One-Armed Baryonyx (S/F)

The Baryonyx, adolescent (2022)

A Baryonyx walkeri identifiable by its missing left arm and cataracts on its left eye was seen in the Amber Clave night market in Valletta, Malta in the spring of 2022. It is outfitted with a custom-made prosthetic. This dinosaur was being used as a cockfighter and most likely lost its arm while being forced to fight another animal. It was a juvenile in early 2022, meaning it most likely hatched in the early 2020s some time after de-extinct species were introduced to the black market. Its status is currently unknown. The sex of this animal is also unknown, as Baryonyx males and females look fairly similar.

Name

This animal most likely has a name given by its owner, but its name is unknown. Many of the Amber Clave fighting animals are unnamed, especially those who are not expected to live long, but the mechanical prosthetic arm of this animal suggests that is owner has invested a considerable amount of money into keeping it viable. The owner appears attached to it on at least a superficial level, potentially enough to name it.

Some fans have taken to calling it “Small Fry” on account of it not being fully grown at the time of the film.

Biography
Early life

The date upon which this Baryonyx hatched is unknown. Its place of origin is likewise unknown. However, some details about its origin are certain. It was either naturally bred from two adult Baryonyx bred by International Genetic Technologies for Jurassic World or cloned from an InGen DNA sample, and in either case, it was quickly taken into the black market. Live specimens and DNA samples, poached from the closed-down site of Jurassic World, were first sold illegally in June 2018 in Orick, California and quickly transported around the world. Numerous live specimens escaped into the wild from the compound in which they were being held. If it was bred naturally, its egg was laid sometime after June 2018 and hatched a few months later; if it was cloned on the black market, the time frame would be roughly the same. If it was bred naturally it may have either hatched in captivity or been captured by poachers as a hatchling.

By the early 2020s, it was in possession of a patron of the Amber Clave night market, a hub of illegal trade located in Valletta, Malta and presided over by the notorious broker Soyona Santos.

The Amber Clave

By early 2022, this Baryonyx (now a human-sized juvenile) had been entered into the Amber Clave’s cockfighting ring, in which de-extinct creatures were pitted against one another in fights. In one such fight, it sustained a grievous injury: its left arm was either torn off, or mangled so badly it would never recover and had to be amputated. Its owner had a prosthetic arm built to replace the one it lost. Although the prosthetic is not as effective as a biological arm, it was designed to be movable to a limited degree, and has a mostly-immobile clawed hand. As an aesthetic touch, the middle claw is designed after a corvid skull. At some point it also developed cataracts over its left eye, impairing its vision. This may have been due to either disease or blunt-force trauma, since it was not very old at the time.

The one-armed Baryonyx always wears the prosthetic on the stump of its left arm, even when not fighting. Despite such a terrible wound, its owner continued to enter it into cockfights against other animals. Often enough, these fights ended in death, so the Baryonyx probably had few if any consistent rivals: every time it entered the ring, its only objective was to defeat whatever animal it faced. Now that it had grown larger, it was a potential problem for its handlers, easily capable of injuring a person; in between fights it was kept chained up in a culvert underneath the market’s shipping dock.

Again and again it fought for its life, and emerged the victor many times. Between fights, its owner kept it well fed and attended to its health, ensuring that it was perpetually ready to face another enemy. It is unknown for how long this abuse persisted.

2022 incident

In the spring of 2022, the Amber Clave was quietly infiltrated by American and French intelligence operatives, setting up a sting to capture Santos in the act of animal trafficking. Along with them were two civilians, ex-Navy animal trainer Owen Grady and animal rights activist Claire Dearing, who were aiding the operatives in tracking poacher Rainn Delacourt; it was he who would lead them to Santos. None of this was significant to the Baryonyx, who that same day participated in a cockfight against a juvenile female Allosaurus (seen later with no new injuries, it would seem the Baryonyx was the victor in this fight). Neither Grady nor Dearing interacted with it as they passed by its ongoing fight, and the animal would not have distinguished them from any of the other humans in the market. They were not enemies to defeat, nor were they the source of its next meal, so they did not matter.

The Baryonyx (left theropod) in forced combat during the Valletta incident

After the fight with the Allosaurus, the Baryonyx was secured in its private pit, chained by its collar to two limestone blocks on either side of the drainage culvert attached to its pit. The fighter rested in the dark of the culvert, away from the bustle of the market.

