General Nature and Paleodocumentary discussion

[theropod]

I'm curious what else streaming could do to the whole paleo-documentary genre. We're already getting the first high-profile indie paleo-documentaries like Forgotten Bloodlines: Agate. If there's more of them, I wonder if any of them will ever get the same cult-following as the Trilogy of Life or PP (although matching the production values will probably be a greater challenge).

I’ve wondered how much cheaper and easier those production values might become to achieve for independent, low-budget productions with the rapid evolution of AI that comes on top of the already rapidly evolving CGI technology.
WWD back in ’99 had a massive budget of 6 million pounds (although of course that still pales in comparison to the budget typical of major feature films), but by now animated short films (with sometimes quite a high standard of animation) are being produced left and right by very small production teams or even single individuals.
And if anything, the cost and difficulty is going to go down further in the future, so maybe that will open up possibilities for getting more independently produced documentaries like Agate, and in that way getting more coverage of "niche" topics in paleontology than we would be likely to get from big streaming services or public broadcasters.

[dinosauria101]

Oct 11, 2023 3:39:32 GMT 5 theropod said:

And if anything, the cost and difficulty is going to go down further in the future, so maybe that will open up possibilities for getting more independently produced documentaries like Agate, and in that way getting more coverage of "niche" topics in paleontology than we would be likely to get from big streaming services or public broadcasters.

It's worth noting that if Forgotten Bloodlines is successful (postulated to most likely be by catching the attention of broadcasters by successful Kickstarters), they could make more. I am most DEFINITELY up for that - and in saying so I think I speak for literally all of us.

A successful Kickstarter not only means this one project will be completed, but opens the door for many more prehistory shows in the future!  

/description

[dinosauria101]

Here's probably a better proposal for a new documentary than the Tyrannosaurus species idea. TL;DR: I am suggesting 'The Hunt' but with dinosaurs, presented in a Planet Dinosaur-esque format to convey information about how we know what we know on predatory dinosaurs hunting. Think a documentary full of clips like the Planet Dinosaur Allosaurus hunt for a wide variety of predatory dinosaurs.


I was looking at the older comments on the Prehistoric Planet thread and they had me thinking.

Oct 1, 2023 3:00:28 GMT 5 Infinity Blade said:

Sept 30, 2023 23:08:43 GMT 5 dinosauria101 said:

But as much as I like what Patchy the Pirate has to say in Infinity Blade 's comment, there is no meme or word in the English language that can appropriately voice my disappointment at no sauropod hunt - the only thing that could would be some sauropod-hunting Tarbosaurus in a future palaeodocumentary capable of appropriately expressing their hunger for excitedly-hunted sauropod meat via intensifying the hunt after their being denied some by PP.

Not that the creators of PhP really knew this at the time, but now I'm curious as to how Tarbosaurus would hunt, especially large prey, in light of a recent paper (which I posted the abstract and link to in the animal feeding apparatus thread). It found that for a tyrannosaurid, it had comparatively less room for jaw adductor muscles for its skull length. As a result, its total bite force was actually somewhat less than that of Daspletosaurus, despite the latter having a skull slightly shorter, while T. rex seems to blow Tarbosaurus out of the water. While it is rather a myth that Tarbosaurus had a narrower snout than T. rex proportionately, it did have a narrower posterior region of the skull, so it doesn't surprise me that it had less room for jaw adductors.

When comparing the adductor chamber and skull lengths of tyrannosaurids through ontogeny with that of similarly sized tyrannosauroids, the juvenile tyrannosaurines Tarbosaurus (juvenile) and Raptorex exhibit a greater adductor chamber area (19.76 and 21.28 cm²; cranium lengths: 30 and 29 cm) than the small early tyrannosauroids Dilong and Proceratosaurus (12.36 and 10.71 cm²; cranium lengths: 22 and 23 cm). Among medium-sized tyrannosauroids, the juvenile Tyrannosaurus (cranium length: 67 cm) has a larger adductor chamber area (200 cm²) than the similarly sized Teratophoneus (177.41 cm²; cranium length: 66 cm). Among large tyrannosaurids, the adult Tyrannosaurus has a much larger adductor chamber (992 cm²; cranium length: 130 cm) than other large tyrannosauroids such as Daspletosaurus (433 cm²; cranium length: 102 cm), Gorgosaurus (302 cm²; cranium length: 84 cm), Tarbosaurus (329 cm²; cranium length: 110 cm), and Yutyrannus (67 cm²; cranium length: 60 cm). Adult Tyrannosaurus has a wider and longer subtemporal fenestra than in other tyrannosauroids, indicating greater muscle force for its body size (Figure 3) (~30% greater than for a Daspletosaurus cranium scaled to the same length). Daspletosaurus exhibits a higher adductor chamber area than Tarbosaurus (Figure 3), with a longer but narrower skull.

anatomypubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/ar.25326

I don't think it really made up for this with more blade-like teeth either. In cross section its teeth were indeed oval and wider anteroposteriorly than laterally, but they're still only said to be "slightly" compressed (Maleev, 1955).

With this difference between their feeding apparata, it would be neat to see paleontologists' take on how Tarbosaurus would hunt, if it differed at all. Given that we know Tarbosaurus fed on (and sometimes must have hunted) large dinosaurs like Deinocheirus and the resident large sauropods and ornithopods, it was clearly doing something right with that maw. My only guess is it basically just went "f*ck it" and went after big dinosaurs anyway (maybe it just shook and pulled with its neck even more or something idk). Grey wolves, for instance, have weaker skulls and less robust canine teeth than spotted hyenas, but to my knowledge they can take prey every bit as big as what hyena packs can take down with the same killing technique (i.e. multiple shallow, slashing bites from all the pack members).

I know dinosaur power scaling isn't your cup of tea anymore, but I do think this is an interesting and legitimate consideration.

EDIT: I might actually have been kind of wrong with regards to Tarbosaurus' teeth (Reichel, 2012).

When excluding PC1 (size) from the analysis, the ordinance plot shows that some of the tyrannosaurid groups cluster (Fig. 3), with a significant amount of overlap. The ordinance plot in Fig. 3 shows that teeth in Tarbosaurus have the greatest range in the FABL/BW proportion, in that they range from the anteroposteriorly shortest and labiolingually widest teeth to the anteroposteriorly longest and labiolingually narrowest ones in the data set.

Interestingly, Tarbosaurus had the most amount of variation in tooth morphology out of the tyrannosaurids in this dataset. That included the most labiolingually compressed teeth in it (as well as the exact opposite). So maybe its teeth were at least somewhat better suited for cutting flesh, after all.

Oct 1, 2023 5:02:26 GMT 5 dinosauria101 said:

I would actually agree with you on the interest/legitimacy: in fact I would be interested in knowing inasmuch as it would affect palaeodocumentary depictions, despite not caring about dinosaur power scaling anymore. Shaking and pulling prey is not exactly standard protocol for CGI tyrannosaurids thus far: might be an interesting twist narrative/plot-wise for Tarbosaurus palaeodocumentaries.

However, here's something besides Tarbosaurus I think you should be aware of. One thing that excerpt makes me remember with the mention of Yutyrannus is that shortly before I decided dinosaur power scaling was no longer my cup of tea, I was doing some that suggested at least one Yutyrannus specimen would have had a VERY strong bite force for its size. 
From what I remember, the specimen in question was one I estimated to be about 418 kilos, but had a larger (80cm) and more robust skull than an Allosaurus (79cm skull) which was estimated to be 1600 kilos (so 3.8X bigger) and have an 8724N bite force.

From what I remember about how to scale bite force, this Yutyrannus would probably have a bite force proportionally stronger than Stan the T. rex given the size estimate of 5900kg I was using at the time.
Even assuming said Yutyrannus had the same bite force as that Allosaurus without taking into account the greater depth, width, and fused nasals of the skull, it ends up right within the range of Stan's estimated bite force (5900/418^0.67*8724=51404N, at the higher end of the 35-57kN estimate range for Stan). And if we were to take into account the >8724N bite force the Yutyrannus would have, it would certainly bite proportionally harder than Stan.

