Puebloans carved onto them, and the criss-crossing tracks of the area are called "Naasho’illbahitsho Biikee" by the Navajo, meaning "big lizard tracks". According to Mayor, Navajos used to hold ceremonies and make offerings to these monster tracks. Tridactyl tracks were also featured as decorations on the costumes and rock art of the Hopi and Zuni, probably influenced by such dinosaur tracks. In 2017 "Dilophosaurus" was designated as the state dinosaur of the US state of Connecticut, to become official with the new state budget in 2019. "Dilophosaurus" was chosen because tracks thought to have been made by similar dinosaurs were discovered in Rocky Hill in 1966, during excavation for the Interstate Highway 91. The six tracks were assigned to the ichnospecies "Eubrontes giganteus", which was made the state fossil of Connecticut in 1991. The area they were found in had been a Triassic lake, and when the significance of the area was confirmed, the highway was rerouted, and the area made a state park named Dinosaur State Park. In 1981 a sculpture of "Dilophosaurus", the first life-sized reconstruction of this dinosaur, was donated to the park.


title: Dilophosaurus

text: "Dilophosaurus" was proposed as the state dinosaur of Arizona by a 9-year-old boy in 1998, but lawmakers suggested "Sonorasaurus" instead, arguing that "Dilophosaurus" was not unique to Arizona. A compromise was suggested that would recognize both dinosaurs, but the bill died when it was revealed that the "Dilophosaurus" fossils had been taken without permission from the Navajo Reservation, and because they did not reside in Arizona anymore (an 11-year-old boy again suggested "Sonorasaurus" as Arizona's state dinosaur in 2018). Navajo Nation officials subsequently discussed how to get the fossils returned. According to Mayor, one Navajo stated that they do not ask to get the fossils back anymore, but wondered why casts had not been made so the bones could be left, as it would be better to keep them in the ground, and a museum built so people could come to see them there. Further field work related to "Dilophosaurus" in the Navajo Nation was conducted with permission from the Navajo Nation Minerals Department.


title: Zombie apocalypse

text: Zombie apocalypse is a genre of fiction in which society collapses due to overwhelming swarms of zombies. Typically only a few individuals or small bands of survivors are left living. In some versions, the reason the dead rise and attack humans is unknown, in others, a parasite or infection is the cause, framing events much like a plague. Some stories have every corpse rise, regardless of the cause of death, whereas others require exposure to the infection.


title: Zombie apocalypse

text: The genre originated in the 1968 American horror film "Night of the Living Dead", which was directed by George A. Romero, who took inspiration from the 1954 novel "I Am Legend" by Richard Matheson. Romero's film introduced the concept of the flesh-eating zombie and spawned numerous other fictional works, including films, video games and literature.


title: Zombie apocalypse

text: The zombie apocalypse has been used as a metaphor for various contemporary fears, such as global contagion, the breakdown of society, and the end of the world. It has repeatedly been referenced in the media and inspired various fan activities such as zombie walks, making it a dominant genre in popular culture.


title: Zombie apocalypse

text: The myth of the zombie originated in Haiti in the 17th and 18th centuries when African slaves were brought in to work on sugar plantations under the rule of France. The slaves believed that if they ended their own lives by suicide they would be condemned to spend eternity trapped in their own bodies as the undead. This myth evolved in the Voodoo religion into the Haitian belief that corpses were reanimated by shamans. The zombie concept eventually infiltrated western culture with the publication of the first example of zombie fiction in 1927, which was a book titled "The Magic Island" written by William Seabrook. The book was later adapted for cinema as the 1932 film "White Zombie". Directed by Victor Halperin and starring Bela Lugosi, it was the first feature-length zombie film, establishing the sub genre of zombies and paving the way for the zombie apocalypse in cinema.


title: Zombie apocalypse

text: An early inspirational work of the genre was Richard Matheson's novel "I Am Legend" (1954), which features a lone survivor named Robert Neville waging a war against a human population transformed into vampires. The novel has been adapted into several screenplays, including "The Last Man on Earth" (1964), starring Vincent Price, "The Omega Man" (1971), starring Charlton Heston and "I Am Legend" (2007) starring Will Smith. George A. Romero took inspiration from Matheson and developed the idea with his apocalyptic feature "Night of the Living Dead" (1968), but for vampires he substituted shuffling ghouls. Romero stated, "I confessed to him that I basically ripped the idea off from "I Am Legend". He forgave me because we didn't make any money. He said, 'Well, as long as you didn't get rich, it's okay.'" Romero said that he never referred to the monsters in his film as "zombies". Instead, the term appeared in an article in "Cahiers du Cinéma". Romero commented that earlier depictions of zombies in film, "were very Caribbean and it was all to do with voodoo". By contrast his versions were flesh-eating monsters returned from the grave: "We thought up very few rules or powers for them. The idea was they are your neighbours in a different state. One of the few early ideas we did have was that you have to shoot them in the head to kill them".


