A Paleonerd's Analysis - BBC's Walking With Dinosaurs Part 3

Well, I'm back with part three of my analysis of Walking With Dinosaurs. Was a lot of work getting here, but it was a lot of fun and I got some good research time out of it, so I regret nothing. I've gotten a lot of good feedback from the series, so I'm thinking of doing some similar reviews of documentaries like it in the future.  Perhaps this could be it's own series; I got a suggestion on Facebook of calling it "SaurianSins" or "PaleoSins", but I'll think about it. If you wanna see do more stuff like this though, make some suggestions in the comments below or on Facebook.

Anyways, on to the final act! Today I'll be looking at episodes 5 and 6 of the original Walking With Dinosaurs series: Spirits of the Ice Forest and Death of a Dynasty. As before, these notes are not just limited to me checking over the facts presented, but just observations on a variety of things in the series, good and bad (mostly bad). I will also not go into too much detail about all the animal models, as that would take WAY too much time and end up sounding repetitive. Without further ado, let's wrap this up!

Spirits of the Ice Forest

• The documentary apparently takes place in Antarctica, even though all the animals are from Australia…
• Takes place 106 million years ago, which is right in the middle of the Albian (100.5 - 113 mya). While many of the animals do come from a roughly that same time span, some like the Koolasuchus and Leaellynasaura actually come from older, Aptian-aged rocks.
• Branagh says that there is a “giant continent” which is made up of South America, Australia, and Antarctica. If I remember correctly though, South America had split off from Antarctica by this time, and Australia should at least be nearing the point where it gets disconnected. EDIT: The separation of Australia and Antarctica was a Cenozoic event, so although it was splitting, a complete disconnection still had a long way to go.
• Something that has bothered me about this series before, but especially so in this particular episode, is the fact that the show uses the exact same general model for all of their small herbivorous dinosaurs, just changing the skin around. The Leaellynasaura have the exact same model as the Othnielosaurus from Episode 2 and an unidentified “hypsilophodont” (probably Thescelosaurus) from Episode 6, even though all three are quite different animals.
• Speaking of Leaellynasaura, this model is really, really dated. It’s seriously night-and-day from what our current perception of what this animal looks like. Not only that, but it’s also REALLY creepy. Especially the close-up shots of the puppets. Their eyes look dead, they have the creepiest faces, and weird cheek that are clearly plastic or rubber…
• The Leaellynasaura communicate to each other by using high-frequency clicks. If you listen really closely to a few of them though, it’s clear they’re mechanical in nature, sounding almost exactly like grinding gears.
• Koolasuchus is dubbed a “giant amphibian.” Considering that the term “amphibian” is now largely restricted to the group lissamphibia, and Koolasuchus is a chigutisaurid temnospondyl, this is bad terminology.
• My knowledge on temnospondyls is kind of lacking, so forgive me if I get something wrong here, but from what I know the Koolasuchus in this episode is a bit awkward. We only know of partial remains of Koolasuchus (much of which hasn’t been described), but other chigutisaurids show that it probably wasn’t like a cryptobranchid salamander (which I think the documentary based it off). Chigutisaurids are more big-headed and short-tailed than what the documentary seems to show, and many actually have well-developed limbs as well as a specialized shoulder girdle, perhaps suggesting a method of aquatic locomotion largely involving the limbs. It also appears to lack the tabular horns characteristic of most chigutisaurids, instead having a more rounded skull profile when viewed from above.
• Branagh mentions that competition with crocodylomorphs drove temnospondyls into extinction elsewhere in the world. While that particular statement could be debatable, as other events could’ve also driven their numbers down elsewhere, Koolasuchus in particular might’ve been driven extinct by crocodilians, as when Cretaceous temperatures rose later in the Albian we started finding crocodylomorphs in the same area, while Koolasuchus remains disappear.
• The Leaellynasaura utilized surface nests which are formed out of decaying plant matter. We now know that many small polar dinosaurs from Australia utilized burrows, and given the environment this is taking place, this seems like a more sound strategy for this species.
• Another reason surface nesting isn’t a sound strategy; the Leaellynasaura are small, defenseless herd of animals that are being incredibly loud and are in no way at all trying to conceal the presence of their nests. This has bad idea written all over it, and wouldn’t you know? A theropod attacks them.
• Plus, to top it all off, now the predator should know where they are nesting. Theropods were more than smart enough to know to return to the site again after a failed ambush, because they know that their eggs are there and that the mothers will return. Now the predator will probably be stuck to the entire herd like glue for the rest of the nesting season.