The reason for Yutyrannus catching up to/beating Stan despite NOT being as specialized for bite force probably is much bigger skull than Stan relative to its size. If I remember right Stan has a 1.4m skull, so a hypothetical Stan sized Yutyrannus would have a 1.93m skull - that's a discrepancy dimensionally of about 38%.

All this was on the Discord. You can view the conversation here: https://discord.com/channels/410432844209586176/410433716666499073/809386967011557396

Now, as much as I would be lying if I said I was still interested in or had any idea how well this holds up to what is known nowadays, I figured you could benefit from knowing given how it covers broadly the same thing as that paper. After all, that's what friends are for.

I went and checked out that study more closely to see how well it might serve as a basis for such a palaeodocumentary. 2 things in particular stand out.

First, Yutyrannus again. This doesn't just tie into my quoted comment, it ties into my wanting Yutyrannus palaeodocumentaries and if those make it on screen, might even be somewhat of a solution for PP's utter failure to depict their Tarbosaurus hunting sauropods despite the perfect opportunity to do so.

Large proceratosaurids such as Yutyrannus possessed a deeper skull and lacked the large, elaborate cranial crests in contrast to small proceratosaurids (Guanlong) (Rauhut et al., 2010; Xu et al., 2006, 2012). Similar to the reconstructed nasals of Proceratosaurus, the nasals of Yutyrannus exhibited low stress, and may support that the crests of Yutyrannus would have been capable of resisting high forces, especially with larger prey. Specimens of Yutyrannus at different growth stages (juveniles and adults) were recovered (Xu et al., 2012). Yutyrannus may have exhibited niche partitioning with juveniles pursuing smaller prey (Psittacosaurus and maniraptoriformes) and adults feeding on larger prey (Dongebititan) (Therrien et al., 2021; Xing et al., 2012; Zhou, 2006). Sauropod material was recovered in the quarry where the Yutyrannus specimens were found, suggesting that sauropods were a potential food source for the large proceratosaurid (Xing et al., 2012; Xu et al., 2012).

What's more, I took a look at the study as far as Yutyrannus was concerned and they are going off of something which puts a totally new twist on the way I was looking at things. This study is going off of the size of the adductor chamber for their bite force estimates instead of just the length, depth, and (probable) width like I was.

And in retrospect, I should have too. In spite of how robust and proportionally enormous the skull of Yutyrannus is, that adductor chamber is TINY - in fact I bet Allosaurus SMA 0005 has a larger adductor chamber than Yutyrannus ZCDM V5001 (above comparison) despite having a much more narrow and shallow skull.
That would have to explain why their bite force estimate for a 60cm Yutyrannus skull doesn't even reach the 8724N I was certain was an underestimate for ZCDM V5001 when scaled up to the 80cm skull - admittedly they guesstimated their Yutyrannus skull width to be (IMO) unjustifiably narrow with a direct estimate from Dilong, but that does not affect the tiny adductor chamber. 

Funny enough, this would actually be more or less the exact same premise as the (outdated) PD clip I linked above. Yutyrannus having a surprisingly weak bite relative to how robust its skull was and how proportionally large its skull was could be a great investigation for a palaeodocumentary - and unlike with Allosaurus having a weaker bite than a lion it would be actually true, therefore making it reasonable to make a palaeodocumentary from.
And I think it would be covering ground that PD would have had it known about Yutyrannus: Infinity Blade made a point about this and I wholeheartedly agree. So it only seems right.

I think Yutyrannus would definitely have been featured had they known about it back then. The idea of a "feathered killer dinosaur" is just way too attractive.

Not to mention they could always cover Tarbosaurus as well, addressing both my and Infinity Blade's curiosity in those quotes.

Next, they will be covering a ton of predatory dinosaur species in future studies. Such studies would be excellent basis for a Planet Dinosaur/The Hunt hybrid:

This study promises fruitful replication of mechanical feeding analyses in other under-studied theropod clades, such as Allosauroidea, Spinosauridae, and Abelisauridae. The inclusion of non-tyrannosauroid theropods will facilitate a detailed comparative analysis of tyrannosauroid biology and evolution with other theropods.

All things considered, I think it would be well worth it for every hunting method in this study and in future ones they conduct to appear in these documentaries to get the same effect as the amount of species shown in PD and The Hunt. 

Anyone else up for this?