The trailers for Jurassic World have made it very clear that the central menace of the new film is a whole new type of genetically engineered dinosaur - but if a new toyline can be believed, he won't be the only one. If the action figures are accurate, we may wind up seeing this unholy abomination up on the big screen this summer:
I'm sure that many of you are comically rubbing your eyes with your fists at this moment, not believing what you're seeing, but this is very real: the Jurassic World toys and the website Wind Designs have introduced the world to the Stegoceratops - half Stegosaurus, half Triceratops. Really, it just looks like Hasbro took the heads off one dinosaur and put them on the bodies of another, but we're still left wondering if we may see this giant lizard in Colin Trevorrow's upcoming film.
The Stegoceratops wouldn't really be that weird if it were a part of a toy line that features all kinds of various dinosaur hybrids - like a brachiosaurus mixed with a pterodactyl or an Ankylosaurus/Allosaurus - but that doesn't seem to be the case. Looking through the rest of the Wind Designs stock, there are Velociraptors, Tyrannosaurus Rexs and even a Spinosaurus, but the Stegoceratops stands alone as the only "hybrid." So could that mean that it's a specific thing taken from Jurassic World, or is it just a random idea that Hasbro thinks can sell?
Personally, I'm thinking it's the latter. Footage from the movie has made it seem like the idea of creating a hybrid dinosaur is a very new idea within the fictional world of the story, and it seems like the newly introduced Indominus Rex is the first result of the experiments. It's possible that the geneticists of Jurassic World wanted to play it safe at first by creating a mix of two plant eaters before stepping things up to carnivores, but I think it's more likely that the Stegoceratops is just an idea from the toy developing side of the production.
Obviously somebody would have noticed if a Stegoceratops were featured in any of the Jurassic World footage we've seen thus far, but it's worth pointing out that we have seen both Stegosauruses and Triceratops in scenes. They can even be spotted together stampeding around one of the park's gyrospheres:
We may not know the exact history behind the Stegoceratops until Jurassic World hits theaters, but that just means we'll get all the answers we need on June 12th.