title: Zombie apocalypse

text: Generally, films have depicted zombies as the slow, lumbering and unintelligent kind first made popular in the 1968 film "Night of the Living Dead". Zombies were repeatedly shown in slow-walking groups that demonstrate a herd behavior and are capable of overwhelming victims by the strength of their numbers. In the 2000s, several films featured zombies that are depicted as more agile, vicious, intelligent, and stronger than the traditional zombie. In many cases of these "fast" zombies, the plot involves living humans being infected with a pathogen (as in "28 Days Later", "Zombieland", "Dying Light" and "Left 4 Dead"), instead of re-animated corpses. Improved CGI technology and the rise of first-person shooter video games resulted in the herd behavior being replaced by zombies that are capable of running, jumping and attacking as individuals.


title: Zombie apocalypse

text: From the beginnings of the genre, film makers have used the zombie apocalypse as a metaphor for various cultural fears and social tensions, including the spread of disease and plague. The narrative of a zombie apocalypse carries strong connections to the turbulent social landscape of the United States in the 1960s when the originator of this genre, the film "Night of the Living Dead", was created. At the time when Romero was shooting the film, Americans were viewing televised images of various violent events, including the 1967 Newark riots, 1967 Detroit riot and the Vietnam War. Erin C. Cassese, associate professor of political science, commented that public fears over racial tensions are reflected in the faces of the zombie horde in the film and that the dehumanisation of the zombie is a warning about human psychology. This commentary on the civil war between races was however accidental. Romero had hired African-American actor Duane Jones simply because he was the best actor, but noted that after finishing the film, "that very night we heard the news that Martin Luther King had been shot. There were race riots everywhere". Christopher Shaw writing for "The Guardian" noted that Romero's 1978 follow-up film "Dawn of the Dead" is a satire on consumer society. In the film, zombies overrun a shopping mall where survivors have taken refuge. Javier Zarracina for "Vox" commented, "The zombies in "Dawn of the Dead" underscore the fears of capitalism and mindless consumption that racked the late 1970s". From the 1980s, the zombie apocalypse was driven by a fear of global contagion, due to the appearance of Ebola in 1976, AIDS in 1980, Avian Flu in the mid-90s and SARS in 2003. This fear of contagion provided creators with a new explanation for the zombie apocalypse. The contagion concept was used in the 1996 video game "Resident Evil" and the 2002 film "28 Days Later". From the beginning of the post-apocalyptic television series "The Walking Dead" in 2010, the predominant theme shifted from a fear of the zombie horde to the fear of other humans. The series focuses on small groups of survivors driven by self-preservation and protected by walls designed to keep out both the zombies and other survivors. Max Brooks opined that the zombie genre allows people to deal with their own anxiety about the end of the world. He commented, "People have a lot of anxiety about the future. They’re constantly being battered with these very scary, very global catastrophes. I think a lot of people think the system is breaking down and just like the 1970s, people need a ‘safe place’ to explore their apocalyptic worries". Kim Paffenroth noted that "more than any other monster, zombies are fully and literally apocalyptic... they signal the end of the world as we have known it."


