Arboreal Dinosaur


Scientific name	Unknown
Home era	Cretaceous Period
Creature type	Arboreal Theropod
Deaths caused	1+
Appearances	Episode 4.3 Episode 5.5
Other References

"Oi! Have you any idea how much that thing costs?!"

―James Lester telling the Arboreal Raptor to get away from his new Jaguar.^[src]

Arboreal Dinosaurs appear in Series 4 and Series 5 of Primeval. They are shown to very vicious creatures, with the ability to stalk prey without it even knowing its there.

Biology[]

Theese Arboreal Dinosaurs in Primeval are shown very agile, able to climb buildings with no problem. They also are extremely dangerous. They have forward facing eyes, very long front legs with deadly claws, sickle shaped claws on the feet, and a very long tail. With this body structure, it would wait in trees until prey came, and would set their tail on the prey and wrap around it, like a python or anaconda, and lift it up into the trees to eat. It was a social creature, living in packs, and communicating with each other. It is even possible they can "tell" other members of the pack what to do when there plan doesn't work, just like humans. They don't just from the trees, they also can hunt on cliffs, as a seen in Episode 4.3 when it was stalking Matt and Emily. It would carefully climb down the cliff and jump from above onto large prey, and then the others would join in and help kill the victim. It is possible that this is a dinosaur on the verge of human intelligence, which explains its physique, as it looked a lot like a human. It could run for short distances if on ground on two legs as a last resort, but it mainly crawls on all fours like many apes do today. It also stands a lot like a gorilla. It is up to two to three metres long, and with that size, when in packs it would be very effective to have all these special features other dinosaurs don't have. It is possible that Dromaeosaurus lived along side it, and if it did, it would have been a competator with this creature, but it would be very unlikely for a Dromaeosaurus to mess with a dinosaur that is beyond smart compared to other dinosaurs, and loaded with lots of dangerous equipment.

In Primeval[]

Episode 4.3[]

An anomaly opens in a Theatre, where two come into the present. When Emily runs through the anomaly and Matt runs after her. After being hit by a giant stick by Emily, he sees one in the trees, leaping. It lifts down its tail and wraps it around Emily's body, pulling her up, trying to slash and bites her, but she stabs it and it lets go of her, going back up further into the trees. When Matt helps Emily to the anomaly (which is locked by Becker) the dinosaur leaps in the trees, following them. When Matt and Emily go to the locked anomaly, the dinosauf spots them and quietly climbs down the cliff toward them, where it attacks them, with Matt using Emily's dagger against it. After the anomaly is unlocked and Matt brings him and Emily back to the present, the creature follows through the anomaly, but Abby and Becker shoot it back through the anomaly before locking it.

Two other raptors remain in the present, where one grabs an ARC soldier with its tail and kills him, before dragging him up to feed on him, in the theatre. When Becker and the rest of the team get news of the incursion at the theatre, Abby and Becker arrive at the theatre, where Becker finds the dead soldier, but a tree creeper appears behind him, but before it can attack him, another tree creeper from outside distracts the other one,mand they go after it. Abby goes upstairs, and it attacks her, but she injures it when shooting it in the tail with her EMD. She pulls down the light holders from above and finds it, and it leaps at her, but another holder bar slams onto it, and it crashes to the ground. It puts it head up as Becker appears, but Becker kills it with two shots with his EMD.

Matt and Emily go out into London to get the other one which is climbing on a building. Emily tells him to shoot it, but he says its out of range, but she presists. It grabs onto a pole, and Matt shoots the pull, and the electrocutes it, and throws it into a window. Matt and Emily arrive to the building, but find no raptor at the window. Instead, they find it somewhere else in a glass incased room. It sees Matt and turns around, and attacks him, breaking through the window, and Matt grabs the table, as it jumps up and down on it, banging it like a gorilla fighting for territory. Before Matt can get tired and get eaten by the raptor, Emily uses a pepper salt and throws it into the creatures eyes, making it run away, saving Matt.

They find it again on the roof of the building, where Emily finds a place to get rope, while Matt fights it off in a metal room. After a unexpected pause, it shows its eye in a hole it created, and Matt stabs it in the eye. He then gets out withe the rope and Emily, and they rope it, with Emily tying its neck, and Matt tying its neck as well. They tie the ropes against some objects, and leave Microraptor to struggle. It then breaks free from one rope, and then break free from the other, jumping towards Matt and Emily, but instead falling off the building and dying from the fall.

Episode 5.5[]

During the Convergence, where anomalies open up all over the world, the ARC car park Anomaly (the last anomaly to open during Convergence) opens and lets through one Tree Creeper. Lester goes down to the car park to defend his new Jaguar with a full sized EMD. It is on his car, and notices him, but doesn't know what he said. It jumps off and roars at him. Lester shoots it three times before it hits his car and rolls off. It is unknown if it survived, although its likely as in Episode 4.3, Abby and Becker shot it 5 or 7 times on the low setting, and Lester probably shot it on the medium setting. It is unlikely to be returned through the anomaly, as Lester wouldn't do that in "his best shirt". It was probably transported to either the Menagerie in ARC, (unlikely), but more likely would have been transported to the Creature Prison, as it is now under control by the ARC.

Lizard Man of Scape Ore Swamp Sightings[]

It is possible that in the Primeverse, that one came through an anomaly at Scape Ore Swamp. If so, it would be responsible to possibly several deaths in the area, and several attacks. It matches the description of the creature.

Official Facts[]

Imagine a raptor with a longer, monkey-like tail, forward facing eyes and grasping hands, perfectly suited to creeping and scampering through branches and trees. There's very little evidence of what arboreal dinosaurs might have looked like, so Primeval created its own idea of how it might have looked. The tree creeper's defining characteristic is its ability to scale trees (and consequently other high-rise structures) while remaining ferocious.

Trivia[]

This is the second creature to kill itself. The first is the Dromaeosaurus from Episode 3.10, when it jumped off the cliff and killed Helen, and itself.
This is the second species of Raptor to appear Primeval, as it had a raptor like two-claw, and that can only be found on raptors.
This is Hannah Spearritts favourite creature from Series 4 and Series 5.
This creature, and the Kaprosuchus, are the only creatures introduced in Series 4 to appear in Series 5. Spinosaurus did appear as well, but only as stock footage from Episode 4.1.
This is the only Raptor in Primeval to not kill more than one person. It possibly killed more in Convergence though.
Its body design is very similar to a humans. In fact, the only differences where no hair, very long arms with three fingered clawed hands, an extended snout, back legs as long as the front legs with Raptor claws, a long tail, and it also walks on four legs, not two. This is evidence that the Arboreal Raptor in the series and in Primeval are getting smarter. If the K-Pg event didn't occur, it would have almost certainly evolved in something extremely similar to the human race, except smarter. This way, dinosaurs would rule the Earth, instead of humans.
The Arboreal Dinosaur is not based on any species in real life. In real life Arboreal Dinosaurs, like Microraptor were small.
The scene where Emily and Matt roped the creature was similar to how the cowboys in Valley of Gwangi roped the Allosaurus.
This creature could be the creature causing the reports of the Lizard Man of Scape Ore Swamp.
The tree creeper jumping and falling to his death is a reference to 1933 movie and 2005 remake King Kong, when Kong falls off the empire state building and dies.
This creature is pretty similar to the Arsarticaedes, a quadrupedal dromaeosaur from the "The World of Kong" book (based on the 2005 remake King Kong).