Characters appearing in The Lost World (1995). For information regarding Ian Malcom and Lewis Dodgson, please see Jurassic Park (1990).
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Protagonists
Richard Levine
Arby Benton
Sarah Harding
Kelly Curtis
Antagonists
George Baselton
George Baselton
A member of Dodgson's team, and the resident scientist among the group.- Cruel and Unusual Death: The adult tyrannosaurs maul him until he is a pile of red flesh.
- Idiot Ball: Stealing a baby rex from right in front of its parents is indescribably stupid. Baselton pays the price for this.
- Know-Nothing Know-It-All: Believed the Tyrannosaurus to be a Living Motion Detector. The book outright debunks this theory and offers more plausible reasons the adult rex behaved this way in the first book. Levine outright says that
the scientist who wrote the paper proposing this thesis doesn't know enough about anatomy to have sex with his own wife. - Too Dumb to Live: Tries to steal a baby tyrannosaur from its parents with only a sonic emitter keeping them at bay. Then he freezes up when the emitter gets unplugged, believing the dinosaur is a Living Motion Detector. It isn't, and he gets killed for it.
Howard King
Howard King
The third member of Dodgson's team, and Dodgson's Dragon.- The Dragon: Willingly became this to Dodgson to save his career. He isn't happy about this.
- Heel–Face Door-Slam: Abandons Dodgson only to be killed by the raptors before he can join up with the heroes.
- Hope Spot: After deciding to abandon Dodgson, he tries to join the heroes and actually reaches the High Hide, only for the raptors to hunt him down.
- Off with His Head!: An exceptionally brutal example in that a raptor chews through his neck rather than subject him to a more efficient Neck Snap.
Dinosaurs
Raptors
Velociraptors
The tertiary antagonists of the novel.- Artistic License – Biology: The claim that they will cause the rest of the dinosaurs to die out due prion poisoning because the raptors attack healthy animals. Rule of thumb, predators attack animals that are already impaired in some way (old, young, sick, injured, weak, etc.) because they are easier to take down. Logically, the raptors should have figured this out even if they weren't taught by their parents via natural selection.
- Dying Race: Due to consuming prion-infested carrion, they're doomed to die out due to neural degeneration, along with every other dinosaur, seeing how they target healthy animals.
- Foreshadowing: It's pointed out early on both that they built their nests around the corpses of animals far too large for them to drag, indicating that something else killed said animals. It's eventually revealed that these sauropods died of prion disease, which will ultimately kill off all of the dinosaurs on the island.
- Shadow Archetype: Are this to the ones found in the first book, especially the wild ones. The wild raptors appeared to care for each other, while the captive-bred specimens at least had the capacity to work as a team. These creatures, though, are more like a mob of feral dogs than anything else. Justified in that they are essentially feral children, having been released into the wild to fend for themselves and thus having no real idea how to function beyond what they were Taught by Experience. Additionally, while never stated, it's implied they are undergoing neural degeneration from prion disease.
- Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: They are the outcome in question - as opposed to the raptors that lived on Nublar, which act like coordinated pack hunters, these creatures act exactly as vicious and as uncoordinated as any other animal left to fend for itself from infancy that isn't naturally raised this way.
- Wild Child: By animal standards - as they were released into the wild as juveniles, they act feral even when compared to the raptors on Isla Nublar. It's shown that they missed several critical developmental steps, including learning how to care for their own young - most of their nests have shattered eggs and the juveniles have to fend for themselves because their parents never had any role models to follow.
Tyrannosaurus
Tyrannosaurus rex
The most well known of all dinosaurs, a family of which are the secondary antagonists of the novel.- Knee Capping: One of the infants has its legs broken by Dodgson's group. Despite Dodgson's tendency to Kick the Dog, this is a genuine accident resulting from Dodgson not looking before he steps. Eddie taking it back to the trailer sets Ian's team in the sights of the tyrannosaurs.
- Non-Malicious Monster: In comparison to Rexy in the novel, most of their antagonism stems from wanting to retrieve one of their chicks. And while they do attempt to kill the team after getting said chick back, they likely want to avoid a repeat of losing said chick.
- Uncertain Doom: We don't see them die, but they are presumably doomed to succumb to the prion disease once they eat contaminated food.
Carnotaurus
Carnotaurus
The most well known abelisaur, a pair of which hunt near engine's primary facility on Isla Sorna.- Chameleon Camouflage: The Carnotaurus can change color. Given that InGen filled in the gaps in the dinosaur DNA using that of frogs, reptiles, and birds, this ability might even come from chameleons. However, it is pointedly shown that this ability isn't perfect, and is most effective at night.
- The Dreaded: Even the raptors and tyrannosaurs avoid these abelisaurs' turf at night.
- The Hunter Becomes the Hunted: Implied — they avoid the InGen lab during the day, as the raptors occupy that area during the daytime. The implication is that the raptors would kill the Carnotaurus if the two met during the day, since the carnos' camouflage doesn't work as well during the daytime.
