Prehistoric Planet (2022) s02e05 Episode Script
North America
Dinosaurs ruled the planet
for over 150 million years.
They occupied almost every corner
of the globe
and came in almost
every shape and size imaginable.
Some were truly extraordinary.
We now know that T. rex was
a powerful swimmer.
Velociraptors were cunning,
feathered hunters,
and that some dinosaurs had
the most bizarre behavior.
But new discoveries
are being made almost every day
that tell us more about life
on this planet 66 million years ago.
This time on Prehistoric Planet,
and new insight
into their quest to find a partner,
and their titanic battles.
Journey to a time
when nature put on its greatest show.
This is Prehistoric Planet 2.
The coast of the vast inland sea
that almost splits North America in half.
Here in the south, as the tide falls,
giants are drawn to the shoreline.
These Alamosaurs are a hundred feet long
and weigh some 80 tons.
They are the largest dinosaurs
on the continent.
So huge that no predator can tackle them.
Some live to a great age.
This male is around 70 years old.
Many in the herd
are likely to be his offspring.
But his long life is now coming to an end.
His immense body is beginning to fail him.
He may not survive the night.
Dawn.
And these troodontids
have picked up a scent.
especially if it might be worth eating.
But biting through a three-inch-thick hide
is beyond their power.
Very frustrating.
North America's top predator.
With his six-inch-long teeth,
tearing through an Alamosaur's
tough skin is not a problem.
T. Rex might be able to bully troodontids,
but a carcass as big as this
soon attracts more formidable competition.
Quetzalcoatlus, a giant pterosaur.
One of the few creatures
that will challenge an adult tyrannosaur.
One strike from its six-foot-long beak
could easily cost T. rex an eye.
Even so,
it seems that he's not going to back down.
But the arrival
changes the odds.
After all,
two beaks are deadlier than one.
For T. rex, this is now too dangerous.
Some fights just aren't worth the risk.
For now, the flying giants have won.
They quickly eat all they can.
But T. rex will almost certainly be back
to claim his share
once his flying rivals leave.
In the waters that surround North America,
there are other giant predators.
But they have no rivals.
Mosasaurs.
They may look like huge sharks,
but they are in fact
a kind of aquatic lizard.
Size, speed and powerful jaws mean
that very few creatures
in the ocean are safe from these hunters.
In the Gulf of Mexico,
this Globidens mosasaur is searching
for one particular kind of prey.
Tiger ammonites, Sphenodiscus.
Every year, huge shoals of females come up
from deep water
and travel towards the coast.
They have all recently mated and each is
now carrying hundreds of fertilized eggs.
The eggs must be laid in the shallows.
And that is where the mosasaur is waiting.
Tiger ammonites are themselves hunters.
The combination of a streamlined profile
and a powerful siphon enables them
to shoot through the water at great speed.
But so can the mosasaur.
Globidens has broad, rounded teeth
that easily crack the ammonites' shell,
releasing the air that keeps them buoyant.
Without it,
they sink helplessly to the seabed.
Before the ammonites can escape,
the mosasaur disables as many as it can.
Finally, time to tuck in.
but even this makes only a small impact
on the overall numbers of ammonites.
Most of the shoal have survived
and continue on their journey
to their spawning grounds.
The rocky seabed here
has many cracks and crevices,
ideal places for attaching
the ammonites' precious egg sacs.
The females then abandon them.
But safe in this coastal nursery,
these eggs will produce
the next generation.
These coastal seas are full of life.
Yet on land,
and only a few hundred miles away,
there is desolation.
Here, powerful movements deep
in the earth's crust are beginning
to raise the Rocky Mountains.
The immense changes in the landscape
have cut off this lake from nearby rivers.
Its waters evaporate in the strong winds
and intense summer sun.
And the minerals that are dissolved in it
are beginning to reach toxic levels.
For most, this water is simply
too poisonous to drink.
Even so, every year this place is visited
by all kinds of animals.
Flocks of Styginetta,
a primitive relative of ducks,
stop here on their travels.
And they're not alone.
