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Dr. Robert Burke was a paleontologist hired by Peter Ludlow to be the team's resident dinosaur expert. Robert was much less than an expert, incorrectly identifying a Compsognathus. Also he might not have known that the dinosaurs were created by InGen because he says about no visitors and no reason for them to fear man. When the Tyrannosaurus rex attacked the camp Burke ran with Sarah, Nick, and Kelly into the waterfall where the T. rex couldn't reach them. However, Burke spotted a harmless milk snake slithering into his shirt and as he tried to get the snake out he slipped and his arm fell into the jaws of the T. rex. The T. rex dragged him out of the waterfall, dislocating his arm, before killing him, with blood flowing down the waterfall.

Burke's demise

Burke dies.

LEGO Jurassic World

Robert Burke appears as a playable character in LEGO Jurassic World. Like the film, he is eaten by the Tyrannosaurus rex after being frightened by a snake. However as Ian, Kelly, Sarah, and Nick leave the island via helicopter they witness the captured Tyrannosaur Buck regurgitating Burke and the other hunters it had eaten alive and well. Thus Burke survives the events of the game as do most of the character who originally died in the films. Burke has two abilities common among Paleontologists characters in the game, Dig and Bone Build. He can use the Dig ability to dig through stud piles to unearth various objects and/or collectibles. Bone Build allows him to reconstruct bone piles to create various objects or animal skeletons. He is unlocked after The Hunted chapter (Attack of the Camp and The Long Grass) is completed. When the player rescues Dieter Stark from Compys, he calls Burke an idiot for saying that they weren't dangerous.

Trivia

  • Burke's character is a clear homage to (or perhaps parody of) to the real-life paleontologist, Robert Bakker, who started the theory that dinosaurs were warm blooded. Bakker's ideas have often clashed with those of Jack Horner, who has worked on all four Jurassic Park films.
  • He may also be based on George Baselton from The Lost World.
  • It is interesting to note that the snake crawling down his shirt was a harmless milksnake, so it would appear foolish of him to panic and eventually get eaten by the tyrannosaur. Perhaps he thought it was a coral snake or he suffered from ophidiophobia (the fear of snakes).
  • He had proposed a theory that T. rex parents abandoned their offspring at a young age, and Sarah Harding ultimately succeeds in proving his theory wrong.
  • In real life, Bakker has argued for a predatory T. rex, while Bakker's rival paleontologist Jack Horner views it as primarily a scavenger. According to Horner, Spielberg wrote the character of Burke and had him killed by the T. rex as a favor for Horner. After the film came out, Bakker recognized himself in Burke, loved the caricature, and actually sent Horner a message saying, "See, I told you T. rex was a hunter!".
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