title: Zombie apocalypse

text: Initial public reaction to the zombie apocalypse genre was immediately positive. When "Night of the Living Dead" premiered at the Fulton Theater in Pittsburgh on October 1, 1968, the film was an instant hit and was well received by movie goers in America and Europe. It received praise from "Sight and Sound" magazine in Britain and "Cahiers du Cinema" in France. By contrast, critical reception was mainly negative. A reviewer for "Variety" commented that the film raised, "doubts about the future of the regional cinema movement and the moral health of filmgoers who cheerfully opt for unrelieved sadism." The graphic violence depicted in the film caused particular controversy. Pauline Kael writing for "The New Yorker" described it as, "one of the most gruesomely terrifying movies ever made". Roger Ebert wrote a review of the film for the "Chicago Sun-Times", in which he commented on the reaction of the young audience: "I don’t think the younger kids really knew what hit them. They’d seen horror movies before, but this was something else. This was ghouls eating people — you could actually see what they were eating. This was little girls killing their mothers. This was being set on fire. Worst of all, nobody got out alive — even the hero got killed". The film has since been recognised as a classic by film critics. In October 2018, Steve Rose writing for "The Guardian" described it as, "brilliantly perplexing, horrifying and mysteriously allegorical". Several decades after the release of "Night of the Living Dead", the popularity of the genre has only increased. Films like "28 Days Later", "Dawn of the Dead", "Shaun of the Dead" and "Zombieland" and video games in the "Resident Evil" series have been major commercial successes. In 2010, Frank Darabont, executive producer of "The Walking Dead" commented, "To be a fan of zombie films was a really sub-cult thing for many decades. In the last five years, it's become massively mainstream".


title: Zombie apocalypse

text: The release of "28 Days Later" in 2002 created a long-running debate over whether the film could be categorised within the genre of a zombie apocalypse. This was based on the technicality that the people infected with rage in the film are still alive rather than returning from the grave. The debate was further fuelled by the director Danny Boyle choosing not to label the film as a zombie movie. Screenwriter Alex Garland finally settled the matter by stating, "Whatever technical discrepancies may or may not exist, they’re pretty much zombies".


title: Zombie apocalypse

text: According to a 2009 Carleton University and University of Ottawa epidemiological analysis, an outbreak of slow zombies "is likely to lead to the collapse of civilization, unless it is dealt with quickly." Based on mathematical modelling, the authors concluded that offensive strategies were the most reliable, due to risks that can compromise a quarantine. They also found that a cure would leave a few humans alive, since this would do little to slow the infection rate. The study determined that the most likely long-term outcome of such an outbreak would be the extinction of humans. This conclusion stems from the study's reasoning that the primary epidemiological risk of zombies is the continual growth of the infected population, a phenomenon which would only cease with the infection or death of all surviving humans.


title: Zombie apocalypse

text: In 2017, a group of students from the University of Leicester Department of Physics and Astronomy used an epidemiological model called a SIRS model to plot the spread of a zombie infection. Their findings were presented in the "Journal of Physics Special Topics." The study concluded that on the 100th day of the epidemic, only 273 human survivors would remain, outnumbered by a million-to-one undead. A follow-up study using different parameters showed that the human population could recover.


title: Zombie apocalypse

text: On May 18, 2011, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) published an article, "" providing tips on preparing to survive a zombie invasion. In a blog post, assistant surgeon general Ali S. Khan wrote, "That’s right, I said z-o-m-b-i-e a-p-o-c-a-l-y-p-s-e. You may laugh now, but when it happens you’ll be happy you read this". The post provided instructions for preparing for a zombie onslaught, as a comical way to prepare the public for similar emergencies, such as a hurricane or pandemic. CDC spokesman Dave Daigle said that the campaign was a response to a question about whether zombies were a potential danger due to radiation in Japan.


title: Zombie apocalypse

text: In the unclassified document titled "CONOP 8888", officers from U.S. Strategic Command used a zombie apocalypse scenario as a training template for operations, emergencies and catastrophes, as a tool to teach cadets about the basic concepts of military plans and disaster preparation using its admittedly outlandish premise.


title: Zombie apocalypse

text: On October 17, 2011, The Weather Channel published an article, "How To Weather the Zombie Apocalypse" that included a fictional interview with a director of research at the CDD, the "Center for Disease Development". The interview involved "Dr. Dale Dixon" answering questions about how different weather conditions affect zombies' abilities. Questions included "How does the temperature affect zombies' abilities? Do they run faster in warmer temperatures? Do they freeze if it gets too cold?"


