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Post by Infinity Blade on Nov 15, 2021 10:13:25 GMT 5
Walking with Beasts – A Retrospective ReviewEveryone loves Walking with Dinosaurs (okay, that’s an exaggeration, but I needed an effective hook). Dinosaurs are pretty popular with the general public too. In fact, by this point I would have posted reviews for four separate dinosaur documentaries. But enough dinosaurs for now, it’s time for a change of pace. I happen to know quite a bit of things about Cenozoic era vertebrates too. And here, I will review the beloved sequel to Walking with Dinosaurs, Walking with Beasts. Yep, this documentary is now 20 years old, a point I didn’t even want to imagine when my child self learned about the existence of a Cenozoic sequel to WWD. Yet here we are. In commemoration of WWB’s 20th anniversary, I’m going to post a review for each episode of Walking with Beasts on the date it aired exactly 20 years ago. This means you can expect a review for each episode every week until the final episode. As always, I’ll give my final thoughts on the whole documentary after the final episode review, where you’ll also find out how it compares to its predecessor. All images shown below are promotional images of the Walking with… series, produced by the BBC. Directory:- "New Dawn" (this post) - " Whale Killer" - " Land of Giants" - " Next of Kin" - " Sabre-Tooth" - " Mammoth Journey" - " Overall verdict" Introduction: - Just in case you didn’t know, the Leptictidium carbon copy in the brief Late Cretaceous beginning segment is Gypsonictops. It is also a leptictidan, but it is currently only known from a lower jaw fragment and teeth, so it’s anyone’s guess as to what it actually looked like. Likewise, the animal live-acted by the squirrel is apparently supposed to be a Meniscoessus. It’s clinging to a tree branch, but I’m not sure if that’s accurate. The impression I get is that it was a ground-dwelling animal, but there’s not a whole lot of information on it, to be honest.
- Kenneth Branagh (our narrator) briefly mentions volcanic activity poisoning the Late Cretaceous atmosphere, resulting in a “sick planet” for the last dinosaurs. This is something that was gone into detail in the last episode of WWD itself, but more recent research suggests the Deccan Traps (the source of volcanism at roughly this time) did not play a role in the K-Pg extinction event. If anything, it might have even acted a bit as a cushion to the brunt of the Chicxulub impact (Chiarenza et al., 2020), though obviously it was nowhere near enough.
- Walking with Beasts has the most epic theme ever. Fight me.
Seriously, it easily has the best theme out of anything in the Walking with series. It unironically has one of, if not my favorite opening theme in anything ever.
New Dawn (Germany, 49 million years ago): - The narrative of this episode is that even 17 million years into the Cenozoic, mammals are still small and living under the shadow of larger, deadlier creatures, just like in the Mesozoic. While it is true the mammals of Messel may not have been all that big (the biggest animal known from the Messel pit is Gastornis), large-bodied mammals began evolving in other parts of the world well before the Eocene. Mammals rapidly became larger as plant communities recovered; nutritious plant matter would have allowed this size increase. Mammals as large as ~47 kg (Eoconodon coryphaeus) were around about 700,000 years after the K-Pg extinction event, coincident with the appearance of legumes (Lyson et al., 2019). This means that not even a million years after the mass extinction, mammals that could technically count as megafauna were a thing. At some point during the Paleocene you had mammals as large as Pachyaena, Ankalagon (with a skull the size of a brown bear’s), and Barylambda, which could apparently weigh 650 kg.
- ”For the first and only time in its history, birds rule the Earth.” I’m going to have to disagree. Even though they weren’t anywhere close to the biggest animals of the era, birds have proven to be immensely successful. They were and still are, after all, the most diverse flying vertebrates of the Cenozoic. Today, passerines alone already rival extant/recently extinct mammal diversity (Burgin et al., 2018; Oliveros et al., 2019). It’s even possible that the often-quoted figure of 10,000 bird species is itself a great underestimate (Barrowclough et al., 2016). The sheer diversity and success of modern birds leads me and others to believe the Cenozoic to be just as much the Age of Birds as it is the Age of Mammals.
Which makes the Cenozoic a second age of dinosaurs, of a sort. No, I will not apologize for saying that. - One point of contention about Leptictidium is whether it hopped or ran on two legs. WWB depicts it doing the former. Some suggested it to be a bipedal runner on the grounds that its unfused tibia and fibula, plus its weak sacroiliac joint (with only one sacral vertebra), would be too weak and unstable to withstand the forces from hopping and impacting the ground. Others thought this wasn’t a problem, given that modern macropodids (kangaroos, wallabies, etc.) can hop just fine without a fused tibia and fibula.
A 2016 study made digital reconstructions of the inner ear of Leptictidium and other leptictids to see whether their morphology supported highly agile, saltatory locomotion. Compared to its relatives Leptictis and Palaeictops, Leptictidium had the highest agility score, falling within the range of modern saltatory mammals. This suggests that Leptictidium had the agility to be a hopping mammal (Ruf et al., 2016), and suggests WWB’s depiction is on the mark. - I really like the track that plays as the mother Leptictidium hunts for food. It gives me this primeval vibe, which fits well for the prehistoric jungle this episode is set in.
- Fun fact about the animal live-acted by the tamandua: it’s supposed to be an extinct mammal called Eurotamandua. When it was first discovered it was legitimately believed to be a xenarthran (particularly an anteater), even though every other xenarthran was known from South America. This classification is certainly wrong, though, since Eurotamandua lacks the characteristic xenarthran vertebral joints. It’s now thought that it was some sort of basal pangolin, making it completely unrelated to tamanduas. However, Eurotamandua does indeed share some anatomical similarities with tamanduas (which is why it was named so), and it interestingly lacked the hair-fused scales of modern pangolins (making it an armorless pangolin). So while it was no anteater, it probably would have looked similar to a tamandua.
Way to be accidentally correct. - Hoooo boy…the Gastornis. First of all, it was nowhere near half a tonne like the narrator claims. The European form weighed >130-150 kg, the size of a very big ostrich (Angst et al., 2014).
And, as we all now realize is the most infamous outdated error in this episode (if not the whole program), it was not a carnivore. Carbon isotope ratios from bone collagen (and even more reliably, tooth enamel) can help us deduce whether or not an animal was carnivorous or herbivorous. Plants have high amounts of the heavy carbon-13 compared to the lighter carbon-12. Organisms prefer to use lighter carbon if possible. Thus, the higher the organism’s trophic niche, the greater the amount of the lighter carbon-12 it will have in its tissues, as the heavier carbon-13 will have been used by organisms lower down on the food chain. Carbon isotope ratios of Gastornis bone overlap greatly with those of contemporaneous herbivorous mammals and the local plants. Only in one studied locality does it overlap at least a bit with what we would expect if it were carnivorous (although, in another location the isotopes of herbivorous mammals overlaps with the expected carnivore isotope range, so I don’t know how much this means). Likewise, the jaw musculature is most similar to that of herbivorous than carnivorous birds (Angst et al., 2014).
It should be noted that although previous arguments for herbivory in Gastornis have been made more on the basis of its anatomy (i.e. the apparent lack of a hooked bill tip, lack of sharp talons on the feet, and non-cursorial leg proportions), the isotope analysis is the most damning piece of evidence there is. A hooked beak, sharp talons, and legs built for speed certainly help a predatory bird. However, one could have made the argument that there are birds without hooked beaks that still eat flesh, that there are predatory birds that don’t make use of strong taloned feet for predation (and that a kick can still be very damaging even without sharp claws), and that Gastornis could have been an ambush predator. So these arguments, though not necessarily weak, would not have disproven carnivorous Gastornis in and of themselves. - Two Gastornis fight. If I were to remake this doc, I would keep this scene. Despite everything I said above about Gastornis being a herbivore, that doesn’t mean it could never have been aggressive or dangerous to another animal. I’d hate to be the sucker that gets bitten or kicked by this bird (too bad WWB doesn’t show the bird using its feet as weapons).
- Branagh tells us the Ambulocetus swam up to the jungle from the coast, implying it’s not a regular inhabitant. The problem is, Ambulocetus is from Pakistan, not Germany. This is the amount of distance between Messel and Punjab (the Pakistani province in which Ambulocetus remains were found) 50 million years ago (thanks to the Ancient Earth globe for letting us visualize this).