Dinosaurs are here too.
A family of Pectinodon.
They're feathered but flightless.
And they're led by their father.
These dinosaurs
and the Styginetta are both drawn here
by a strange seasonal bonanza.
Flies.
The larvae of these insects are able
to filter out the lake's toxic salts,
and, as a consequence,
they thrive in immense numbers.
in their millions.
They are a rich and abundant source
of protein for all the lake's visitors.
Pectinodon are
particularly intelligent dinosaurs.
It doesn't take them long to work out
the best way to collect flies.
But their father has
his eyes on a bigger prize.
Pectinodon are not only intelligent,
they're also very skillful hunters.
The Styginetta are
unaware of his approach.
Success.
A rather more
substantial meal for the family,
and just as well.
The flies will only be here for so long.
And the dinosaur family
will be forced to find food elsewhere.
Further north,
the Rocky Mountains
are still slowly rising.
And as they do,
they create higher, cooler landscapes
where vast pine forests flourish.
As spring arrives,
strange calls echo through the trees.
The mating season has arrived
for one of North America's
most heavily armed dinosaurs.
Triceratops.
Every year, large numbers
of these giants gather in clearings.
The females have come to choose a mate.
The six-ton males fight
and display their strength.
This young male
looks to be in prime condition.
Showing off
and his colorful head-frill.
His horns appear perfect.
Not yet damaged by battle.
To a female, however,
the absence of any wear and tear might
suggest a potentially critical weakness.
A lack of experience.
These gatherings are crucial events
in the lives of Triceratops.
They provide the best chance in the whole
year for the adults to become parents.
And young hopefuls are not
the only ones here.
A 30-year-old male
weighing more than ten tons.
If there's one thing
that he has in spades,
it's decades of wear and tear.
He may be old,
but he's still strong enough
to challenge a young rival, however fit.
The stakes are high,
and neither is willing to back down.
The veteran
and the skill to make it count.
The youngster's horns
are no longer perfect.
The old bull's fighting prowess
certainly seems to have impressed
this female.
For the loser, the mating season is over.
However, his newly won battle scars
might be just enough to attract a female
next time the herds gather here to mate.
For plant-eating dinosaurs
like Triceratops,
the vast forests that cover much of
North America offer plenty to eat
all year round.
But for those that live in
the cold far north of the Americas,
food is much harder to come by.
Here within the Arctic Circle,
for three months of the year,
the sun barely rises.
When its warmth finally returns
feathered Ornithomimus
are quick to take advantage.
These fleet-footed travelers are among
the fastest runners of all dinosaurs.
Capable of covering vast distances
in search of fresh vegetation.
They're so fast that they're
very difficult for predators to catch.
After a tough winter,
this female Nanuqsaur
needs to make a kill soon.
A smaller relative of T. rex,
but more agile and, critically, faster.
There is nowhere to hide,
so a surprise attack is impossible.
Instead, she resorts to creating panic.
and stick with it.
The Ornithomimus' bursts of speed
just give them the edge.
Each failed hunt
bringing her ever closer to starvation.
It may be spring,
but this far north, freezing winds
can quickly cause temperatures to fall.
Flurries of snow and a rocky outcrop
could give the Nanuqsaur a second chance.
Now she's harder to spot.
Every inch forward
brings her closer to success.
She selects her target.
This prize is not only for her.
She is a mother.
Fresh meat for her youngsters.
Perhaps the first for many weeks.
If her babies are to thrive,
she will have to repeat today's success
over and over again.
Until her young are old enough
to join her in the hunt
and eventually fend for themselves.
Here, in this remote
and perhaps most challenging frontier
of the North American continent,
66 million years ago.
This is one of the most dramatic skulls
from our prehistoric planet.
It belonged to a plant-eating dinosaur
called Triceratops.
This dinosaur is instantly recognizable
from the massive frill
at the back of its head.
But 140 years after
the first fossil was found,
scientists are still asking,
"What was the frill for?"
These were enormous structures,
so it's an enormous investment
in bone and in tissue
and also in the muscular effort
to hold these structures up.