title: Zombie apocalypse

text: Donald Clarke writing for "The Irish Times" described "Night of the Living Dead" as one of the most influential horror films of all time. He commented, "Romero's dark fantasy dragged in many of the anxieties of its age. And, of course, it gave the horror world a new monster: a being that rises from the grave to feast on human flesh. They came to be known as zombies". Jon Towlson of the British Film Institute remarked that the ground-breaking legacy of the film lies in, "Romero making the zombies into flesh-eating beings, creating an allegory of a society devouring itself from within. This would become the central metaphor underlying much modern apocalyptic horror". Adam Nayman of "The Ringer" considered that the power of the zombie apocalypse movie is its plausibility. He said, ""In Night of the Living Dead" and "Dawn of the Dead", Romero had smartly de-emphasized the "why" of his zombie outbreaks to focus on the physics (and metaphysics) of human survival: how the end of the world would bring out the best and worst in the human condition". Nicholas Barber from BBC Culture opined that, "zombies embody the great contemporary fear", noting their "relentless shuffle into the mainstream of popular culture" and particularly highlighted the commercial and critical success of films like "28 Days Later", "Dawn of the Dead" and "Shaun of the Dead". Devon Maloney writing for "Wired" commented that zombie fandom shares a group mentality that has manifested in group activities like zombie walks, and that the concept of seeing a zombie as an "other" has been a complicated metaphor. He said, "The more realistic apocalypse scenarios in movies struggle to be, the more likely people are to consider them seriously". "Kerrang!"'s Mike Rampton wrote, "Perhaps the most appealing element of a zombie apocalypse is that it draws people together, forcing them to put their differences aside to unite against a common enemy and set it on fire. Other than the extraordinary violence involved, that sounds like a dream come true". Sophie Collins of MovieWeb considered that the appeal of the genre is that it is an escapist fantasy about survival: "Perhaps people underestimate what it takes to fight off a swarm of flesh-eating zombies, but almost everyone thinks they can handle it, and that's exactly what makes these movies so entertaining." In 2018, "The Independent" reported the findings of a survey conducted by NOW TV, which found that almost 25% of British people had a plan to survive a zombie apocalypse. The survey also found that one in six had considered putting in place a survival kit. Most respondents believed that the zombie apocalypse would begin in New York City and spread to London. It also found that one in ten respondents believed that they would only survive for one week in a post-apocalyptic world.


title: Buckminster Fuller

text: Richard Buckminster Fuller (; July 12, 1895 – July 1, 1983) was an American architect, systems theorist, writer, designer, inventor, philosopher, and futurist. He styled his name as R. Buckminster Fuller in his writings, publishing more than 30 books and coining or popularizing such terms as "Spaceship Earth", "Dymaxion" (e.g., Dymaxion house, Dymaxion car, Dymaxion map), "ephemeralization", "synergetics", and "tensegrity".


title: Buckminster Fuller

text: Fuller developed numerous inventions, mainly architectural designs, and popularized the widely known geodesic dome; carbon molecules known as fullerenes were later named by scientists for their structural and mathematical resemblance to geodesic spheres. He also served as the second World President of Mensa International from 1974 to 1983.


title: Buckminster Fuller

text: Fuller was awarded 28 United States patents and many honorary doctorates. In 1960, he was awarded the Frank P. Brown Medal from The Franklin Institute. He was elected an honorary member of Phi Beta Kappa in 1967, on the occasion of the 50-year reunion of his Harvard class of 1917 (from which he was expelled in his first year). He was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1968. The same year, he was elected into the National Academy of Design as an Associate member. He became a full Academician in 1970, and he received the Gold Medal award from the American Institute of Architects the same year. In 1976, he received the St. Louis Literary Award from the Saint Louis University Library Associates. In 1977, he received the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement. He also received numerous other awards, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom, presented to him on February 23, 1983, by President Ronald Reagan.


title: Buckminster Fuller

text: Fuller was born on July 12, 1895, in Milton, Massachusetts, the son of Richard Buckminster Fuller and Caroline Wolcott Andrews, and grand-nephew of Margaret Fuller, an American journalist, critic, and women's rights advocate associated with the American transcendentalism movement. The unusual middle name, Buckminster, was an ancestral family name. As a child, Richard Buckminster Fuller tried numerous variations of his name. He used to sign his name differently each year in the guest register of his family summer vacation home at Bear Island, Maine. He finally settled on R. Buckminster Fuller.


title: Buckminster Fuller

text: Fuller spent much of his youth on Bear Island, in Penobscot Bay off the coast of Maine. He attended Froebelian Kindergarten. He was dissatisfied with the way geometry was taught in school, disagreeing with the notions that a chalk dot on the blackboard represented an "empty" mathematical point, or that a line could stretch off to infinity. To him these were illogical, and led to his work on synergetics. He often made items from materials he found in the woods, and sometimes made his own tools. He experimented with designing a new apparatus for human propulsion of small boats. By age 12, he had invented a 'push pull' system for propelling a rowboat by use of an inverted umbrella connected to the transom with a simple oar lock which allowed the user to face forward to point the boat toward its destination. Later in life, Fuller took exception to the term "invention".