That whale would have had to swim an impossibly long distance to Messel. - It also seems that Ambulocetus was unable to walk on land, making its name a misnomer. A 2016 study found that the torso of Ambulocetus seems too weak to support its weight on land (Ando & Fujiwara, 2016). The way it swims seems to be fine, though. A 2018 study found that the lumbar spine of Ambulocetus was likely not as mobile as those of more aquatic cetaceans, but more mobile than the lumbar spines of pakicetids (Bebej & Smith, 2018).
- The Ambulocetus scares away a crocodile. Oddly enough, a crocodile would have been one of the real top predators of Messel, along with, well…land crocs with hooves and serrated teeth.
- About Propalaeotherium: at least one species (P. hassiacum) was present in Messel (Wilde & Hellmund, 2010), but the specimen WWB bases theirs off of was Propalaeotherium parvulum, which was since reassigned to the genus Eurohippus (Franzen, 2006).
One thing I noticed about the puppet they use is that its pupils seem to be horizontal slits, which I thought was a nice touch. As a prey species, horizontal slit pupils would be a useful adaptation for spotting predators through a panoramic view (Banks et al., 2015). Useful when you live with an alternate Earth version of Gastornis that is carnivorous or, in real life, running dinosaur-toothed land crocs. - Branagh remarks that the mother Leptictidium has not done well during her morning hunt. Given that this is in spite of the fact that she successfully caught a frog and an insect earlier, maybe it goes to show you how much these small active mammals need to eat. Or not. Idk.
- Now we get to one of the most memorable, and nightmare fuelish, scenes from this entire program.
Ants, the narrator says. You see a live-acted ant crawling around. Pssh, what’s so bad about that? But then a giant CGI Titanomyrma crawls on-screen. Giant. Carnivorous. Ants. Once you hear the brass instrument playing on the track, you definitely know something’s wrong. He tells you it’s the largest species of ant ever (which it indeed is; the queen of one species, T. lubei is comparable in size to a rufous hummingbird). Soon, one Titanomyrma approaches the Gastornis hatchling, and the track picks up in intensity. One ant crawls across the camera lens, creating a creepy-crawly noise as it does so, as the track reaches peak intensity. Then you see just how damn many ants there are, crawling over the base of the tree. Finally, the ants swarm the newborn bird, feeding off of it as it wriggles in what must be slow, agonizing pain. A couple more ants crawl over the camera lens, and we get another close up of the ants slowly eating the flesh of their helpless victim. That green snake slithering across the forest floor after this scene almost looks like it’s trying to gtfo (okay, it’s literally just showing a snake crawling, but it’s fun to imagine it this way).
Your only relief is that there doesn’t seem to be much information (and none from a scholarly source) about the diet of Titanomyrma, though carnivory is supposedly plausible.
Fun fact, though: apparently Titanomyrma constitutes nearly half of all ants at Messel (LaPolla et al., 2013). - Eurohippus and Propalaeotherium from Messel have indeed been found with grape seeds in their stomach contents, btw (Wilde & Hellmund, 2010).
- ”This is a[n alternate prehistoric Earth] where birds eat horses.”
- And now you see the end results of the Titanomyrma attack. Branagh was definitely not kidding when he said they strip their prey to the bone.
Interestingly, this is the last time you see the Gastornis. Once you see it kill a horse and see what became of its hatchling, the story’s done with it. I lowkey wish WWB showed us its fate at the end of the episode. - I really like the Godinotia leaping above the trees during night. Seems like something a nature documentary would want to show you.
Their appearance is most certainly inaccurate, though. They resemble monkeys here, but Godinotia was a strepsirrhine. These are the primates with a moist, dog or cat-like rhinarium forming their nose. Godinotia would have looked nothing like a monkey, and closer to something like a lemur. I think it’s a bit of a shame WWB doesn’t depict Godinotia like this either, since primate evolution is a significant narrative throughout this series. Having the Godinotia look more like the “primitive” primate it really was would have solidified the depiction of primate evolution in this program, especially since we see an actual monkey the next episode. - It is interesting to see a few of the nocturnal species of this ecosystem, which the narrator alludes to. Granted, it’s only two species, one of which is there solely for the Ambulocetus to get something in its kill count.
- The lake releases the deadliest killer of this ecosystem. We see Propalaeotherium and Ambulocetus dying. Of course, many more animals would have died, but these are the only two victims we actually see. The Leptictidium survive, though. One thing I think is interesting, which I think TVTropes pointed out, is that it’s the animals that eventually go extinct that survive the poisonous gas. The two we see dying, however, leave descendants that survive up to the present day. This is an interesting narrative choice. The tiny horse and proto-whale may have died, but many more of its kind survive and will prove to be a success in the future. The Leptictidium may have survived, but it’s screwed in the long run and will leave no descendants.
Final verdict:Despite some of the glaring inaccuracies, partly due to science marching on, I still thought this was a great episode. The different animals’ struggles are clear, the story flows smoothly, and we see a day in the life of this ancient and alien ecosystem. It also has some very memorable scenes (the Titanomyrma attack and the carbon dioxide gas are probably the two most memorable). Lastly, although the narrative of mammals being “oppressed” by non-mammals wasn’t exactly true (certainly not so in other parts of the world), this episode does serve as a nice transition between WWD and the rest of WWB. Mammals are bigger in this ecosystem than they ever were during the Mesozoic, but the presence of a big bird shows that the dinosaurs are still going strong. Overall, a great episode.
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Post by creature386 on Nov 15, 2021 16:28:44 GMT 5
- The lake releases the deadliest killer of this ecosystem. We see Propalaeotherium and Ambulocetus dying. Of course, many more animals would have died, but these are the only two victims we actually see. The Leptictidium survive, though. One thing I think is interesting, which I think TVTropes pointed out, is that it’s the animals that eventually go extinct that survive the poisonous gas. The two we see dying, however, leave descendants that survive up to the present day. This is an interesting narrative choice. The tiny horse and proto-whale may have died, but many more of its kind survive and will prove to be a success in the future. The Leptictidium may have survived, but it’s screwed in the long run and will leave no descendants.
We addressed the Grube Messel in our vertebrate paleontology course on fossil deposits, including the gas lake hypothesis. Interestingly enough, this hypothesis seems to be not very likely. If my curriculum is to be trusted, it is more likely that cyanobacteria poisoned the water and killed anyone who drank it, as birds and bats could have theoretically escaped a gas eruption, but positioned water would have caught them just like everyone else. Either way, it's nice to see a review of something good again. I won't have as long responses as during the more amusing threads, but this is still a review series worth having. Really liked that episode, Messel rocks (and, well, it's got a lot of rocks for us to excavate). |
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Post by Infinity Blade on Nov 15, 2021 20:28:17 GMT 5
- The lake releases the deadliest killer of this ecosystem. We see Propalaeotherium and Ambulocetus dying. Of course, many more animals would have died, but these are the only two victims we actually see. The Leptictidium survive, though. One thing I think is interesting, which I think TVTropes pointed out, is that it’s the animals that eventually go extinct that survive the poisonous gas. The two we see dying, however, leave descendants that survive up to the present day. This is an interesting narrative choice. The tiny horse and proto-whale may have died, but many more of its kind survive and will prove to be a success in the future. The Leptictidium may have survived, but it’s screwed in the long run and will leave no descendants.
We addressed the Grube Messel in our vertebrate paleontology course on fossil deposits, including the gas lake hypothesis. Interestingly enough, this hypothesis seems to be not very likely. If my curriculum is to be trusted, it is more likely that cyanobacteria poisoned the water and killed anyone who drank it, as birds and bats could have theoretically escaped a gas eruption, but positioned water would have caught them just like everyone else. Either way, it's nice to see a review of something good again. I won't have as long responses as during the more amusing threads, but this is still a review series worth having. Really liked that episode, Messel rocks (and, well, it's got a lot of rocks for us to excavate). I did not know that. Honestly, I just kind of assumed the whole toxic gas thing was plausible enough and didn't bat an eye at whether or not it was actually plausible. It looks like this proposal was actually made a few years after WWB aired (2004), and it also explains the exceptional preservation of the fossils found in Messel. |
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Post by Infinity Blade on Nov 16, 2021 7:13:35 GMT 5
I joined a server that was streaming the entire documentary earlier today. Lasted a good 3 hours, which I was there for most of. Felt nice to see 49 million years pass by in just 3 hours.
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Post by Infinity Blade on Nov 22, 2021 10:42:09 GMT 5
Whale Killer (Pakistan, 36 million years ago): - ”Forget the gentle filter feeders of the 21st century”. Well…not every whale today is some harmless filter feeder. Just invert the two words that make up the title of this episode to get what I mean.