• Ok, said theropod mentioned above is referred to as a “polar allosaur”. This species is obviously based on the ankle bone found in Cape Patterson, Victoria, which for the longest time was referred to as a “polar allosaur”, “dwarf allosaur”, or even by the informal museum name “Allosaurus robustus”. This has now been entirely disproven, and the bones is now thought to belong to a member of the megaraptora (or possibly an abelisaur).
• And here comes the Muttaburrasaurus herd. True these guys are found in northern Australia and are from roughly the same time, but we lack any evidence of them whatsoever from southern Australia/Antarctica. I guess this is just speculative behavior on the documentary’s part, but even so, its species displacement and putting them in an environment they aren’t known from.
• The Leaellynasaura are responding to their mother’s calls while they’re still developing in the egg. Not while they’re close to hatching, Branagh clearly says that they’re still early in their embryo development. This makes no sense on a developmental standpoint.
• Antarctic coatis! Wait, what?
• This ring-tailed coati (Nasua nasua) is apparently playing a Steropodon. Never mind the fact that Steropodon is an early platypus and looks nothing at all like a coati, but it’s thought to be aquatic, so what’s it doing sniffing around for dinosaur eggs?
• “But the Leaellynasaura has an unusual defense” – It’s kicking dirt. I’ll admit, that that is quite unusual, but not in the way that I think you’re presenting it.
• POOR COATI! D: It’s clear in this scene that the film crew is throwing dirt in this coati’s face in order to get the shots they need. The heck people? No. That is not ok. Apologize to this coati right now. If any of you laughed at this scene, you apologize too. It did not ask to get dirt thrown in its face. It better not say “no animals were harmed during the making of this series” at the end.
• The Leaellynasaura “chicks” look like tweety bird. And no, not adorable fluffy way, I mean like in the bald, scaly, creepy way.
• This episode is big on live-action animals. They have a giant weta and tuatara playing out early anostostomatids and sphenodonts respectively. Although, using a tuatara is probably a debatable choice, given that modern tuatara are actually really different from their extinct relatives. I also don’t know of any anostostomatids or sphenodonts known from either South Australia or Antarctica, and although giant weta and tuatara are semi-adapted to deal with similar environments, they’re both rather specialized and we don’t know if they’re ancestors were the same.
• Branagh goes on for a while about how the “polar allosaur” is the last holdover of “Jurassic Carnosaurs”. Not only is this debatable with classifications of Megaraptora having them jump in-and-out of Coelurosaurs and Carnosauria, but at the same this episode takes place there is a near-worldwide reign of carcharodontosaurids going on (which are Carnosaurs), and we have direct fossil evidence of them all the way up to the Maastrichtian. This species is far from the “last Carnosaur” (if it even is a Carnosaur).
• Winter is coming. Sorry, had to do it.
• The Leaellynasaura clan’s lead female is killed, who is apparently the herd leader and makes all the important decisions. In most animals, this should immediately call for the election of a subordinate individual to take over the role of “alpha”, whether it be her mate or a subordinate female. But no, they hold off on choosing a new lead individual, which seems like a huge cripple to their survival. However, despite this, the entire herd is somehow able to agree on complex survival decisions throughout the entire winter, including when it’s time to enter and exit torpor, all without a leader. This brings up the question of why they then rely on a leader individual to begin with, because they seem to have the behaviors programmed into them to survive like animal herds which live without “alpha” individuals.
• Outside the strange world of Leaellynasaura politics, I actually really like the majority of the winter segment, and as did actually feel like these were animals living in a frozen, dark forest. Although, the forest still looks a bit too lush for a place that's locked in near-permanent darkness...
• On the other hand, I have no idea how paleontologists thought for the longest time that these animals could survive such harsh winter conditions without the aid of any winter protection, like fat, fur, or feathers. These animals are essentially walking around naked in sub-zero temperatures. You go try that for 5 minutes and tell me how it goes. Thank goodness we have such nice, fluffy reconstructions up these days.
• And now winter is over, and the clan is back to being active. However, we then get some idea on how leader individuals are decided. By their behaviors, it seems like the clan leader, which is a female, is chosen by a wining male, who then becomes her subordinate. This is weirdly complex… Do any other animals do this? I don’t know of any.
• Also, it’s clear that when the new “alpha pair” mates, their reproductive organs do not line up. Reminds me of a certain meme… What was it again? Maybe I'll link it later.
• Branagh mentions a “slight cooling of the world’s climate” is what ended up driving all these polar dinosaurs into extinction. This is not at all true though. As I mentioned above, the area actually warmed in the following few million years, allowing for crocodiles to exist there. Moreover, the Cretaceous Thermal Maximum (CTM) was fast approaching, and eventually would sent worldwide temperatures into hothouse mode for much of the rest of the Cretaceous.