title: Buckminster Fuller

text: Years later, he decided that this sort of experience had provided him with not only an interest in design, but also a habit of being familiar with and knowledgeable about the materials that his later projects would require. Fuller earned a machinist's certification, and knew how to use the press brake, stretch press, and other tools and equipment used in the sheet metal trade.


title: Buckminster Fuller

text: Fuller attended Milton Academy in Massachusetts, and after that began studying at Harvard College, where he was affiliated with Adams House. He was expelled from Harvard twice: first for spending all his money partying with a vaudeville troupe, and then, after having been readmitted, for his "irresponsibility and lack of interest". By his own appraisal, he was a non-conforming misfit in the fraternity environment.


title: Buckminster Fuller

text: Between his sessions at Harvard, Fuller worked in Canada as a mechanic in a textile mill, and later as a laborer in the meat-packing industry. He also served in the U.S. Navy in World War I, as a shipboard radio operator, as an editor of a publication, and as commander of the crash rescue boat USS "Inca". After discharge, he worked again in the meat packing industry, acquiring management experience. In 1917, he married Anne Hewlett. During the early 1920s, he and his father-in-law developed the Stockade Building System for producing light-weight, weatherproof, and fireproof housing—although the company would ultimately fail in 1927.


title: Buckminster Fuller

text: Buckminster Fuller recalled 1927 as a pivotal year of his life. His daughter Alexandra had died in 1922 of complications from polio and spinal meningitis just before her fourth birthday. Barry Katz, a Stanford University scholar who wrote about Fuller, found signs that around this time in his life Fuller was suffering from depression and anxiety. Fuller dwelled on his daughter's death, suspecting that it was connected with the Fullers' damp and drafty living conditions. This provided motivation for Fuller's involvement in Stockade Building Systems, a business which aimed to provide affordable, efficient housing.


title: Buckminster Fuller

text: In 1927, at age 32, Fuller lost his job as president of Stockade. The Fuller family had no savings, and the birth of their daughter Allegra in 1927 added to the financial challenges. Fuller drank heavily and reflected upon the solution to his family's struggles on long walks around Chicago. During the autumn of 1927, Fuller contemplated suicide by drowning in Lake Michigan, so that his family could benefit from a life insurance payment.


title: Buckminster Fuller

text: Fuller said that he had experienced a profound incident which would provide direction and purpose for his life. He felt as though he was suspended several feet above the ground enclosed in a white sphere of light. A voice spoke directly to Fuller, and declared:


title: Buckminster Fuller

text: Fuller stated that this experience led to a profound re-examination of his life. He ultimately chose to embark on "an experiment, to find what a single individual could contribute to changing the world and benefiting all humanity".


title: Buckminster Fuller

text: Speaking to audiences later in life, Fuller would regularly recount the story of his Lake Michigan experience, and its transformative impact on his life.


title: Buckminster Fuller

text: In 1927 Fuller resolved to think independently which included a commitment to "the search for the principles governing the universe and help advance the evolution of humanity in accordance with them ... finding ways of "doing more with less" to the end that all people everywhere can have more and more". By 1928, Fuller was living in Greenwich Village and spending much of his time at the popular café Romany Marie's, where he had spent an evening in conversation with Marie and Eugene O'Neill several years earlier. Fuller accepted a job decorating the interior of the café in exchange for meals, giving informal lectures several times a week, and models of the Dymaxion house were exhibited at the café. Isamu Noguchi arrived during 1929—Constantin Brâncuși, an old friend of Marie's, had directed him there—and Noguchi and Fuller were soon collaborating on several projects, including the modeling of the Dymaxion car based on recent work by Aurel Persu. It was the beginning of their lifelong friendship.


title: Buckminster Fuller

text: Fuller taught at Black Mountain College in North Carolina during the summers of 1948 and 1949, serving as its Summer Institute director in 1949. Fuller had been shy and withdrawn, but he was persuaded to participate in a theatrical performance of Erik Satie's "Le piège de Méduse" produced by John Cage, who was also teaching at Black Mountain. During rehearsals, under the tutelage of Arthur Penn, then a student at Black Mountain, Fuller broke through his inhibitions to become confident as a performer and speaker.