- While the stated length for Basilosaurus is approximately correct (18 meters), it most certainly did not weigh anywhere near 60 tonnes. The only published estimate in scientific literature for Basilosaurus I’m aware of puts it at no more than 10 tonnes (if even that) (McHenry, 2009). I recall some claims on the Internet of up to 20 tonnes, but even if they’re true, that’s still only a third of the weight estimate claimed here.
- Although Branagh acknowledges Andrewsarchus as a “sheep in wolf’s clothing” (nice one), WWB’s model basically still looks like a big wolf. I think at the time people still thought Andrewsarchus was a mega mesonychian. Andrewsarchus, however, later turned out to be a member of the Cetancodontomorpha, meaning it is more closely related to today’s hippos and whales than it was to the mesonychians. It was actually sister to the entelodonts, meaning it could very well have fit the “hoofed predator” look even more literally (here's an example of a more modern reconstruction).
- Andrewsarchus’ size is also debatable and uncertain, given that all we have is a single skull (please, please, PLEASE let us find more complete remains one day!!!). So of course, the “largest mammal carnivore ever to walk the Earth” claim is up for debate.
I think it’s fair to say, though, that Andrewsarchus certainly was one of the largest land-dwelling mammalian predators to have ever lived. From its skull joint to the tip of its snout, Andrewsarchus’ skull was 83.4 cm long (Andrews, 1924). If we assume that Andrewsarchus had similar proportions to an entelodont, then this was a big predator indeed; Daeodon’s skull, for instance, is about 90 cm long. A shame that the most badass thing we see it do in this episode is crunch up a hapless turtle; I love me a predator with a big f*ckoff skull. - Also, the one Andrewsarchus fossil we have was found in Mongolia, not Pakistan. So keep in mind that the decision to put it in this setting was at least a liberty.
- Apidium fossils were found in the Jebel Qatrani Formation of northern Egypt. It was initially thought that this formation dated to the latest Eocene to earliest Oligocene in age (~35.4-33.3 million years ago). However, a 2006 study reanalyzed the formation and other later Paleogene rock strata, and it would appear that this age is a bit off. Only the lowest 48 meters of the Jebel Qatrani Formation may be considered Eocene in age, while the rest is early Oligocene. As such, the formation can be dated to 30.2-29.5 million years ago (Seiffert, 2006), and Apidium really lived about 6 million years after this episode takes place.
- The Physogaleus attack on the Apidium was a nice addition in my opinion. WWB could have easily just claimed the sharks and crocodiles to be a threat (and sure enough, they never show any crocodiles in this episode) and not actually show any serious consequences for the Apidium as they hazardously cross the river. But as much as the Physogaleus gets treated as mere Basilosaurus fodder, this scene is your reminder that it’s still a shark.
- It’s now thought to be unlikely that Moeritherium possessed a trunk as it’s depicted here, given the cranial morphology, long neck, and long mandible (Larramendi, 2016). Instead of a trunk, however, it might still have possessed a prehensile upper lip (Shoshani, 1998). Moeritherium does share ten derived features with barytheres, deinotheres, and elephantoids (all proboscideans). Arguably the most obvious one is the enlargement of the second incisors; this is, in fact, what modern elephant tusks are (Domning et al., 1986).
- The rather somber track that plays here might make you feel at least a little bad for the Moeritherium. The tide is seen rising, and eventually the Moeritherium is seen standing in very shallow water. It was definitely not a given that it was getting out of there alive.
- ”Twice as big as rhinos with brains a third of the size”.
Don’t think I’d say Embolotherium was twice as big as modern rhinos. Megacerops, one of the biggest brontotheres, was estimated at 3.3 tonnes (Paul, 2010). That is a tonne heavier than your average adult male white rhino, but not twice the size. And Embolotherium rivaled Megacerops in size (Mihlbachler, 2008). There is a species of brontothere known as Sivatitanops birmanicus that was estimated to weigh 5,110 kg, but this is based on the area of the first molar (Tsubamoto et al., 2005), so take that estimate for what you will.
The claim that their brains are only a third the size of a rhino’s is also kind of extraordinary. I don’t get the impression that brontotheres had big brains, but were they really that small? Rhinos themselves are pretty small brained. - A couple youngsters seem to gallop away from a larger male. Nowadays, I don’t think that gigantic brontotheres like Embolotherium could gallop. Although Greg Paul once stated that brontotheres (he called them “titanotheres”) could gallop with flexed, rhino-like legs and long, mobile feet, he cited Henry Fairfield Osborn’s 1929 work on brontotheres (Paul, 1998). But this work is over 90 years old now. A 2010 SVP abstract is apparently the first description of the postcranial remains of a very large brontothere (particularly Embolotherium). It was described as a powerful, graviportal animal (McLaughlin et al., 2010). Brontotheres also have shorter distal limb segments than modern rhinos (Mihlbachler et al., 2004). Some other sources (albeit non-scholarly) describe brontotheres as having more elephant-like limbs, and one friend of mine has also said that Embolotherium’s limbs were more elephant-like than rhino-like.
- The orientation of the ram isn’t really correct here either. Some reconstructions show Embolotherium’s ram pointing upwards like a rhino’s horn. In reality, there was actually a deep empty channel on the anteroventral (so in front of and underneath) surface of the ram. The bony marker for the nasal septum indicates that the nasal cavity of Embolotherium actually extended to the top of the ram, and that this creature really had an enormous nasal cavity (see this link for reconstructions of this massive nasal cavity).
- Despite the narrator explaining that the rams of the brontotheres are too fragile for head butting, the mother rams an Andrewsarchus anyway.
- Interesting to see the Basilosaurus rub off anything on her body to swim faster. Judging from Basilosaurus’ sleek body, I have the impression that it was a fast swimmer, similar to modern Balaenoptera, which also have sleek bodies that allow them to swim fast.
- A few things I like here: A) the Dorudon mobbing the Basilosaurus by slapping it with their tails and body slamming, B) the track that plays as the Basilosaurus attacks, and C) predation on Dorudon calves by Basilosaurus isis is accurate. If I had to change one thing, it’s that Basilosaurus actually targeted the skulls of Dorudon calves, seizing them with the conical anterior teeth and crushing their skulls with the serrated premolars (Fahlke, 2012; Snively et al., 2015). That’s arguably even more brutal than the Basilosaurus chomping on the torsos of the Dorudon here, but what we got here is still fine and certainly not “out there” (so I’m not saying a Basilosaurus would never chomp down on a Dorudon calf’s torso).
- We are told that whales as a whole will survive, but Basilosaurus will not be among them.
What a somber ending…
Final verdict:So what can I say about WWB’s answer to Cruel Sea? One thing I really like is how the root of most of the conflicts we see here is the climatic change leading up to the Eocene-Oligocene extinction event. This extinction event was not an insignificant event in Cenozoic history, and it represented some of the worst the trend towards a cooler, drier climate had to offer throughout the era. Accordingly, animals are seen doing things they would not normally do. The world they know is changing, things aren’t going the way they’re supposed to, and it’s more than just confusing. It’s the difference between survival and extinction. While there is some stuff that doesn’t hold up today (the land animals more so than the marine animals), it’s still a nice watch to see these strange, magnificent beasts go through a struggle that’s no stranger to us in the modern world->. Also, here's a link to Mihlbachler (2008). Trying to hyperlink it above f*cks with my bulleted list for some reason. bioone.org/journals/Bulletin-of-the-American-Museum-of-Natural-History/volume-84/issue-suppl/0003-0090(2008)501[1:STPABO]2.0.CO;2/Species-Taxonomy-Phylogeny-and-Biogeography-of-the-Brontotheriidae-Mammalia/10.1206/0003-0090(2008)501[1:STPABO]2.0.CO;2.full?casa_token=1MUT1NhraGsAAAAA:iwLhglWNUyZwJw-WJYr_F1JqzejFXp19pUv-79R6b-z6e3PGYkrPqr0jMdlRClRLnP5MR77p
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Post by Infinity Blade on Nov 23, 2021 2:32:24 GMT 5
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Post by Infinity Blade on Nov 29, 2021 10:11:37 GMT 5
Land of Giants (Mongolia, 25 million years ago): - I’m almost certain that the reason BBC did an episode on Paraceratherium was because for the longest time, it was considered the biggest land mammal that ever lived (although surprisingly, I don’t remember this episode ever explicitly claiming so). If we knew about Palaeoloxodon namadicus back in 2001, would we have still gotten a Paraceratherium episode, or would the BBC have ditched the mega-rhino in favor of the elephant that (supposedly) weighed as much as two Diplodocus carnegii?