It was not uncommon for fights to break out among the humans of the black market, and generally, these had no bearing on the Baryonyx‘s life. Today, it would be different. From in its culvert it heard the sounds of shouting, and things being knocked over. This alone would not rouse its interest, but then more alarming sounds came from the shipping dock directly overhead. Two huge theropods, an adult female Allosaurus and a scarred Carnotaurus, were being kept in large shipping containers for an upcoming fight; the Baryonyx had been in a position to hear, but not see, these bigger carnivores since their arrival. There were gunshots and chains clattering, and then the sounds of two heavy creatures on the move. This was a new phenomenon to the Baryonyx, as the indoor fighting arenas were too small for the bigger dinosaurs, but it did not emerge until it saw something that triggered its instinct.

A figure fell from the dock into the Baryonyx‘s pit. The animal instantly charged out from the dark, reacting before it even had time to register that the figure was a human, the poacher Rainn Delacourt. But the species of its opponent did not matter: it was in the pit, so it was the target, and that meant fight to kill. The dinosaur’s experience told it to go straight for the head, and Delacourt barely managed to scramble out of the way before the jaws of the Baryonyx came at him. Before the Baryonyx could clamp its jaws around its foe in a one-hit victory, it reached the end of its chains, keeping it inches away from a kill. The dinosaur roared in frustration, and before it could target any part of Delacourt’s body that was still in reach, the poacher scrambled out of the pit to make his escape.

The Baryonyx had not been trained to fail. As it struggled against its chains, Delacourt’s escape was intercepted by Grady, who tackled him into a different fighting pit. Having lost sight of its target, the Baryonyx pulled ever harder, pushing its body to the limit. Finally, the masonry surrounding its culvert proved weaker than the dinosaur’s deadly resolve, and the limestone blocks pulled free from the wall. Suddenly loose, it climbed out of the pit and witnessed the chaos unfolding: the two large theropods were walking about the market helping themselves to anything or anyone they cared to eat, and the market’s human patrons were either scattering from the freed theropods (now including the Baryonyx) or gathering around one of the nearby pits to watch the violence unfolding within.

From its new vantage point, the Baryonyx could see Owen Grady in that pit standing over Rainn Delacourt, who was on the floor. Delacourt’s right hand was a considerable way down the throat of a very young Carnotaurus, and his left hand was being crushed in the beak of a Lystrosaurus, two more creatures slated for an imminent fight. But the Baryonyx only had eyes for its designated opponent. With Delacourt knocked to the ground by Grady and unable to free himself from the small fighters gnawing on his hands, the Baryonyx entered the pit. Neither of the fighting animals noticed it at first, but the humans did. Delacourt, knowing that his life was about to end, could only scream. Grady, knowing the same, did nothing. The Baryonyx pounced, its jaws snapping around Delacourt’s head and breaking his neck on impact. It was a brutally efficient kill, just as the Baryonyx had learned from many deadly fights over the course of its young life.

It did not appear to attack anyone else. Its target was dead, and it did not so much as react to Owen Grady or the other two fighting animals. Grady departed the scene moments later, and it is, for now, unknown what happened to the one-armed Baryonyx after this.

Current status

The whereabouts of this animal are unknown, but the Amber Clave was subject to a sting operation by joint American and French intelligence, which was the cause for the chaos the Baryonyx took part in. Some of the animals escaped into the streets of Valletta, while others remained in the underground market; presumably the authorities put forth efforts to contain the creatures and secure those still in their cages, while the market’s animal traffickers scrambled to keep their prized dinosaurs away from government operatives.

Concept art of the Baryonyx by Anthony Petrie

With this in mind, there are two possibilities for what became of the Baryonyx. One is that its unidentified owner still has it in their possession and is laying low, having recaptured the dinosaur after its temporary escape. If this is the case, there is no way to tell where the animal is now, where it will resurface (if ever), and if it is even alive. Soyona Santos was arrested during the 2022 incident and the Amber Clave’s patrons learned that the authorities had found their hideaway, so a wise criminal would stay far from Valletta for a while. Its owner may have even sold it in order to better avoid unwanted attention, making the Baryonyx‘s fate even more uncertain.

The other possibility is that the animal was located by the authorities after the incident, either being captured in Valletta after escaping or being tracked down and rescued from its current owner. If this is the case, it would likely have been held in a government facility until eventually being cleared for relocation to an authorized sanctuary. The closest and largest of these would be the Biosyn Genetics Sanctuary, located in northern Italy; shortly after the Valletta incident, a subsequent incident here led to the sanctuary being placed under United Nations supervision, but it remains active and accepts animals from around the world. If this latter option is the case, the young Baryonyx now has a chance to live in a natural environment, provided food and medical care, and never exploited for anyone’s entertainment. How the animal would adjust to this after a life of nothing but the fight is uncertain, but one can hope for something resembling recovery.

