Once upon a time, cosplay (costume play), larping (live action roleplaying) and ARGs (alternate reality games) were the domain of geeks but are increasingly becoming mainstream.

How mainstream, you ask? Ahead of its cinema release next month Jurassic World Dominion, or rather the "Department of Prehistoric Wildlife", has launched a dinotracker website.

The site advises:

The Department of Prehistoric Wildlife (DPW) is a global organization that publishes up-to-date reports on dinosaur encounters, user-submitted sightings, and vital information, to facilitate the co-existence of humans and dinosaurs on our planet. Formed in 2019, The DPW works with leading scientists, conservationists, and paleo-veterinarians around the world to ensure the protection of our human and prehistoric population.

When they released their second trailer, we wondered about whether the film would portray an attempt to live with or exterminate wild dinosaurs. The DPW site advises:

Dinosaurs are here to stay and their impact on our world is still being studied. Our objective here at the DPW is to help humans and dinosaurs co-exist through real-time monitoring and education. Occurrences of injury or death directly attributable to dinosaurs are rare. Similar to other wild predators, dinosaurs prefer to keep their distance and will typically avoid confrontation and interaction unless threatened.

Seemingly at least some in the film don't favour eradication.

Could this be related to their recent hint at an interactive element in the upcoming Jurassic World Camp Cretaceous special?

Possibly but we don't see an obvious connection - other than the dinosaurs - between this website and what little they've revealed about their plans for the show.

Any sightings here in Australia?

Indeed there are.

Dimorphodon's have been spotted on a billboard in Perth.

Courtesy of magpies and to a lesser extent noisy miners, we Ozzies are accustomed to keeping an eye out for airborne terrors but these buggers will literally take your head off.

Well, maybe not literally. Not in one go anyway. But with a body length of one metre and a one and a half metre wingspan they could be a real threat to small pets.

Expect to see professional dogwalkers armed with flamethrowers, which handily could also be used to atomize poop.

[ Main Image: Dinotracker announcement. Credit: Universal Pictures via YouTube. ]

References

Department of Prehistoric Wildlife. Dinotracker. Universal Pictures.

Jurassic World (May 11, 2022). Jurassic World Dominion | Dinotracker - A Message from the DPW. YouTube.

Wikipedia. Dimorphodon. (viewed May 11, 2022)