Death of a Dynasty

• Onto the last episode and there’s already bad signs with the Didelphodon. It looks like a cross between a domestic dog and a badger and has a rounded, almost pudgy body, which is not at all what we think it looked like. We now know from better remains that Didelphodon was actually pretty elongate and slender, had a long flexible tail, and might’ve even been semi-aquatic like an otter.
• Given the above, it’s very unlikely that Didelphodon was “a specialist dinosaur nest raider,” as every flipping documentary showing Mesozoic mammals would lead you to believe.
• As this T. rex shows, mammals make tasty snacks. I swear I can even see her licking her chops as she grabs it and crushes it up in her jaw.
• Speaking of the rex, Walking with Dinosaurs has one of the worst T. rex designs ever. Not only is it shrink-wrapped to death, has incorrect body proportions, a really short tail, looks almost diseased, and for some strange reason has hooves (What!?), but it’s downright ugly to boot. The Jurassic Park T. rex is closer to the real animal than this one is, which is a real shame.
• Time frame of this episode is Montana, 65.5 mya a few months prior to the Chicxulub impact event. However, the most recent dating techniques now put the extinction of the dinosaurs, and the impact, closer to 66 mya. Of course, this info just came out about a year ago, and the majority of people have yet to pick up on this news either…
• Ok, Chile and New Zealand are NOT good environmental analogues of what we think the Maastrichtian of Montana looked like. We see nothing but deserts, volcanoes, ash fields, and the occasional grove of trees, but actual fossil evidence from Hell Creek clearly shows a flood plain with dense woodlands of redwoods, monkey puzzles, ferns, cycads, and palm trees. There’s also swampy environments and wet fern prairies which were filled with a variety of fish, crocodiles, champsosaurs, and turtles (the latter are actually the most common vertebrate fossils found in Hell Creek), all of which probably could not survive in the environment being shown.
• Presumably the host of volcanic disasters being mentioned in the documentary are the Deccan Traps event, which coincided with the dinosaur extinction and might’ve been one of its primary drives. Although, the Deccan Traps was a largely Indian event, and thus these volcanic chains in Montana choking everything to death shouldn’t be present.
• A male rex ventures into a sulfurous vent field releasing poisonous carbon monoxide. There is absolutely no evidence of geological features like this from Hell Creek.
• The rex ends up going to this area because he somehow smells a dead animal over the streams of sulfur and volcanic gases. I know T. rex smell was good, but I doubt it was good enough to sniff out a tiny carcass out of all those volcanic gasses.
• Speaking of the carcass, what even is it? From the angle that I see it, it looks almost like a rauisuchian, but that’s highly unlikely even for Walking with Dinosaurs to get something that big wrong. It’s more likely to be some kind of theropod, but I can’t even get close to guessing which.
• There’s a Cretaceous-aged butterfly that they show in one “diversification of flowers” segment. Given that true butterflies first appear in the fossil record 54 million years ago, I have no idea why the creators decided to show one living in the Mesozoic.
• Dromaeosaurus terrorizes the local herbivores, even though Dromaeosaurus is not known from Hell Creek, but rather the Dinosaur Provincial Park formation, which is almost 10 million years earlier.
• Also, like the Utahraptor, this Dromaeosaurus looks butt-ugly and has a model that is is clearly based off of varanid lizards.
• The Ankylosaurus model is really weird looking, and doesn’t appear to have its armor shaped or arranged properly at all, having far too many small back osteoderms and completely lacking the armored neck bands. The head is also shaped odd, and the nostrils are in the wrong spots.
• The Ankylosaurus is quite large, with Branagh stating that it is over 30ft long and 7 tonnes. More recent estimates place the species’ length closer to 23ft long, though this is largely because of a quirk of Ankylosaurus, as this particular genus has a much shorter tail than most other ankylosaurids (see a previous post, which explains why). As such, the genus is still pretty massive, though still probably not 7 tonnes.
• Acidic pollution from volcanoes is apparently destroying dinosaur eggs and preventing them from developing properly. One, I want fossil evidence for that claim. Two, these eggs are nowhere near a volcano, so I don't see how they were killed by one. Three, titanosaurs apparently didn’t get the memo. (Given, this is due to specializations in the latter's eggs.)
• And now we see a whole herd of Torosaurus wandering about the wastelands. However, Torosaurus isn’t found in upper Hell Creek; it’s found in the lower parts of the formation and appears to be absent from the upper areas, suggesting it disappeared from the area long before the time this episode takes place.
• Like the Stegosaurus from episode 2, the Torosaurus can somehow flush their entire frills full of blood within seconds, even though this seems highly unlikely given that they have to face the same problems the Stegosaurus would need to face (a keratin layer is thought to covers the display features of both).
• Jeez, when two Torosaurus face off, one breaks the brow horn off the other. That’s pretty brutal, and I don’t think most modern herbivorous animals typically go that far when fighting with their horns/antlers. We also lack evidence for broken horns in all known ceratopsians (with the exception of a Triceratops individual, but that’s only because it had its horn bitten off by a T. rex), so this should be a super rare occurrence at best.
