Which dinosaur is found sick during the first Jurassic Park tour?

The dinosaur found sick during the first Jurassic Park tour is a Triceratops. Dr. Ellie Sattler leaves the tour vehicle to examine the animal after the group encounters it lying ill in its paddock.

The scene is one of the film’s first reminders that the dinosaurs are living animals rather than simple attractions. Ellie notices that the Triceratops has been repeatedly suffering from illness. She investigates its symptoms and examines piles of dung, eventually helping identify that the animal has been eating toxic West Indian lilac berries, also called lilac berries, which grow in its enclosure.

The sick Triceratops is sometimes confused with dinosaurs seen elsewhere in the tour. Gallimimus appear later in the famous stampede sequence, while Parasaurolophus and Stegosaurus are among the herbivores associated with the park’s broader attractions. None of those is the animal that Ellie treats during the first tour.

The sequence also establishes Ellie’s expertise as a paleobotanist and gives the visitors a close encounter with a dinosaur before the park’s systems collapse. In the novel, the sick animal is likewise a key early investigative moment, although details differ from the film.