Skills
Combat

For most of this animal’s early life, the only certainty it had was violence. It was entered into one fight after another in the Amber Clave market’s cockfighting pits, and in many of these fights, it emerged the victor. This was not out of predatory intent or genuine desire to slay foes, but due to the consequences of failure: the fights often went to the death, or at least severe injury. If it lost, its owner did not get paid. In one such fight, the Baryonyx lost its left arm, its owner crafting a custom-made prosthetic to replace the lost arm. After such trauma, the Baryonyx would have been wise to end fights quickly and efficiently. Eventually its vision also became impaired due to cataracts in its left eye. It grew effective at winning battles even with its injuries; in 2022 it was seen in a cockfight against a similarly-sized adolescent Allosaurus, but later could be seen without any new wounds.

The speed and effectiveness of its strategy was brutally demonstrated against a human target, Rainn Delacourt, who accidentally fell into the pit connected to the Baryonyx‘s culvert and was mistaken for a cockfighter. Immediately upon seeing its foe, the Baryonyx lunged out of hiding and aimed directly for Delacourt’s face; it missed only because of the chains holding it back. When Delacourt fled the pit, the Baryonyx became desperate to pursue, eventually using its considerable strength to pull free the limestone blocks anchoring its chains to the wall. Dragging the chains and blocks, it was not as fast as usual but quickly located Delacourt. With single-minded focus, it once more targeted his head, launching an attack which killed Delacourt almost instantly. Although Delacourt was unarmed and therefore not a particularly dangerous foe, this rapid and fatal attack would have been effective at ending a fight against another animal before the enemy had a chance to land a retaliatory hit.

Views
Psychological state

As a normal animal, the Baryonyx cannot be said to have any defined views on life, but its outlook upon the world around it is evident from its upbringing and resulting behavior. This animal was most likely hatched into the black market, or else taken at such a young age that its origin is irrelevant. Its owner forced it to fight for its life against other animals over and over, pushing its body past its limit on some occasions: it once lost its left arm, and was outfitted with a custom-made prosthetic. Its life consisted of fighting for survival and recovering during down time. By 2022, it was an adolescent, and had mostly physically recovered from losing its left arm; by now its battle-hardened mind knew to view any animal opposite it in the cockfighting pits as a threat to its very life, and to react accordingly.

During the 2022 incident, it did not even recognize that Rainn Delacourt was not an assigned rival when the poacher accidentally fell into the Baryonyx‘s pit. It immediately attacked, aiming for the head to make a quick kill. When Delacourt managed to escape, the dinosaur struggled to pull its chains’ anchors free of the wall, risking bodily injury to chase after what it believed to be its opponent. The fact that it would rather chance hurting itself than let a rival escape speaks volumes as to how failure was rewarded in the Amber Clave.

Notably, outside of fights, it did not show any particular aggression. After managing to escape its restraints when chasing Delacourt, it did not attack anyone else, nor did it start a new fight of its own volition once Delacourt was dead. Owen Grady and two smaller, more vulnerable animals were standing in the same pit, but this was not the Baryonyx‘s own pit, and it did not view them as targets. This dinosaur does not seem to be a true maneater—it may not have even realized Delacourt was a human, only perceiving him as another opponent in the pit. Since it did not view anyone else as a target, it is clear that it does not fight for pleasure, but out of necessity. It even understood that Grady and the animals in a pit other than its own were not targets, suggesting that it has a basic understanding of the rules of combat.

Relationships
Owner

Although the owner of this Baryonyx is currently unidentified (there may even have been multiple owners), they are the singular most important person in this animal’s life. Whoever owns the Baryonyx values it enough to have had a mechanical prosthetic arm custom-built to replace its missing left arm, and had the middle claw stylized to resemble a raven’s skull. The Baryonyx was fed, had its wounds tended, and was given a place to shelter, apparently having its own designated pit in the Amber Clave with an attached drainage culvert where it would usually hide when not fighting. Baryonyx prefer enclosed spaces such as caves and tunnels in their habitats, so whoever owns this animal has learned about its species’s behavior.