It’s worth noting that neither is solidly supported at the time of writing this review (more on size down below). - The Paraceratherium walking in the night looks so real to me. Here, I think the animation still holds up well.
- This pregnant indricothere is 12 tonnes. So, how big is Paraceratherium, really?
Imma say something that might baffle some of you: most Paraceratherium individuals are actually not that big. Greg Paul’s 1997 composite skeleton would have weighed 8 tonnes, and most are around that size, with the largest being 10 tonnes. According to Asier Larramendi, it’s possible that the genus could weigh up to 17 tonnes, but even this estimate (along with the 22 tonne estimate for Palaeoloxodon namadicus) is to be taken with a grain of salt (Larramendi, 2016).
I have recently been made aware of this skeletal reconstruction of Paraceratherium huangheense, and it looks enormous, even compared to Palaeoloxodon namadicus (link). Though, this isn’t published in a scientific paper, and the specimen this reconstruction is based on is horrendously fragmentary (just like the elephant), so I would, of course, definitely still err on the side of caution. - No. Look, I love hyaenodonts, but not even Hyaenodon gigas, the largest species of Hyaenodon, was anywhere close to being the size of a rhino.
- Entelodonts are better deemed distant relatives of hippos and whales than pigs.
- I’m going to assume that this episode is based on the Hsanda Gol Formation. From the research I’ve done, it appears that at the time WWB was made, this formation was thought to be upper Oligocene (hence the episode being set 25 million years ago). Since then, however, the Asian Land Mammal Age known as the Ergilian was moved from the early Oligocene to the late Eocene, and so the Hsanda Gol Formation now includes lower Oligocene beds as well. The Hsanda Gol Formation is now understood to span from 33.4-31 million years ago (Prothero, 2013).
The overlying Loh Formation does date to the late Oligocene, and Paraceratherium remains have indeed been recovered from it. But supposedly, it does not show evidence of the same paleoenvironment that the Hsanda Gol Formation once had. Additionally, it’s at this point when chalicotheres truly appear in the region (Prothero, 2013). - The mother Paraceratherium is put off by the entelodont fight. Some animals are so nasty that even bigger animals don’t want to be near them. Nice to see that reflected here.
- Yep, entelodont face-biting is directly supported by the fossil record.
- ”A fully grown male stands over 7 meters tall”. At what? Even a 17 tonne individual would only be 4.8 meters tall at the shoulder. If the neck were raised up then maybe it could get close, but then the question is how much or how often the neck was raised. I’ve already addressed body mass.
- ”He doesn’t know it, but our calf is looking at his own future”. DUN DUN DUUUUUNNNNNN!!!!
- If you take a good look at the Hyaenodon model for this episode, you’ll notice it’s basically saber-toothed. The upper canines are actually exposed. Now, admittedly hyaenodonts do have some pretty nasty chompers (image 1, image 2), but do I think they would have been exposed in life? Nah.
- The chalicothere doesn’t have the time to deploy its claws as weapons against the Hyaenodon, and the hyaenodont gets a moment of badass.
But then three entelodonts come over to steal its kill. A bit weird that the Hyaenodon defecates all over it, since the whole point of this is to prevent scavengers from picking up the smell of the carcass (since the entelodonts already found it, this is completely pointless). Branagh does admit it’s futile, though. - The depiction of indricotheres as living long lives and remembering their environments well is interesting. There are indeed mammals like this alive today (elephants and orcas are the two examples I can list off the top of my head), but at the same time, we tend not to think of indricotheres as being cognitively gifted as these examples. But extinct animal intelligence is virtually impossible to determine. That’s all I’m going to say about that.
- When the rains come, the tables are turned and a Hyaenodon is seen chasing a young (I think?) entelodont. Interestingly, an episode of the documentary Prehistoric Predators presents Japheth B. Boyce with the skull of an entelodont with healed wounds on its snout. He thinks that when the entelodont was young (the skull was of an adult), a Hyaenodon grabbed its snout by its jaws and produced the wound. However, the entelodont somehow survived the encounter.
- A bit interesting that the rain wasn’t entirely a good thing for all animals. The Cynodictis mother’s cubs are killed when the rainwater floods her den. Press F in the chat.
- Oh, and btw, Cynodictis would have gone extinct a few million years before this episode (link).
- The Paraceratherium calf crossing the river and getting up from the muddy banks is presented as enough of an issue by itself. But you know what would have made it 1,000 times worse? Astorgosuchus bugtiensis.
That’s right. There was a large (8 meter) extinct crocodilian that preyed on young Paraceratherium. One juvenile P. bugtiense jaw bone has several conical unhealed bite marks on it, undoubtedly inflicted by a crocodilian. There are several other postcranial bones from P. bugtiense with crocodilian bite marks on them. Granted, it’s hard to differentiate between bite marks by this crocodilian and other contemporary species. But Astorgosuchus had a very broad skull, with a snout only twice as long as wide, so it’s a very good candidate for making these bite marks (Martin, 2019).
But then again, Astorgosuchus is known from the Bugti Hills in Pakistan, not Mongolia. No clue how wide its range was in life, maybe it could still have extended as far as Mongolia. - There is no evidence that Paraceratherium used its skull to batter each other in intraspecific conflict like modern giraffes. No indication exists that its skull was specially reinforced for using the skull as a club. It’s worth noting that Paraceratherium had a longish neck that was as long in absolute terms as a giraffe’s. But then you realize that Paraceratherium is easily, easily, easily 8, 10, possibly up to 17 times heavier than a giraffe, and thus has a proportionately much shorter neck.
In my opinion, it’s more likely Paraceratherium just body and shoulder slammed each other. I also think that, while the incisors would primarily have served a purpose in feeding, it’s possible they could also have been used to deliver painful (if non-lethal) nips against each other in combat. - Then comes the mating scene. On one hand, you can’t help but feel bad for the calf. Like Branagh says, the calf is seeing another individual get between himself and his mother for the first time. The adult male kicks the calf’s head a couple times, and even his own mother accidentally shoves him forward at some point. If you know what happens later in this episode, you might even start to see this as the start of the mother ceasing to care about her calf. I think we might feel this way because if this situation involved humans, it would be outrageous, and we’d definitely be pissed off at a parent placing a random stranger over their own children just to get laid. At the same time, however, the Paraceratherium are just doing what wild animals do.
The silver lining for this scene is that one day, the calf is going to be in the same position as that adult male (even if we don’t get to see it). - And then comes the saddest part of the story…the mother chases the calf away. The calf even does the exact same thing his half-sibling (I presume half) does before him. He goes back to his mother, only to be driven away again…
…But no matter, three months go by and he’s ready to take on the world! The entelodont at the very end serves as a sort of measuring stick to show how formidable he’s become. Though he clearly has much growing to do, he’s now invulnerable to pretty much anything that’s not another Paraceratherium. Whether they’re predators or time-traveling cameramen.
Final verdict:Not only do I find this to be an interesting coming of age story, I also think it’s the perfect foil to WWD’s "Time of the Titans". The young female Diplodocus has no parent looking after her or teaching her how to survive. Despite this, she walks away from the forest right after hatching, with only the initial safety in numbers with her fellow sauropodlets. Also, she has to survive multiple dangers before finally joining a herd and reaching sexual maturity…and even then she’s not completely invulnerable to predators (remember the final Allosaurus attack in that episode). 127 million years later, the Paraceratherium calf has his mother to look after him for the first three years of his life, but during that time he has to learn to walk, sniff out things, and eat (in the case of feeding, he also has to transition from milk to solid food). He is driven away from his mother and severs the only long-lasting social bond he will ever get in his life. We never see him mate, but by the end of the episode not a single predator can touch him. Both are in danger of being killed by predators right after birth. But although neither reaches full size before the episode ends, both will presumably grow into giants. Both have happy endings. These contrasts are obviously reflective of differing reproductive and life history strategies of the two animals, as well as the different ecological realities they lived with, and WWB capitalizes on that perfectly. This episode takes an idea from WWD and does something different with it. And I’m happy to see that. Not gonna lie, though, the fauna and figuring out which really belongs in this time and place is confusing.
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Post by Infinity Blade on Nov 29, 2021 10:21:31 GMT 5
I also decided I'll likely review The Science of Walking with Beasts (the behind the scenes extra content) too after all of this. Cuz why not?
