Hello and welcome back to Life’s Biggest Questions, I’m Ron McKenzie-Lefurgey.
Indominus Rex, the giant dinosaur hybrid seen in Jurassic World, is one of the most ferocious
and impressive creatures seen on film in recent years.
With the best features of numerous prehistoric beasts, it caused a heck of a lot of problems
in the movie.
But what if this beast was not a creation of the Jurassic Park series, but actually
existed?
Let’s explore.
If you want more What If videos, check out our “Biggest What Ifs” playlist on the
channel.
Now get ready, it’s time to ask the question: What if Indominus Rex was Real?
Indominus Rex was not your everyday Jurassic Park dino.
While most of the dinosaurs in the park were artificially-created using the genes of a
single species, Indominus Rex was an amalgamation of many different creatures, created by Dr.
Henry Wu.
Genes were spliced with the intention of giving the creature the best traits of numerous prehistoric
creatures.
(jig-a-no-tuh-saurus) Included in the genetic mix were giganotosaurus, majungasaurus, carnotaurus,
rugops, therizinosaurus, tyrannosaurus rex, and velociraptor, as well as some modern animals
like the cuttlefish, tree frog, and pit viper.
This combination led to the grotesque but totally awesome appearance of indominus rex,
and gave her some scary abilities.
The velociraptor DNA let her communicate with velociraptors, and made her very smart.
The T-rex gave the overall structure and powerful tail and jaws.
The tree frog allowed it to regulate its body temperature to avoid detection, while the
pit viper granted it heat vision.
It even gained the ability to camouflage from the cuttlefish.
Gnarly.
That said, not all the effects were positive.
The unstable genetics seemed to affect the cognitive functioning of the dino, since she
was seen killing for fun, rather than for food, and even cannibalized her sibling after
hatching.
Indominus Rex was basically a dinosaur psychopath.
So hey, how fun would it be if it actually existed?
Well, in prehistoric times, Indominus Rex would almost certainly be the Apex predator.
With so much aggressiveness, not to mention the enhanced physical and cognitive abilities,
it would certainly have fared very well.
However, it’s possible that its aggressiveness would cause it to overhunt, and therefore
run out of food.
If you spend all your time killing other animals, but you depend on other animals in order to
survive, you’re gonna have a bad time.
This depletion of resources is something humans have fallen prey to several times across history,
and could well be the downfall of the Indominus Rex, if it didn’t learn to curb its destructive
tendencies.
If, however, it managed to figure out a way to live sustainably, it’s possible that
it could continue to thrive.
If the more murderous aspects were selected out, with the more level-headed dinos surviving
to procreate, we could see Indominus Rex become more and more intelligent as generations went
on.
One very important aspect of the Indominus Rex is that they have thumbs, which many believe
to be proof that Dr. Wu used some of his own DNA.
The combination of heightened intelligence and opposable thumbs would make it even more
likely that the species would develop to use its brains more and more.
If they did end up specializing, and evolving more to use their brains and hands, they would
likely go through a number of physical changes.
Their arms would likely grow in proportion to their bodies, to allow for better manipulation
of objects.
Their bodies as a whole would become smaller, since the huge size would be unnecessary.
A smaller body would be more manoeuvrable, and would require less food to survive.
Eventually, it could be that indominus rex would develop tools and even begin farming
both livestock and crops.
Considering a number of dinos in their genes were omnivorous to some extent, it could be
that down the line, indominus rex would begin depending more on plants to sustain itself.
This would allow them to travel less, and build more permanent settlements.
This could give them the security required to begin focusing on other areas, and possibly
innovating further.
But then we come to the Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction event.
This is the event roughly 66 million years ago that caused the extinction of the dinosaurs,
and 75% of the species on Earth.
It's believed that this was caused by the impact of a massive comet or asteroid, which
led to a lingering impact winter.
This is when the Tyrannosaurus Rex went extinct, and would likely be deadly to Indominus Rex.
It’s possible that the thermal regulation would allow it to survive naturally, but chances
are it would need some help if it were to live through the extinction event.
Of course, if they had managed to advance far enough technologically, they could potentially
survive the event.
Whether it was through shelter and technological improvements on earth, or space travel, they
might be able to live on, and would likely return to Earth to reclaim it.
In this case, humans probably wouldn’t find their way to the top of the world; it could
even be that we would never come to be in the first place.
However, even if they did die off, it would certainly leave us with some impressive fossils
to find and dig up.
The discovery of a dinosaur civilization thousands of years before us would be pretty incredible.
Depending on how advanced they got, we could even potentially learn some things from them,
but at the very least, we would want to learn as much as we could ABOUT them.
And now we return to our question: What if Indominus Rex was Real?
Well, in prehistoric times, its strength, speed, and impressive intelligence would allow
it to thrive, assuming it didn’t doom itself by killing too many animals just for the heck
of it.
Thanks to their already high intelligence and opposable thumbs, it could be that natural
selection would select such traits, leading them to become more and more intelligent with
each generation.
Eventually, they might even make their own society, and could even have technology that
rivals or eclipses our own.
Later, they might go extinct, in which case we would learn from them using remnants from
their society.
If they survived, we might find ourselves living alongside them, or more likely, humans
may never have attained the position we now enjoy.
Thank you for watching Life’s Biggest Questions, I hope this was interesting and informative,
and maybe even inspired you to look into it further on your own.
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While you’re down there, let me know . Until next time, I’m Ron McKenzie-Lefurgey with
Life’s Biggest Questions, wishing you the best of luck, on your quest for answers.