It is impossible to forget, though, that the owner of this animal is not truly loving or caring. They have forced this animal into many cockfights, to the point where preparing for the next battle is all the animal really knows. It has been made to face other animals in combat for much of its life; as of 2022 it was only an adolescent, far from fully grown, and yet was already a veteran. Even the personally-customized prosthesis, seemingly a gesture of affection and accommodation, was necessary because the Baryonyx had lost its left arm in a cockfight its owner sanctioned. Even after this it was still forced to fight. To its owner, this animal is not a living creature with feelings, but a status symbol to pad the owner’s ego and wallet by winning battles. If the Baryonyx has not been rescued, this abusive exploitation may be its fate until it eventually meets its match.

Other animals

For most of its life, the Baryonyx has lived in the de-extinction black market, including a long stay in the Amber Clave in Malta. Here, it was pitted in combat against other animals, with fights ending in severe injury or even death. Once it was an adolescent, it was approaching the middleweight class. At this size it would face the adults of some dinosaurs and the juveniles of others; it has only been directly witnessed in a fight with a juvenile female Allosaurus, but plenty of other fighters were present in the Amber Clave. Combatants listed on a winners’ board from the day of the 2022 incident, in order from one to eight, were CarnotaurusBaryonyxTriceratops (crossed out for unknown reasons), GallimimusDimetrodon, Pyroraptor, Nasutoceratops, and Oviraptor. Of these, an adult Gallimimus, Dimetrodon, or Pyroraptor would have been size-appropriate rivals for the Baryonyx, as would adolescent Carnotaurus, Triceratops, Nasutoceratops, or of course other adolescent Baryonyx. One adolescent Carnotaurus was seen in the market at that time, along with a very young (yet still combat-tested) juvenile and a fully-grown, exceptionally large adult which was slated for a fight that summer; neither of these were in the Baryonyx‘s weight class. Not on this particular winners’ board was Leonard the Lystrosaurus, who had killed an Oviraptor in combat shortly before the sting operation on Soyona Santos was sprung. While also not on the aforementioned list, Stygimoloch was bred for the market and would make a capable enough foe; the vocalizations of Pachycephalosaurus have been heard in the Amber Clave, and Velociraptor has been known to pass through its hidden halls, both of these animals being of a size that would challenge a juvenile Baryonyx.

The Baryonyx is carnivorous, so in order to keep it fed and ready for its next opponent, its owner probably purchased meat from vendors in the market. Popular delicacies were hybrid locusts and de-extinct lampreys, both cooked over an open fire; the Baryonyx enjoys fish, so the lamprey would have been appropriate meat, but locusts are packed with protein as well. Some of the market’s dinosaurs were also potential food. Smaller creatures such as Dimorphodon, Compsognathus, and Microceratus were sold here, and the losers of pit fights could naturally have offered their owners one final payday by heading to the grill. Some of the Baryonyx‘s meals may have very well been its former opponents.

During the 2022 incident, the Baryonyx escaped its pit while attempting to defeat Rainn Delacourt, whom it had mistaken for a scheduled rival; after escaping it briefly witnessed the two big theropods, the adult Carnotaurus and Allosaurus, walking freely through the market and attacking patrons. However, it paid them little attention. When making its final attack on Delacourt, it was inadvertently aided by the tiny Carnotaurus juvenile and Leonard, who had been interrupted as their own pit fight was about to begin. They had attacked Delacourt’s hands when he was knocked to the ground, and while he was unable to get himself off the floor, the Baryonyx landed a fatal strike on Delacourt’s head and neck. After making the kill and once again emerging the victor, the Baryonyx ignored the other animals in the pit, having no indication that they were intended rivals; after all, they had not entered its own pit like Delacourt did. It was only here because it was pursuing a rival that had fled the battleground.

Rainn Delacourt

During the 2022 incident, poacher Rainn Delacourt fell over a railing and into the Baryonyx‘s cockfighting pit while fleeing from the authorities. Seeing him there, the Baryonyx reacted the one way it knew to: by launching into combat against what was surely a new opponent, aiming to kill. Delacourt had lost his gun in the fall, and backed away to the steps on the edge of the pit. The Baryonyx, held back by the chains on its collar which anchored it to a pair of limestone blocks in the wall around its culvert, was barely unable to reach Delacourt’s head. Biting here would secure a quick victory, which was always the goal. Delacourt, taking the opportunity presented by the Baryonyx‘s restraint, scrambled to his feet and fled the pit—a clear violation of the cockfighting rules in the Amber Clave.