• Triceratops makes a cameo in this documentary as a carcass that the male T. rex brought down off-screen. Most people were rather disappointed by the lack of Hell Creek’s most common dinosaur, but what most viewers didn’t know was that the creators planned this. You see, the casting team was lucky to get the same Triceratops actor who starred in the original Jurassic Park. The WWD team were all big fans of Mr. Trike’s amazing talent for lying completely still and doing nothing, and wanted to bring out his inner talent by giving him an even greater role as a dead pile of meat. Mr. Trike won Oscars for both amazing performances, but sadly, shortly after he signed a new major contract, he was murdered by a sick psychopath who posted images of his body on social media. Truly unfortunate that such amazing young talent was killed, and we never really got to see him reach his prime too...
• Fun stuff aside, the documentary then starts to explore all the tropes of T. rex sexual dimorphism which was commonly stated throughout the 90s. (Females bigger and more aggressive than males, etc.) All features originally stated as evidence for T. rex sexual dimorphism has been almost completely disproven in recent years. The "robust" and "gracile" morphs of T. rex reported throughout Hell Creek is more likely to do with evolutionary trends in a population over time rather than sexual dimorphism.
• Branagh says that the male rex had to bring down the Triceratops in order to court the female, because otherwise, she would attack him on-sight. Um, isn’t the female the one who’s been doing endless mating calls for days trying to attract a male? It's counter-productive if she’s the one trying to court a mate, but if she encounters said possible mate, she’ll immediately attack and try to kill him.
• Anyways, the male is successful in courting, but apparently not in the love-making department, for when the two individuals mate later, the genital openings do not in any way line up, and it’s as bad as the Dinosaur Revolution mating segment (meme by Attila Kovács).
• Anatotitan are now almost universally regarded as mature individuals of the species Edmontosaurus annectens, and so the former name is now dropped, which is a shame, as I quite enjoyed the name “Titan Duck”.
• Branagh states something about all hadrosaurs being adapted for lowland swamps, and that because of the “disasters” going on, they are unable to adapt. This isn’t true at all though, and hadrosaurs are found on almost every continent and in every known late Cretaceous environment, from deserts, to woodland, to polar climates, to coastal swamps, and far more. Saying that they’re all adapted just for swamps is a gross over-generalization of Hadrosauria.
• And now, we have what is possibly the worst model in the entire series: the Quetzalcoatlus. Not only is this model too large, has completely wrong proportions in every area, and is living the wrong type of lifestyle considering what we know of azhdarchid pterosaurs, but some idiot decided to give it teeth. This is a Jurassic Park 3-level mistake people!
• Branagh says a throwaway line that pterosaurs are in worldwide decline and that there are only giants like Quetzalcoatlus left. This was based on the general lack of other pterosaur fossils from the latest Cretaceous, with only azhdarchids and a few members of Pteranodontia surviving to the end. However, this lack of other pterosaur groups might have more to do with a lack of fossil deposits with a bias towards small animals in the late Cretaceous, rather than an extinction event. Moreover, we now know of quite a few “small-ish” pterosaurs (man-sized or smaller) from the late Cretaceous, and there’s apparently an unpublished azhdarchid which has a wingspan of less than a meter from the Maastrichtian.
• Branagh doesn’t say it outright, but in this episode, as well as the fourth, he makes strong suggestions towards the idea that pterosaurs were out-competed by birds. Even assuming pterosaur diversity might’ve dropped towards the end of the Cretaceous, every study which has explored this possibility has found absolutely no correlation between bird diversification and pterosaur decline. Moreover, birds were not invading any of the niches that some pterosaurs held millions of years before (except for maybe those held by some rhamphorhynchoids), which is what we would expect from competitive exclusion.
• We see some clips of a “giant crocodile” that appears to be hunting the Quetzalcoatlus. This animal was based on Deinosuchus, which lived about 10 million years earlier, was a giant alligatoroid, rather than a crocodylid, and we have no evidence of from Hell Creek. However, there are rumors of unpublished remains of another very large alligatoroid from Hell Creek, so I guess that could be what these are based on.
• After the female rex chases off her mate for being a bad bed partner, she makes a nest and lays her eggs in a rotting compost pile. However, Branagh then says that she’s going to remain by the nest for two months (!) without moving, eating, or drinking. Can a elephant-sized predatory animal go that long without eating? Some whales can do this in order to make it through their migrations, but they have layers of blubber and fat to survive off (which the shrink-wrapped rex is obviously lacking). This is probably based off the behaviors of some ratites and crocodilians, but both of those groups are much smaller than a rex, the latter has an ectothermic metabolism, and even they occasionally leave to at least get a drink.