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Post by creature386 on Nov 30, 2021 23:55:31 GMT 5
In my non-existent spare time, I see that I forgot to compose my reply to episode two. Let's change that! - While the stated length for Basilosaurus is approximately correct (18 meters), it most certainly did not weigh anywhere near 60 tonnes. The only published estimate in scientific literature for Basilosaurus I’m aware of puts it at no more than 10 tonnes (if even that) (McHenry, 2009). I recall some claims on the Internet of up to 20 tonnes, but even if they’re true, that’s still only a third of the weight estimate claimed here.
Even as a kid, I found that high weight weird. I remember how I put Basilosaurus at 20 t in my "Top ten biggest (=heaviest) marine Predators" video, even though I had literally no source for that whatsoever other than my gut feeling (the only source I did have was one arguing against the 60 t figure). - Also, the one Andrewsarchus fossil we have was found in Mongolia, not Pakistan. So keep in mind that the decision to put it in this setting was at least a liberty.
Yeah, but this time, it makes more sense than with the Ambulocetus. According to Ancient Earth (link), India and Pakistan already collided with the rest of Asia around the time this episode is set. Given how large carnivores used to have massive distribution ranges before humans hunted them to extinction, this is a very valid use of artistic license. Final verdict:So what can I say about WWB’s answer to Cruel Sea? One thing I really like is how the root of most of the conflicts we see here is the climatic change leading up to the Eocene-Oligocene extinction event. This extinction event was not an insignificant event in Cenozoic history, and it represented some of the worst the trend towards a cooler, drier climate had to offer throughout the era. Accordingly, animals are seen doing things they would not normally do. The world they know is changing, things aren’t going the way they’re supposed to, and it’s more than just confusing. It’s the difference between survival and extinction. While there is some stuff that doesn’t hold up today (the land animals more so than the marine animals), it’s still a nice watch to see these strange, magnificent beasts go through a struggle that’s no stranger to us in the modern world->. I really like how they depicted this extinction. It receives so little attention in paleo media, probably because it's not part of the Big Five and overshadowed by the Eocene Thermal Maximum, even though it closes one of the largest, weirdest, and most wonderful epochs in the Cenozoic. - I’m almost certain that the reason BBC did an episode on Paraceratherium was because for the longest time, it was considered the biggest land mammal that ever lived (although surprisingly, I don’t remember this episode ever explicitly claiming so). If we knew about Palaeoloxodon namadicus back in 2001, would we have still gotten a Paraceratherium episode, or would the BBC have ditched the mega-rhino in favor of the elephant that (supposedly) weighed as much as two Diplodocus carnegii?
It’s worth noting that neither is solidly supported at the time of writing this review (more on size down below).
I'm pretty sure that would have been inconvenient, to say the least, due to Palaeoloxodon's temporal overlap with their planned Ice Age Mammoth Episode. Plus, it's neck is too short, so, it wouldn't have made for a good sauropod analog for Time of the Titans Reloaded. Then again, all episodes would probably be different if they were made today. - The depiction of indricotheres as living long lives and remembering their environments well is interesting. There are indeed mammals like this alive today (elephants and orcas are the two examples I can list off the top of my head), but at the same time, we tend not to think of indricotheres as being cognitively gifted as these examples. But extinct animal intelligence is virtually impossible to determine. That’s all I’m going to say about that.
It might be plausible if we assume that Paraceratherium was so big that it had to do yearly migrations like modern elephants do to avoid running out of leaves. A good memeory would come in handy there, even if it probably would be simpler than in more "gifted" animals. (That makes me wonder if sauropods would have needed to have a good memory then, too. Though, instinctual migration paths could also do the job.) - The Paraceratherium calf crossing the river and getting up from the muddy banks is presented as enough of an issue by itself. But you know what would have made it 1,000 times worse? Astorgosuchus bugtiensis.
That’s right. There was a large (8 meter) extinct crocodilian that preyed on young Paraceratherium. One juvenile P. bugtiense jaw bone has several conical unhealed bite marks on it, undoubtedly inflicted by a crocodilian. There are several other postcranial bones from P. bugtiense with crocodilian bite marks on them. Granted, it’s hard to differentiate between bite marks by this crocodilian and other contemporary species. But Astorgosuchus had a very broad skull, with a snout only twice as long as wide, so it’s a very good candidate for making these bite marks (Martin, 2019).
But then again, Astorgosuchus is known from the Bugti Hills in Pakistan, not Mongolia. No clue how wide its range was in life, maybe it could still have extended as far as Mongolia.
Man, I should have known about that when writing that Paraceratherium-centric story I created at the tender age of 13 (no, I will not share it here, too cringe!). Back then, I had the attitude of including almost all "cool" animals possible for which I found even the faintest spatio-temporal justification. Final verdict:Not only do I find this to be an interesting coming of age story, I also think it’s the perfect foil to WWD’s "Time of the Titans". The young female Diplodocus has no parent looking after her or teaching her how to survive. Despite this, she walks away from the forest right after hatching, with only the initial safety in numbers with her fellow sauropodlets. Also, she has to survive multiple dangers before finally joining a herd and reaching sexual maturity…and even then she’s not completely invulnerable to predators (remember the final Allosaurus attack in that episode). 127 million years later, the Paraceratherium calf has his mother to look after him for the first three years of his life, but during that time he has to learn to walk, sniff out things, and eat (in the case of feeding, he also has to transition from milk to solid food). He is driven away from his mother and severs the only long-lasting social bond he will ever get in his life. We never see him mate, but by the end of the episode not a single predator can touch him. Both are in danger of being killed by predators right after birth. But although neither reaches full size before the episode ends, both will presumably grow into giants. Both have happy endings. These contrasts are obviously reflective of differing reproductive and life history strategies of the two animals, as well as the different ecological realities they lived with, and WWB capitalizes on that perfectly. This episode takes an idea from WWD and does something different with it. And I’m happy to see that. Not gonna lie, though, the fauna and figuring out which really belongs in this time and place is confusing. Yeah, the image of that little calf attacking the cameraman still sticks in my mind. It's hard to pull-off anything resembling character development on nun-human animals without anthropomorphizing them to the degree Dinosaur Revolution and Dinosaur Planet did, but, boy, did this episode pull it off. It's also interesting how the first three episodes of WWB feel like reprises of those of WWD (even if the order is not the same). We got an introductory episode to a new era, one about giants, and one about huge sea predators. Episode four is where it really breaks away from that familiar fauna, as there obviously is no episode on WWD focused on our ancestors (and even if there was, it would feel very different from focusing on those ape men). |
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Post by Infinity Blade on Dec 2, 2021 1:14:31 GMT 5
Yeah, but this time, it makes more sense than with the Ambulocetus. According to Ancient Earth (link), India and Pakistan already collided with the rest of Asia around the time this episode is set. Given how large carnivores used to have massive distribution ranges before humans hunted them to extinction, this is a very valid use of artistic license. Oh yeah, this is a much more forgivable (perhaps not even wrong) example. Man, I should have known about that when writing that Paraceratherium-centric story I created at the tender age of 13 (no, I will not share it here, too cringe!). Back then, I had the attitude of including almost all "cool" animals possible for which I found even the faintest spatio-temporal justification. Tbf, Astorgosuchus wasn't formally described until a few years ago, so it's definitely understandable that you wouldn't have known about it back then. Before that it was called " Crocodylus" bugtiensis, but it was pretty obscure; the only reason I ever knew about it was because of Donald Prothero's Rhinoceros Giants. And even that was published in 2013, which I think was a couple years after you wrote your story. It's also interesting how the first three episodes of WWB feel like reprises of those of WWD (even if the order is not the same). We got an introductory episode to a new era, one about giants, and one about huge sea predators. Episode four is where it really breaks away from that familiar fauna, as there obviously is no episode on WWD focused on our ancestors (and even if there was, it would feel very different from focusing on those ape men). And then afterwards it arguably continues the trend with an episode focused on the respective era's most famous superpredator and an episode taking place in an icy world (although, it's out of order there too). |
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Post by creature386 on Dec 2, 2021 2:15:37 GMT 5