If Delacourt escaped unscathed, the Baryonyx could not be the winner of this fight. That meant its owner would not get paid, and as far as the Baryonyx knew, punishment could be coming for that failure. Desperate to please its owner despite its rival’s cowardly retreat, the animal desperately pulled at its restraints, finally managing to dislodge the limestone blocks. Dragging the chains and their still-intact anchoring blocks up the steps of the pit, the Baryonyx located Delacourt amidst the chaos, having fallen into a different pit and being triple-teamed by three other fighters. Intending to score the killing blow, the Baryonyx took advantage of Delacourt’s vulnerable position and closed in, taking aim and clamping its jaws around his head and neck. The final kill was as efficient as the dinosaur could manage, killing Delacourt almost instantaneously.

Once the kill was made, the Baryonyx became docile. It had only been after Delacourt because it thought he was an enemy slated for combat, and there is no indication that it even realized its opponent was a human being. As far as this abused creature knew, Delacourt was nothing more than an animal like itself, forced into the ring to face its own death.

Market visitors and vendors

Every time it was brought out from the culvert where it lived, whether to face a rival fighter thrown in from above or to be secured and brought to another pit for a fight, it bore witness to the human patrons of the Amber Clave. These people would gather around the pit and watch as the Baryonyx and its many rivals fought for their very lives, placing bets on which would be the victor. Many a time, the smart money was on the one-armed Baryonyx. It was probably through these numerous victories that the Baryonyx‘s owner was able to afford a custom-made prosthesis to replace its missing arm, and more mundanely this was how the Baryonyx earned its keep in the market, including reliable food, medicine, and housing. In the backgrounds of these fights, vendors and customers bartered over illegal wares. The more fortunate animals were sold off as exotic pets, though this was still exploitation in its own way. The less fortunate animals met their fate on the sharp end of a kebab, their bones ground up and sold as supposed medicinal powder.

None of this showcase of depravity was of importance to the Baryonyx. All that mattered to it was winning—or at least surviving—its next fight, and eating enough to be healthy for another. The Amber Clave was host to visitors from around the world, but there were a number of regulars: the smuggler Kayla Watts was one, as was poacher Rainn Delacourt. An Italian smuggler named Wigi was known for buying and selling cockfighting animals, including Leonard the Lystrosaurus; it is not unlikely that Wigi owned or sold opponents that faced the Baryonyx. The most noteworthy regular visitor was Soyona Santos, the mysterious ruler of the Amber Clave and one of the world’s most notorious black market brokers. Little passed in or out of the underground without her knowledge. Whoever first sold this Baryonyx probably had connections to Santos or someone else in the Amber Clave; the first known black-market Baryonyx (and DNA samples of the species) belonged to a Russian, probably the mobster Anton Orlov, who bought these assets in 2018.

Activists and undercover operatives sometimes snuck into the Amber Clave under Santos’s nose, risking their lives to do so—some may never have left, if they were caught. Many of these were from the intergovernmental Department of Prehistoric Wildlife. In 2022, the efforts of Santos’s enemies came to a head. Operatives from the Central Intelligence Agency and Direction Générale de la Sécurité Extérieure, generally led by Barry Sembène of the DGSE, set up a sting operation against Santos. Rainn Delacourt was an unwitting part of this, betrayed by his supposed ally Wyatt Huntley, who was an undercover CIA operative. The CIA and DGSE were further aided by two American civilians, Claire Dearing and Owen Grady. Of all these people, only Grady held any noteworthy significance to the Baryonyx. During the sting, Delacourt fled, and Grady was the one closest during the chase. It was while fleeing this man that Delacourt fell into the cockfighting pit, and it was during a subsequent knife fight with Grady that Delacourt was overpowered and knocked to the ground. This gave the Baryonyx a perfect opening to make a kill. Both Grady and Delacourt saw it coming, but an understanding passed between both humans: Delacourt would die, and Grady would not stop it. The Baryonyx, having no knowledge of the humans’ conflict, simply did as it was trained.

We hold out hope that this abused animal has been found, or will be found, by well-intentioned people and transported to a sanctuary where it can recover from its abuse as much as it is able.

Portrayal
Baryonyx animatronic from Jurassic World Dominion

The one-armed Baryonyx is portrayed through CGI as well as an animatronic, and is a modification of the adult Baryonyx model introduced in the preceding Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom. It is not based on any preexisting characters from other canons in the franchise; while dinosaurs with mechanical equipment are not unknown in the various toy lines and video games, most are far more exaggerated and unrealistic. When a toy figure of this Baryonyx was first revealed (in fact, before it had even appeared in a trailer), many audience members assumed that the mechanical arm was some kind of high-tech weapon and that it would have full grappling functions, rotating blades, or perhaps even shoot projectiles or fire, but these assumptions were not based on anything other than toys, video games, and cartoons. The mechanical arm is just a normal prosthetic.