title: Buckminster Fuller

text: At Black Mountain, with the support of a group of professors and students, he began reinventing a project that would make him famous: the geodesic dome. Although the geodesic dome had been created, built and awarded a German patent on June 19, 1925 by Dr. Walther Bauersfeld, Fuller was awarded United States patents. Fuller's patent application made no mention of Bauersfeld's self-supporting dome built some 26 years prior. Although Fuller undoubtedly popularized this type of structure he is mistakenly given credit for its design.


title: Buckminster Fuller

text: One of his early models was first constructed in 1945 at Bennington College in Vermont, where he lectured often. Although Bauersfeld's dome could support a full skin of concrete it was not until 1949 that Fuller erected a geodesic dome building that could sustain its own weight with no practical limits. It was in diameter and constructed of aluminium aircraft tubing and a vinyl-plastic skin, in the form of an icosahedron. To prove his design, Fuller suspended several students who had helped him build it from the structure's framework. The U.S. government recognized the importance of this work, and employed his firm Geodesics, Inc. in Raleigh, North Carolina to make small domes for the Marines. Within a few years, there were thousands of such domes around the world.


title: Buckminster Fuller

text: Fuller's first "continuous tension – discontinuous compression" geodesic dome (full sphere in this case) was constructed at the University of Oregon Architecture School in 1959 with the help of students. These continuous tension – discontinuous compression structures featured single force compression members (no flexure or bending moments) that did not touch each other and were 'suspended' by the tensional members.


title: Buckminster Fuller

text: For half of a century, Fuller developed many ideas, designs and inventions, particularly regarding practical, inexpensive shelter and transportation. He documented his life, philosophy and ideas scrupulously by a daily diary (later called the "Dymaxion Chronofile"), and by twenty-eight publications. Fuller financed some of his experiments with inherited funds, sometimes augmented by funds invested by his collaborators, one example being the Dymaxion car project.


title: Buckminster Fuller

text: International recognition began with the success of huge geodesic domes during the 1950s. Fuller lectured at North Carolina State University in Raleigh in 1949, where he met James Fitzgibbon, who would become a close friend and colleague. Fitzgibbon was director of Geodesics, Inc. and Synergetics, Inc. the first licensees to design geodesic domes. Thomas C. Howard was lead designer, architect and engineer for both companies. Richard Lewontin, a new faculty member in population genetics at North Carolina State University, provided Fuller with computer calculations for the lengths of the domes' edges.


title: Buckminster Fuller

text: Fuller began working with architect Shoji Sadao in 1954, together designing a hypothetical Dome over Manhattan in 1960, and in 1964 they co-founded the architectural firm Fuller & Sadao Inc., whose first project was to design the large geodesic dome for the U.S. Pavilion at Expo 67 in Montreal. This building is now the "Montreal Biosphère".


title: Buckminster Fuller

text: In 1962, the artist and searcher John McHale wrote the first monograph on Fuller, published by George Braziller in New York.


title: Buckminster Fuller

text: After employing several Southern Illinois University Carbondale graduate students to rebuild his models following an apartment fire in the summer of 1959, Fuller was recruited by longtime friend Harold Cohen to serve as a research professor of "design science exploration" at the institution's School of Art and Design. According to SIU architecture professor Jon Davey, the position was "unlike most faculty appointments ... more a celebrity role than a teaching job" in which Fuller offered few courses and was only stipulated to spend two months per year on campus. Nevertheless, his time in Carbondale was "extremely productive", and Fuller was promoted to university professor in 1968 and distinguished university professor in 1972.


title: Buckminster Fuller

text: Working as a designer, scientist, developer, and writer, he continued to lecture for many years around the world. He collaborated at SIU with John McHale. In 1965, they inaugurated the World Design Science Decade (1965 to 1975) at the meeting of the International Union of Architects in Paris, which was, in Fuller's own words, devoted to "applying the principles of science to solving the problems of humanity."


title: Buckminster Fuller

text: From 1972 until retiring as university professor emeritus in 1975, Fuller held a joint appointment at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, where he had designed the dome for the campus Religious Center in 1971. During this period, he also held a joint fellowship at a consortium of Philadelphia-area institutions, including the University of Pennsylvania, Bryn Mawr College, Haverford College, Swarthmore College and the University City Science Center; as a result of this affiliation, the University of Pennsylvania appointed him university professor emeritus in 1975.