Man, I should have known about that when writing that Paraceratherium-centric story I created at the tender age of 13 (no, I will not share it here, too cringe!). Back then, I had the attitude of including almost all "cool" animals possible for which I found even the faintest spatio-temporal justification. Tbf, Astorgosuchus wasn't formally described until a few years ago, so it's definitely understandable that you wouldn't have known about it back then. Before that it was called " Crocodylus" bugtiensis, but it was pretty obscure; the only reason I ever knew about it was because of Donald Prothero's Rhinoceros Giants. And even that was published in 2013, which I think was a couple years after you wrote your story. Yeah, I'm aware. Just a little sad, since I did have a crocodile in it, just a much smaller and probably less temporally/spatially fitting one (I think it was a Hispanochampsa, I moved the setting to Europe due to some Balkan Paraceratherium remains). It's also interesting how the first three episodes of WWB feel like reprises of those of WWD (even if the order is not the same). We got an introductory episode to a new era, one about giants, and one about huge sea predators. Episode four is where it really breaks away from that familiar fauna, as there obviously is no episode on WWD focused on our ancestors (and even if there was, it would feel very different from focusing on those ape men). And then afterwards it arguably continues the trend with an episode focused on the respective era's most famous superpredator and an episode taking place in an icy world (although, it's out of order there too). Even then though, I'd argue that the feeling is a very different one. The Smilodon episode doesn't have that whole "end of an era" vibe and the whole weirdness of the fauna (other than the saber tooth) doesn't have much of an equivalent in WWD's last episode (which mostly showed stock dinosaurs). Plus, the giant mammoth migration storyline reminds me, if anything, more of Time of the Titans 3.0. So, while connections might be there, they, IMO, became much less prevalent in the last three episodes. |
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Post by Infinity Blade on Dec 2, 2021 6:03:49 GMT 5
Even then though, I'd argue that the feeling is a very different one. The Smilodon episode doesn't have that whole "end of an era" vibe and the whole weirdness of the fauna (other than the saber tooth) doesn't have much of an equivalent in WWD's last episode (which mostly showed stock dinosaurs). Plus, the giant mammoth migration storyline reminds me, if anything, more of Time of the Titans 3.0. So, while connections might be there, they, IMO, became much less prevalent in the last three episodes. Oh I agree, I'm only speaking in very rough terms. I think "Sabre Tooth" and "Death of a Dynasty" have similarities in that they're both focused on their era's most well known apex predators while also showing their more vulnerable sides, but that's about it. The latter is much more bleak and depressing overall. "Spirits of the Ice Forest" and "Mammoth Journey" both show difficulties in surviving harsh winters, but the latter has the whole migration plot (and also uses a highly popular animal as a selling point). |
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Post by Infinity Blade on Dec 6, 2021 11:08:41 GMT 5
Next of Kin (Ethiopia, 3.2 million years ago): - You know, I’m sure if warthogs and rhinos weren’t still around today, they’d make for excellent creatures to explore in a series like this.
- Cleverly, the point at which Branagh explains the stance of Australopithecus is the first time we see one of them standing upright.
- Out of all the episodes of WWB, "Next of Kin" uses personal names for the individual animals most prominently, almost as a “shout-out” (for lack of a better word) to our own species. The next episode has Half-Tooth, but he’s the only other animal given a name in this series.
- One thing I’ll nitpick about the Ancylotherium is that its front feet look a little off. The innermost digit seems to be the biggest digit with the biggest claw in schizotheriines, whereas here they’re all basically the same size. I’m not sure, though, looking at this picture->. I originally thought the claws would need to be held “retracted”, as is often claimed for schizotheriines. However, as I was recently told by Darren Naish->, “retracted” is not the right term. “Retraction”, like that seen in cats, is extreme hyperextension, which no chalicothere did anything close to. Schizotheriine claws were, in fact, in a neutral pose, not extended to any degree.
Wow, 7 minutes and 10 seconds in and only one (possible) minor inaccuracy. Impressive! - The narration says that Grey’s troop is now too small to fend off the group of adult male Australopithecus. A possible implication being that they would have been able to fight them off back when they numbered twelve individuals.
- The track that plays as the apes are walking over the rift valley is 9 shades of epic. It also plays in the introduction to “Triumph of the Beasts” (extra behind the scenes content, which I might review separately, albeit not release on their anniversary dates). Listen to it here->.
- The Deinotherium rampage got me thinking: when did musth evolve in proboscideans? I don’t think anyone knows for sure. Woolly mammoth carcasses have been found with temporal glands, which would seem to suggest that they also entered musth (Mol et al., 2006). However, Deinotherium is only distantly related to true elephants, and is not even an elephantoid, so it’s impossible to tell whether or not it entered musth like its distant cousins today. Imagine if Deinotherium was actually less of an asshole than the mammoths two episodes from now…
- Hercules’ adeptitude is hinted at when he drives away the Ancylotherium, just so they don’t have to share fruit with them.
- Blackeye’s identification just kinda…came out of nowhere. But I’ll let this pass, in spite of the fact that she’ll probably play an important role later on in the episode…right?
- …Wrong. We hardly knew ye Blackeye.
- Speaking of being wrong, it’s time I address our first non-minor inaccuracy I have been able to identify so far. Dinofelis has been thought of as a hominin hunter, the living nightmare of our ancestors. But there was a study in 2000 that looked at stable carbon isotope ratios in fossil tooth enamel. The authors found that, while the isotope ratios of Megantereon, leopards, and hyenas (particularly Crocuta) matched those of hominins pretty well, Dinofelis’ isotope ratios indicate it focused on grazing prey items that ate a lot of C4 vegetation. This means it was eating creatures like grazing bovids and perhaps Theropithecus (Lee-Thorp et al., 2000). I won’t go as far as to say Dinofelis literally never ate hominins, but Megantereon is a better fit for the role of extinct saber-toothed cat hunting our early ancestors.
- As much as Grey is depicted as not the best leader for the troop (this is made even more apparent later on), he at least allows Blue to groom him, which is nice to see.
- Although the group is in shock after Blackeye’s death, I feel like the impact of her death is diminished to the audience once Branagh tells us that a young female just happened to waltz in and join their group. Had she joined a little later, I feel like it would have made us feel that much more concerned for the troop’s survival for a bit longer.
- Young female: *exists*
Hercules: Hippity hoppity your pussy is my property.
Grey: Hippity hoppity your mating attempt is heresy.
Blue: Hippity hoppity there goes my one attempt at camarader-
The other kids: Stop trying to be cool Blue! It’s not going to happen!
Am I funny? Hell no. Do I fail at memes? Hell yes. Is that going to stop me from a bit of light-hearted humor this one time around? Nope. - We see a zebra carcass. However, mitochondrial DNA suggests that the last common ancestor of extant zebras lived 2.8 million years ago, and it dispersed to Africa a bit afterwards (Forstén, 1992). Equus first appeared in East Africa 2.3 million years ago (Bernor et al., 2019). Realistically, then, this is too early to be seeing a zebra on the plains of East Africa. You would instead probably see something like Eurygnathohippus, which was a hipparionin (in other words, it would have had three toes).
- Hercules is a smart fella. He uses scare tactics to scare away other animals from food, and now he’s using a stick to beat up Grey. Nearby some live-acted rhinos (perhaps Ceratotherium mauritanicum?) are watching the shit go down. A mere stick doesn’t compare to a horn, but just those rhinos wait a few million years.
- Now comes the best part of this episode. Blue is rescued by the other Australopithecus. They all join in: Grey (who we saw was getting groomed by Blue in the beginning), Hercules (the new leader), and the females. The best part is, this is the same group that had internal conflicts earlier in the episode, yet now they’re all throwing rocks at the Dinofelis (and the camera lens) together. Eventually, the cat is driven off, and you know the apes have won the day when one of them lets out a brief but loud screech. Finally, Blue starts to socialize more with his fellow Australopithecus, and is once again grooming.
Final verdict:I think this is up there as one of my favorite episodes of WWB. We see characters develop (e.g. Blue going from social outcast to a valued member), we see how Australopithecus compare to ourselves, and it even seems to be one of the less inaccuracy-riddled episodes. Like, seriously, the biggest one I’ve come across was about Dinofelis’ diet, and that would have been a quick fix had they just used Megantereon.
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Post by creature386 on Dec 7, 2021 2:45:28 GMT 5
- Out of all the episodes of WWB, "Next of Kin" uses personal names for the individual animals most prominently, almost as a “shout-out” (for lack of a better word) to our own species. The next episode has Half-Tooth, but he’s the only other animal given a name in this series.
