Who Is Dolores? Everything to Know About Jurassic World Rebirth's Adorable Aquilops
You might love dinosaurs, but you're really going to love Dolores.
It’s time to gear up for another dinosaur adventure, this time with all new monsters on an entirely new island, in Jurassic World Rebirth, now in theaters (get tickets here!). As expected, this return to the dinosaur isles features Mesozoic monsters and deadly dinosaurs, but it also features one of the cutest prehistoric critters we’ve ever seen.
In between death-defying situations and encounters with toothy tyrannosaurs, the characters are joined by a curious and cuddly ceratopsian called Dolores.
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Discovering Delores, the adorable Aquilops from Jurassic World Rebirth
The original Jurassic Park (now streaming on Peacock, alongside the rest of the previously released Jurassic films) has a lot going for it; on top of a stellar script and incredible performances, it provided the first realistic depiction of dinosaurs many of us had ever seen. One of the reasons it holds up so well more than three decades after its theatrical release is its reliance on practical effects. Actually putting dinosaurs in front of the camera brought an authenticity which delivers in any decade.
For Jurassic World Rebirth, filmmakers took that lesson to heart in the creation of the film and, specifically, in the creation of the the adorable Aquilops, Dolores. Effects artists created Dolores in animatronic form so that actors would have something to hold and interact with, to make her scenes more believable.
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“There’s a character there, she has a personality,” Rupert Friend, who plays plays Martin Krebs in Jurassic World Rebirth, says in the behind-the-scenes featurette above. “She’s adorable and I wouldn’t be surprised if she’s everyone’s favorite character in the film. She’s probably mine.”
During filming, operators offscreen operated Dolores with radio controls. Built-in motors allowed operators to make her blink, move her face, jaw, head, body, and tail, turning Dolores into a fully lifelike character. "The days we had the Aquilops on set were very long days, because people wouldn't go home. They would stop and they would want to pet her,” says director Gareth Edwards.
She's an inquisitive and pint-sized herbivore destined for stardom, not just because of her blockbuster role onscreen, but because of her place in the evolution of horned dinosaurs.
What to know about the real Aquilops
Aquilops americanus lived about 106 million years ago and is the oldest known member of the horned dinosaur group on the continent. Everything from the famous Triceratops to the complexly adorned Lokiceratops owes a debt to this tiny predecessor.
Only about 2-feet long when fully grown, Aquilops was about the weight of a large rabbit or housecat. In Jurassic World Rebirth, Dolores even behaves sort of like a pet, providing comfort, cuteness, and a few laughs in an otherwise tense series of situations.
"The reason why our relationship is so good in the movie is because I was scared and she just happened to crawl along and help me,” said Audrina Miranda, who plays the young Isabella Delgado in Jurassic World Rebirth.
The species was first uncovered in 1997, by paleontologist Scott Madsen, a member of team led by Rich Cifelli, Ph.D., then curator of vertebrate paleontology at the Sam Noble Museum and funded by the National Geographic Society’s Committee for Research and Exploration. It took another 17 years for the fossil to be thoroughly analyzed and described, resulting in a new species and a paper published in the journal PLOS One.
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Researchers estimated its age to be about 106 million years and, despite its presence in North America, found it to be more closely related to dinosaurs in Asia. This supports the hypothesis that horned dinosaurs originated in Asia before crossing into what is now North America and diversifying into the wide variety we know and love. The discovery of Aquilops, along with other discoveries, suggests there were at least three dispersals from Asia to North America over the course of about 60 million years.
Everything we know about Aquilops is based on a single partial skull and lower jaw, found in Montana’s Cloverly Formation. While it’s related to the large and spiky Triceratops, Aquilops lacked the trademark frill and long brow horns of its larger and later relatives. Using the skull and comparisons with close relatives, paleontologists worked alongside paleoartists to imagine what Aquilops would have looked like while alive. That’s a standard part of many new dinosaur discoveries but it also gave filmmakers a foundation to build when creating a big screen version of Aquilops.
"From the footage I've seen in the trailers, I think the movie-makers did a pretty darned good job with Aquilops,” said Matthew Wedel, co-author of the 2014 paper describing Aquilops, via the University of Oklahoma. “The body proportions look good, the colors and movements are plausible – nothing set off any red flags for me."
The skull of Aquilops is currently on display at the Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural History. If you want a chance to see it for yourself, the museum is hosting an Aquilops Day on July 19, with photo opportunities, crafts, a presentation by paleontologists, and more.
See Dolores the Aquilops for yourself in Jurassic World Rebirth, now in theaters
Jurassic World Rebirth is out now in theaters everywhere. Get your tickets now! In the meantime, learn more about how filmmakers created Dolores and the rest of the movie in the behind-the-scenes documentary Jurassic World Rebirth: The Making of an Era, streaming on Peacock now, alongside the original Jurassic Park and Jurassic World trilogies.