title: Buckminster Fuller

text: Fuller believed human societies would soon rely mainly on renewable sources of energy, such as solar- and wind-derived electricity. He hoped for an age of "omni-successful education and sustenance of all humanity". Fuller referred to himself as "the property of universe" and during one radio interview he gave later in life, declared himself and his work "the property of all humanity". For his lifetime of work, the American Humanist Association named him the 1969 Humanist of the Year.


title: Buckminster Fuller

text: Fuller's last filmed interview took place on June 21, 1983, in which he spoke at Norman Foster's Royal Gold Medal for architecture ceremony. His speech can be watched in the archives of the AA School of Architecture, in which he spoke after Sir Robert Sainsbury's introductory speech and Foster's keynote address.


title: Buckminster Fuller

text: I AM NOW CLOSE TO 88 and I am confident that the only thing important about me is that I am an average healthy human. I am also a living case history of a thoroughly documented, half-century, search-and-research project designed to discover what, if anything, an unknown, moneyless individual, with a dependent wife and newborn child, might be able to do effectively on behalf of all humanity that could not be accomplished by great nations, great religions or private enterprise, no matter how rich or powerfully armed.


title: Buckminster Fuller

text: Fuller died on July 1, 1983, 11 days before his 88th birthday. During the period leading up to his death, his wife had been lying comatose in a Los Angeles hospital, dying of cancer. It was while visiting her there that he exclaimed, at a certain point: "She is squeezing my hand!" He then stood up, suffered a heart attack, and died an hour later, at age 87. His wife of 66 years died 36 hours later. They are buried in Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, Massachusetts.


title: Buckminster Fuller

text: Buckminster Fuller was a Unitarian, and, like his grandfather Arthur Buckminster Fuller (brother of Margaret Fuller), a Unitarian minister. Fuller was also an early environmental activist, aware of Earth's finite resources, and promoted a principle he termed "ephemeralization", which, according to futurist and Fuller disciple Stewart Brand, was defined as "doing more with less". Resources and waste from crude, inefficient products could be recycled into making more valuable products, thus increasing the efficiency of the entire process. Fuller also coined the word synergetics, a catch-all term used broadly for communicating experiences using geometric concepts, and more specifically, the empirical study of systems in transformation; his focus was on total system behavior unpredicted by the behavior of any isolated components.


title: Buckminster Fuller

text: Fuller was a pioneer in thinking globally, and explored energy and material efficiency in the fields of architecture, engineering and design. In his book "Critical Path" (1981) he cited the opinion of François de Chadenèdes (1920-1999) that petroleum, from the standpoint of its replacement cost in our current energy "budget" (essentially, the net incoming solar flux), had cost nature "over a million dollars" per U.S. gallon ($300,000 per litre) to produce. From this point of view, its use as a transportation fuel by people commuting to work represents a huge net loss compared to their actual earnings. An encapsulation quotation of his views might best be summed up as: "There is no energy crisis, only a crisis of ignorance."


title: Buckminster Fuller

text: Though Fuller was concerned about sustainability and human survival under the existing socioeconomic system, he remained optimistic about humanity's future. Defining wealth in terms of knowledge, as the "technological ability to protect, nurture, support, and accommodate all growth needs of life", his analysis of the condition of "Spaceship Earth" caused him to conclude that at a certain time during the 1970s, humanity had attained an unprecedented state. He was convinced that the accumulation of relevant knowledge, combined with the quantities of major recyclable resources that had already been extracted from the earth, had attained a critical level, such that competition for necessities had become unnecessary. Cooperation had become the optimum survival strategy. He declared: "selfishness is unnecessary and hence-forth unrationalizable ... War is obsolete." He criticized previous utopian schemes as too exclusive, and thought this was a major source of their failure. To work, he thought that a utopia needed to include everyone.


title: Buckminster Fuller

text: Fuller was influenced by Alfred Korzybski's idea of general semantics. In the 1950s, Fuller attended seminars and workshops organized by the Institute of General Semantics, and he delivered the annual Alfred Korzybski Memorial Lecture in 1955. Korzybski is mentioned in the Introduction of his book "Synergetics". The two shared a remarkable amount of similarity in their formulations of general semantics.


title: Buckminster Fuller

text: In his 1970 book "I Seem To Be a Verb", he wrote: "I live on Earth at present, and I don't know what I am. I know that I am not a category. I am not a thing—a noun. I seem to be a verb, an evolutionary process—an integral function of the universe."