Yeah, I liked that. It felt almost like watching an episode of Dinosaur Planet in that regard. Only that the anthropomorphic animals made sense because, well, the episode is dealing with anthropomorphic animals. I also like the thematic names (the one with grey fur is called Grey, the one who's sad is called Blue), although they are a bit obvious, probably so that younger viewers aren't confused by them. Anyway, I find the character of Blue interesting. He's 3 years old and a thing I've always wondered was how long it'd have taken for young australopithecines to be able to survive without their parents being alive. According to Wikipedia, chimpanzees remain infants until 4-6 years of age where they're weaned. Humans appear to age slightly faster, as they are already past toddlerhood at that age and old enough for kindergarten (although interestingly enough, it takes chimps only 9 years to stop being juveniles; half as long as for humans). Using humans as a model, it's probably plausible that Blue could have survived at that age even with limited care. Using a chimpanzee as a model, I'm not quite sure. Those was just some random ramblings. I don't have much to say about this episode, other than that I liked it. I wonder if it would have been adequate to discuss whether Australopithecus was really our direct ancestor (as a lot has been said on this). The episode presented that as a given. Not that it matters much, as Australopithecus is always a good choice for an ancestry-themed episode simply due to how well-known it is. |
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Post by Infinity Blade on Dec 13, 2021 18:15:51 GMT 5
Sabre Tooth (Paraguay, 1 million years ago): - At this point, I think it’s questionable if any of the big apex predatory terror birds were left. There is a complete right tibiotarsus of a phorusrhacid similar to Phorusrhacos (but larger) known from the Raigón Formation of Uruguay (Tambussi et al., 1999). The Raigón Formation seems to span from the Pliocene to well into the Middle Pleistocene (now called the Chibanian) (Ubilla & Martin, 2013). Judging from Fig. 2 of Tambussi et al. (1999), it looks like this phorusrhacid bone was found in the lower layers of the Raigón Formation, though definitely not the lowermost one, so I’m not sure exactly how old it is.
Aside from possibly this find, Titanis walleri was one of the last big phorusrhacids, and it lived in North America. It went extinct 1.8 million years ago (MacFadden et al., 2007), so it would definitely have been gone by the time of this episode. The only phorusrhacids that were unambiguously still around in South America a million years ago would have been the small psilopterines. - For that matter, Smilodon populator itself (the species WWB bases their sabertooth on) wasn’t quite around yet either. S. populator first appeared after the extinction of the giant bear Arctotherium angustidens (Sherani, 2016; not peer-reviewed), which went extinct at the end of the Ensenadan (Soibelzon & Schubert, 2011). The Ensenadan’s upper boundary is put at 781,000 years ago (link).
That said, Smilodon gracilis was subsequently found in South America (Rincón et al., 2011). It could probably have been used for this episode instead, it would just be the smallest species out of the three. - Smilodon populator seems to be the largest saber-toothed cat (and just cat as a whole), but since WWB aired we’ve discovered some close contenders. Two species of Machairodus, M. horribilis and M. lahayishipup, have been estimated to weigh 405 and 410 kg, respectively (Zhang et al., 2016; Orcutt & Calede, 2021). One particularly large specimen of S. populator was estimated to weigh ~436 kg (Manzuetti et al., 2020). If so, it would be a bit bigger than Machairodus.
Do note, however, that a) this seems to be a particularly large individual, and b) again, S. populator appears a little later than this episode’s setting. - Nope. Phorusrhacos went extinct 12 million years before this. This genus is from the Miocene, not the Pleistocene. The only unambiguously Pleistocene large terror bird is Titanis, which lived in North America and already bought the farm nearly a million years prior.
- Earlier the narration claimed that Smilodon and other cats arrived in South America 2 million years before. Not true. The oldest South American records of felids date to the Ensenadan, which began 1.2 million years ago (Rincón et al., 2011; Manzuetti et al., 2018; Prevosti et al., 2013; Prevosti & Forasiepi, 2018). Supposed records of felids from the Chapadmalan (4-3 mya) have been refuted (Prevosti & Forasiepi, 2018).
- I’m not entirely sure if the lion-like sociality is likely for Smilodon, based on sexual dimorphism. While it’s debatable how much sexual dimorphism Smilodon had, even those who argue for it only seem to think it was low or moderate, compared to the strong dimorphism seen in modern lions (Christiansen & Harris, 2012).
- I’m going to be honest here…the sabertooth fight is kind of underwhelming. To be fair, that could be chalked up to Half-Tooth realizing that he’s severely outmatched, so I’m not sure how valid this “criticism” is. Nevertheless, this fight was nothing to write home about.
However, something I found interesting (by overanalyzing the scene like the fanatic I am) is that during the fight, it was really only one of the two brothers physically engaging with Half-Tooth. The other brother just kinda circled around the fight, but later stood next to his brother to face Half-Tooth, roaring at him; it’s at this point where Half-Tooth loses the battle. Later the episode explicitly tells us that one brother was dominant. Maybe the brother doing the real fighting here was the dominant one, while the other brother acted more as support to ensure Half-Tooth’s defeat. If so, that was a brilliant decision on the writers’ part…yay, more stuff to put into the show’s TVTropes page. - Glyptodonts weren’t just relatives of armadillos, they WERE armadillos. By reconstructing the complete mitochondrial genome of Doedicurus, we learned that glyptodonts comprise a subfamily within the modern armadillo family Chlamyphoridae (Delsuc et al., 2016).
- One thing that should be noted here is that while Doedicurus is most popularly reconstructed with a spiky tail club, this is actually conjecture. The bony club as we have discovered it has several pits that indicate the presence of keratinous structures that occupied those pits in life. But because keratin rots away and typically doesn’t fossilize, the shape of the keratin structures is speculative. They could have been blunt studs or knobs for all we know. Maybe they started out sharp, but got worn down as life went on, with some individual variation like in rhino horns (Debus & Debus, 2002).
- I…I think I just heard a bear roar made by one of the female Smilodon. No, I’m deadass serious. Right after the female lashes out at one of the brothers coming near her cub, she makes a bear vocalization. For anyone who wants to see for themselves, it’s around the 7:54 mark.
Umm…okay… - Looking at skeletal reconstructions of Megatherium with a human for scale (link->), I highly doubt Megatherium was 6 meters tall. Weighing more than an elephant also depends on the elephant. An African forest elephant? Sure. An Asian elephant? It was actually about that size, at ~3,700-3800 kg (Casinos, 1996; Brassey & Gardiner, 2015). An African bush elephant? It’s actually outclassed in size.
- Megatherium also did not have armor. It’s true that some ground sloths had tiny bones embedded in their skin (dermal ossicles) that acted as armor, but they have only been documented in mylodontids (and even then, apparently only in mylodontines) and scelidotheriids (particularly Valgipes, although I’ve seen at least one paper that considers it a mylodontid) (Boscaini et al, 2019). Although osteoderms have been attributed to two megatheriids before (Eremotherium and Megatherium), the former claim has since been refuted, and the osteoderms in question were then reassigned to the mylodontid Ocnotherium giganteum. The supposed Megatherium osteoderms have not been described or figured, but two glyptodonts and two mylodonts are known from the same site they were found, so they could easily belong to any of these (Brambilla, 2019; Cartelle et al., 2019).
- Nevertheless, at 3.7-3.8 tonnes and with sharp claws, Branagh is right that an adult Megatherium would be virtually invulnerable, at least to one Smilodon populator.
- Macrauchenia is traditionally depicted with a short tapir-like trunk for a nose. However, a recent study comparing the cranial shapes of macraucheniids with those of trunked and other mammals suggests that Macrauchenia is more similar to a moose. This suggests it did not have a trunk (Moyano & Giannini, 2018). Ngl, it was a bit disappointing to learn this, and now Macrauchenia looks more “bland” than what we’ve thought for the longest time. But we now have a better understanding of its anatomy, which is always a good thing.
- Branagh is right that Smilodon is not built for long chases. But then the doc seems to depict the Smilodon chasing the litopterns for quite a bit. Not sure if Smilodon would chase their prey for that long.
- The track has the sound of sabers being unsheathed here and there, which I thought was noooooiiiiccce
- The difficulty in hunting Macrauchenia is made very clear. First, Branagh describes the meticulous work needed to be in the correct position and not make any wrong moves, as Macrauchenia are very wary animals.
Second, Macrauchenia are very maneuverable and jinx their pursuers in a chase. Believe it or not, this is actually based on scientific fact! Its limb bones are stronger side-to-side than they are front-to-back (to a significant extent for the femur), suggesting that Macrauchenia’s leg bones were strong enough to withstand the stresses of swerving to another direction to avoid capture. Modern swervers share the same characteristics, unlike modern cursorial herbivores that don’t swerve much (Fariña et al., 2005).