• Branagh says that it was a comet that killed the dinosaurs, not an asteroid like is more typically stated. This does reflect a recent study though.
• Speaking of which, should the meteorite’s debris in the form of shooting stars be visible almost three to four months prior to the impact? I’m not an astronomer, but I don’t think the orbits of either the planet or asteroid would make them visible so early.
• Two 2 meter long, turkey-sized Dromaeosaurus are taking on a whole herd of 8-9 meter, elephant-sized Torosaurus. This has bad idea written all over it.
• The two dromaeosaurids manage to isolate a baby Torosaurus, which might seem like a smart idea on the predator’s part, but when they do, they just scream at it a few times and let it run away back to the adults. Why…?
• Eh, I guess they manage to kill a baby anyways, but then Branagh uses it as an excuse to explain that “dinosaurs are dying and on their last legs” even further, even though this idea is seriously lacking in both true facts presented in the documentary, as well as actual scientific evidence.
• Back to the Edmontosaurus, they reach a small grove of trees with freshwater and are about to be ambushed by the “Deinosuchus”, but then the group senses danger and starts to break up, followed by the appearance of the mama T. rex. This scene is actually pretty fast-paced and well played out, and the part where the rex catches the Edmontosaurus looks just like a true nature documentary. Just my own observations though.
• The mother T. rex produced far too few offspring, especially based on what we know of fossilized theropod nests. Big theropod nests, like seen in Allosaurus and Torvosaurus have nests with nearly 50 eggs preserved, and a Lourinhanosaurus nest had well over 100 eggs (although there have some suggestions that it might be a communal clutch). We should expect similar large clutches from T. rex, not twelve eggs with only three viable chicks.
• The baby T. rex don’t look like what we know of infant T. rex. These infants don’t have the right proportions, and I’m sure I speak for everyone when I say they should be fluffy. They also behave a bit too much like modern predatory bird chicks, with larger offspring killing their younger offspring for the right to eat food.
• Their mom also feeds them meat from the Edmontosaurus she killed earlier. Based on what we know of living archosaurs, dinosaur young could probably feed themselves soon after hatching without much help from their mother. Though, there are some interesting cases of mother crocodiles possibly feeding their young, so this might be possible.
• Apparently the babies are over a meter high at only 4 weeks old!? Wow! That’s some fast growth considering they come out of football-sized eggs. That’s the same size as Jordan, a 2-year-old specimen housed at LANHM. I’m pretty sure even sauropods and whales don’t grow this fast.
• Branagh then says that the babies are only going to have protection from mom for a mere two months before she then views them as food. In fact, crocodilians apparently recognize their young throughout ontogeny, and some mother crocs (and sometimes even fathers) have been known to recognize and protect their offspring (and the offspring of others) for over three years after they first emerge.
• Didelphodon are growling and squealing at the chicks, as if spiting them. “You dinosaurs shall rue the day! You hear me! Rue it!” – Didelphodon, 66 million BC.
• There’s a boa cameoing in this episode as the Cretaceous snake Dinilysia. Never mind the fact that Dinilysia is from South America and lived 20 million years earlier in the Santonian, but why go to the trouble when we already know of quite a few snakes from Hell Creek already? We even have possibly the earliest known true boid from Hell Creek, which would match this live-action boa’s description greatly.
• Branagh says that snakes only recently evolved, which isn’t necessarily true, as we know of crown-group snake fossils from as far back as the Cenomanian, 30 million years earlier, and if we’re referring to the snake branch as a whole (Ophidia), the earliest proto-snakes are from Jurassic times.
• Apparently the Dinilysia has heat-sensing pits on its snout. While this honestly could be true, given that facial pits developed multiple times independently in snakes. Still though, it just adds more reason for this snake to be classified as a boid, as the family actually developed facial pits multiple times independently throughout their evolution.
• Ankylosaurus walks into the nest, startles the mother, and causes her to go on offensive mode to protect her offspring. Though, wouldn’t it be a better idea though just to usher the offspring away from the Ankylosaurus? It’s not like the babies are in danger: they’re standing far-off in a bush behind mom while she is facing the ankylosaur.
• Boom. One-hit from the Ankylosaurus’ tail and mom’s femur is broken and she has massive internal injuries. Jurassic World could learn from this scene; ankylosaur tail clubs are not things to take lightly.
• The mother dies from the injury a day later, leaving the poor babies to face the full-force of the extinction event by themselves. I still stand by my opinion that this one minute of footage is one of the most realistic versions of the extinction event ever, and does a better job of explaining the extinction event than many documentaries just focused on just the extinction part.
• “…the giant dinosaurs were gone, never to return.” – Depends on what you mean by “giant”, but there were a lot of really big birds that appeared after this event.
• And ending the series on a good note of saying that birds are dinosaurs, and not the normal opt-out that other documentaries try to do saying they are “related to dinosaurs”. Bravo.