title: Buckminster Fuller

text: Fuller wrote that the natural analytic geometry of the universe was based on arrays of tetrahedra. He developed this in several ways, from the close-packing of spheres and the number of compressive or tensile members required to stabilize an object in space. One confirming result was that the strongest possible homogeneous truss is cyclically tetrahedral.


title: Buckminster Fuller

text: He had become a guru of the design, architecture, and "alternative" communities, such as Drop City, the community of experimental artists to whom he awarded the 1966 "Dymaxion Award" for "poetically economic" domed living structures.


title: Buckminster Fuller

text: Fuller was most famous for his lattice shell structures – geodesic domes, which have been used as parts of military radar stations, civic buildings, environmental protest camps and exhibition attractions. An examination of the geodesic design by Walther Bauersfeld for the Zeiss-Planetarium, built some 28 years prior to Fuller's work, reveals that Fuller's Geodesic Dome patent (U.S. 2,682,235; awarded in 1954) is the same design as Bauersfeld's.


title: Buckminster Fuller

text: Their construction is based on extending some basic principles to build simple "tensegrity" structures (tetrahedron, octahedron, and the closest packing of spheres), making them lightweight and stable. The geodesic dome was a result of Fuller's exploration of nature's constructing principles to find design solutions. The Fuller Dome is referenced in the Hugo Award-winning novel "Stand on Zanzibar" by John Brunner, in which a geodesic dome is said to cover the entire island of Manhattan, and it floats on air due to the hot-air balloon effect of the large air-mass under the dome (and perhaps its construction of lightweight materials).


title: Buckminster Fuller

text: The Dymaxion car was a vehicle designed by Fuller, featured prominently at Chicago's 1933-1934 Century of Progress World's Fair. During the Great Depression, Fuller formed the "Dymaxion Corporation" and built three prototypes with noted naval architect Starling Burgess and a team of 27 workmen — using donated money as well as a family inheritance.


title: Buckminster Fuller

text: Fuller associated the word "Dymaxion", a blend of the words dynamic", maximum", and "tension" to sum up the goal of his study, "maximum gain of advantage from minimal energy input".


title: Buckminster Fuller

text: The Dymaxion was not an automobile but rather the 'ground-taxying mode' of a vehicle that might one day be designed to fly, land and drive — an "Omni-Medium Transport" for air, land and water. Fuller focused on the landing and taxiing qualities, and noted severe limitations in its handling. The team made improvements and refinements to the platform, and Fuller noted the Dymaxion "was an invention that could not be made available to the general public without considerable improvements".


title: Buckminster Fuller

text: The bodywork was aerodynamically designed for increased fuel efficiency and its platform featured a lightweight cromoly-steel hinged chassis, rear-mounted V8 engine, front-drive and three-wheels. The vehicle was steered via the third wheel at the rear, capable of 90° steering lock. Able to steer in a tight circle, the Dymaxion often caused a sensation, bringing nearby traffic to a halt.


title: Buckminster Fuller

text: Shortly after launch, a prototype rolled over and crashed, killing the Dymaxion's driver and seriously injuring its passengers. Fuller blamed the accident on a second car that collided with the Dymaxion. Eyewitnesses reported, however, that the other car hit the Dymaxion only after it had begun to roll over.


title: Buckminster Fuller

text: Despite courting the interest of important figures from the auto industry, Fuller used his family inheritance to finish the second and third prototypes — eventually selling all three, dissolving "Dymaxion Corporation" and maintaining the Dymaxion was never intended as a commercial venture. One of the three original prototypes survives.


title: Buckminster Fuller

text: Fuller's energy-efficient and inexpensive Dymaxion house garnered much interest, but only two prototypes were ever produced. Here the term "Dymaxion" is used in effect to signify a "radically strong and light tensegrity structure". One of Fuller's Dymaxion Houses is on display as a permanent exhibit at the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan. Designed and developed during the mid-1940s, this prototype is a round structure (not a dome), shaped something like the flattened "bell" of certain jellyfish. It has several innovative features, including revolving dresser drawers, and a fine-mist shower that reduces water consumption. According to Fuller biographer Steve Crooks, the house was designed to be delivered in two cylindrical packages, with interior color panels available at local dealers. A circular structure at the top of the house was designed to rotate around a central mast to use natural winds for cooling and air circulation.