Third, it takes multiple cats to take down the Macrauchenia. Macrauchenia weighed a literal metric ton (Chávez-Aponte et al., 2010). Even though S. populator is much bigger than modern cats, it would still be like taking on a black rhino (at least in terms of size). - While I do think it would be accurate to say Smilodon would avoid bone when making a killing bite onto prey, the claim that they cannot bite into bone is not entirely true. Smilodon was certainly no hyena or T. rex, but there are S. populator skulls with puncture marks matching the shape of their own species’ canines. It can’t be ruled out that these were caused by kicks from prey, but the size, shape, and general shape suggest these were caused by other saber-tooths literally stabbing their teeth through each other’s skulls (Chimento et al., 2019). So if need be, a Smilodon’s teeth can, in fact, go through bone.
- As I’ve noted before, big predatory terror birds were probably already extinct at this point. But the narrative presented here of Smilodon replacing them as top predators is not only false, but dare I say a disservice to these avian predators (okay Infinity Blade, you’re talking about fossil creatures, calm down). The only known phorusrhacid to have gone up north to North America was Titanis walleri. Like I said above, it lived from 5 to 1.8 million years ago, and its remains have only ever been found in North America. This means that either it or its ancestor migrated to North America some time earlier. During this time frame, carnivorans had already long established themselves as apex predators in North America. So not only did Titanis live with mammalian carnivores for over 3 million years, it never knew a world without them. And there is no reason to think that it played second fiddle to cats and dogs, among others.
I suspect the reason people view phorusrhacids this way is because they see that they were birds and think “Oh, iT’s JuSt A bIRd, how can wimpy wittew birb be as deadly as muh preshuss mammalian carnivorz? Muh mammulz ftw”. But damn it, this isn’t some prissy little songbird we’re talking about here. It’s not a 20 lb eagle, and it’s not a “harmless” moa. This is a 150 kg (read: 330 lb) bird with a muscular neck, humongous skull with a hooked tip (that could probably bite with a force of well over a thousand Newtons), and very muscular legs with sharp raptor-like talons on the ends of their toes. In fact, here’s a size comparison-> between Titanis walleri and three of the saber-toothed cat species it lived with. Doesn’t look so wimpy now, does it?
Sorry for the short rant, I’m just frustrated by this myth about terror birds. - Believe it or not, it is, in fact, possible that phorusrhacids might actually have lived to see humans. But not the big apex predators, only the small psilopterines.
- Not a problem I have, but when Branagh tells us that the cubs don’t respond to their mother, I feel like you can already kind of tell that they’re dead. I don’t know if that’s just because I already know what’s going to happen or if they make it that obvious. Either way, the scene where Half-Tooth finds the severed head of one of his cubs is one of the most memorable images I have from this episode. I guess it just helps us show the more vulnerable side of this fearsome predator, kind of like what "Death of a Dynasty" did with Tyrannosaurus.
- Branagh’s comment that the pack is returning to normal and eating well (after he also explains the purpose of infanticide in these lion-inspired Smilodon) is a subtle reminder that this story is about wild animals. This isn’t like the Lion King where everything goes to shit once Scar takes over from Mufasa, life just goes on for the female Smilodon after the brothers kill Half-Tooth’s cubs. Because, as I’m sure everyone reading this review realizes, everyone’s goal here is to pass their genes on to the next generation. Half-Tooth would have done the same when he took over the pack three years before (if the previous male had cubs). The fundamental reason we root for him is because he’s “our” Smilodon (not that there’s anything inherently wrong with that; this is, after all, meant to be in the format of a nature documentary).
But see below for a point that expands upon this. - Megatherium’s depiction as an occasional scavenger here is based on 1996 proposal by Richard Fariña. There were also proposals roughly around this time that Megatherium would flip over glyptodonts and stab them with their claws. Even in the 2000s, though, this proposal was deemed “fanciful”, as Megatherium lacks the dentition of a carnivore and because ground sloth coprolites show no evidence of carnivory (Martin, 2005). This was later confirmed by a 2017, where carbon isotope ratios of bone collagen revealed that Megatherium was indeed a herbivore (Bocherens et al., 2017).
Interestingly, Richard Fariña (along with Luciano Varela) commented on this very study in disagreement (Fariña & Varela, 2018), only to be met with a reply from the original study’s authors (Bocherens et al., 2018). - You know what this portrayal of a bony armor-clad, scavenging omnivore might fit, though? Mylodon darwinii (Tejada et al., 2021). Yes, in contrast to all other ground sloths that have had their diet determined by isotope studies, Mylodon was a genuine omnivore.
- Right before the Megatherium swats one of the brothers, it sort of “nods” its head as if it were saying “You f*cking asked for it” (obviously not the intention, but it’s still funny for me to think of it like that).
Remember kids, don’t mess with a big, bulky, clawed herbivore ten times your size. - Half-Tooth is ballsy enough to spray on the tree even before he’s retaken the clan.
- Expanding on something I said three points ago, Branagh also now comments that the remaining brother was not the dominant one, and as a result the females are less receptive and more aggressive towards him again. This means that the male in charge still needs to be “dominant” enough, otherwise the females basically won’t take his shit. Half-Tooth seems to have had no problem with this when he was in charge. This nuance to the females’ acceptance/rejection of a male is an intriguing one. Are lions also like this?
- Half-Tooth’s 1v1 rematch with the remaining brother is a little more exciting than his fight with both of them towards the beginning of this episode.
One thing I don’t understand, though, is that although Half-Tooth won, how would the females react to seeing him waltz into the territory again? I’m sure they’d recognize him, but they didn’t witness the rematch, so how would they know he won and is officially the dominant male again? I’m going to guess the females might have acted aggressively towards him at first, expecting the brother. But once the brother doesn’t show up for a while, they become more receptive to Half-Tooth again. This is just a theory, I don’t think anyone can say for sure. - The phorusrhacids kinda get their “revenge” by scavenging on the brother’s carcass, I guess?
I’m still sour that WWB did these birds dirty. - Half-Tooth has new cubs, yay!
- ”[Smilodon] survived up until as recently as ten thousand years ago”. Oh yeah, this episode could just as easily have happened after "Mammoth Journey", the real last episode. Remember that folks (especially y’all who aren’t too big on paleontological knowledge).
- Lastly, as for the stated reason for Smilodon’s extinction at the end, there are a ton of papers that go back and forth on the cause of the extinction of the Pleistocene megafauna. I’m just gonna say this: both climate change and human hunting seem to have played a role, with some continents and species likely being affected by one factor more than the other, while others were affected by both. Interestingly, a study from this year found that the megafaunal extinctions in South America were associated with an increasing frequency in Fishtail points and the human population, implicating human predation as the main factor in megafaunal extinctions in South America (Prates & Perez, 2021).
Final verdict:As I was writing this on the Pages app, this episode’s review literally took up five full pages and a bit more. Yes, I do have URLs that take up that space on Pages, but that’s every review. Compare this to my review for the previous episode, where the text I wrote took up not even two full pages. Certainly part of the reason for that is because there were a lot more inaccuracies and caveats to point out this time. Macrauchenia’s nose, Smilodon populator’s actual presence at this time, Megatherium’s diet, and of course, the depiction of phorusrhacids as having been displaced as apex predators. And this is just to name some of them. On the other hand, the story was certainly intriguing in this episode. It’s basically the story of a character that loses everything, and must survive for as long as it can until the iron is once again hot enough to strike. The brutality of nature is also made very apparent in this episode. I think this kind of story was handled about as well as it could have been in this episode. On top of this, we see that Smilodon, as fearsome and renowned as it was and is, has clear struggles throughout its life and its own limitations. For the females, the Macrauchenia require tedious work to successfully hunt, and they have to bank entirely on hiding spots to make sure their cubs are not killed by the brothers (and even this doesn’t work). For the males, they have to be on alert for rival males, while a lone male is on his own, with plenty of creatures around that he’s no match for. We see the same sort of thing with WWD’s own poster child apex predator ( Tyrannosaurus), and it’s good to see it done again here. I do wish that some of the other creatures in this episode were expanded upon with their own arcs (like the Smilodon got in this episode), though. So overall, several things haven’t aged well in terms of scientific accuracy, but the story presented is still great. For that, I still very much enjoy “Sabre Tooth”.
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