And there we go, that was everything I noticed while watching the Walking With Dinosaurs series again. What do I say about the series as a whole? Ehhhhhhhhh, to be perfectly honest, it's really, really dated, as you should be able to tell from all the notes, and no amount of nostalgic feeling can change that. Almost everything that the series first presented in 1999 has changed, and that's mostly due to the speculative nature of the documentary itself. As I brought up in my first post, many paleontologists did not like the series when it first came out because it was way to speculative for it's own good, and the creators even admitted to making presentation and awe more important than scientific data. You can't really make a documentary series like this, present soo many life-history details about these animals, and expect it to hold up more than 15 years later.

That all being said, while the educational value of Walking With Dinosaurs has waned over the years, and it's certainly not something that I would consider recommending to someone who wants to learn about the Mesozoic, that doesn't mean it isn't worth looking at, at least among paleo-fans. Walking With Dinosaurs does a better job at telling you what people thought these animals were like at the time than it does teaching you what they were actually like, and in that way, it's actually a pretty good time capsule back to the dinosaur-craze of the 90s. In that respect, it might be best to view Walking With Dinosaurs in the same way as some people enjoy looking at old dinosaur movies or vintage paleontological artwork: nostalgia-inducing fun, but nothing more.

7.2/10

Nostalgia for people who loved the "Dinosaur Revolution" of the 70s threw late 90s, but of little value for newcomers.

And with that, I give you an adieu. There are plenty more paleontological shows and documentaries to look at in the future, as well as a ton of Walking With... spin offs that I might eventually cover, but for now I think I'll just get back into blogging. Oh, and that thing called "school", 'cause I got to do that too...