All of this investment must mean
that these features are very important
to the animal's way of life.
But how?
Evidence of injury
on Triceratops fossils suggests
that the frills were important
in defense and combat.
We can see lesions on the skull
which are areas where
the skull has been damaged and healed.
We can also see where a predator
has taken a chunk out of a frill.
That might indicate that we're looking
at some sort of defensive structure.
But the story doesn't end there.
Another possibility is that the frill
was used to attract prospective mates.
We see this in living animals
where structures like horns
show off how healthy they are
and who's a good prospect
for producing lots of young.
For a moose,
having large antlers makes
the male more attractive.
Vital when it reaches sexual maturity.
Could the same apply to
the Triceratops' frill?
If it was only for defense,
then we would expect to see them develop
to the same degree
in juveniles as in adults, but we don't.
We see them being much smaller
in the juveniles
and not really developing
into the very, very large structures
of the adults until much later.
This isn't the only evidence
that they were used in sexual display.
The surfaces of the frills
are very heavily grooved.
These grooves probably carried nerves
and blood vessels
that would have supplied
the skin growing over those frills.
This may have been very brightly colored,
a big surface area for the animal
to show off to potential mates.
Scientists now believe that
the Triceratops' best-known feature
was truly multipurpose.
but also ideal for attracting a mate.
It would have been
an awe-inspiring sight to friend or foe.
for over 150 million years.
They occupied almost every corner
of the globe
and came in almost
every shape and size imaginable.
Some were truly extraordinary.
We now know that T. rex was
a powerful swimmer.
Velociraptors were cunning,
feathered hunters,
and that some dinosaurs had
the most bizarre behavior.
But new discoveries
are being made almost every day
that tell us more about life
on this planet 66 million years ago.
This time on Prehistoric Planet,
and new insight
into their quest to find a partner,
and their titanic battles.
Journey to a time
when nature put on its greatest show.
This is Prehistoric Planet 2.
The coast of the vast inland sea
that almost splits North America in half.
Here in the south, as the tide falls,
giants are drawn to the shoreline.
These Alamosaurs are a hundred feet long
and weigh some 80 tons.
They are the largest dinosaurs
on the continent.
So huge that no predator can tackle them.
Some live to a great age.
This male is around 70 years old.
Many in the herd
are likely to be his offspring.
But his long life is now coming to an end.
His immense body is beginning to fail him.
He may not survive the night.
Dawn.
And these troodontids
have picked up a scent.
especially if it might be worth eating.
But biting through a three-inch-thick hide
is beyond their power.
Very frustrating.
North America's top predator.
With his six-inch-long teeth,
tearing through an Alamosaur's
tough skin is not a problem.
T. Rex might be able to bully troodontids,
but a carcass as big as this
soon attracts more formidable competition.
Quetzalcoatlus, a giant pterosaur.
One of the few creatures
that will challenge an adult tyrannosaur.
One strike from its six-foot-long beak
could easily cost T. rex an eye.
Even so,
it seems that he's not going to back down.
But the arrival
changes the odds.
After all,
two beaks are deadlier than one.
For T. rex, this is now too dangerous.
Some fights just aren't worth the risk.
For now, the flying giants have won.
They quickly eat all they can.
But T. rex will almost certainly be back
to claim his share
once his flying rivals leave.
In the waters that surround North America,
there are other giant predators.
But they have no rivals.
Mosasaurs.
They may look like huge sharks,
but they are in fact
a kind of aquatic lizard.
Size, speed and powerful jaws mean
that very few creatures
in the ocean are safe from these hunters.
In the Gulf of Mexico,
this Globidens mosasaur is searching
for one particular kind of prey.
Tiger ammonites, Sphenodiscus.
Every year, huge shoals of females come up
from deep water
and travel towards the coast.
They have all recently mated and each is
now carrying hundreds of fertilized eggs.
The eggs must be laid in the shallows.
And that is where the mosasaur is waiting.
Tiger ammonites are themselves hunters.
The combination of a streamlined profile
and a powerful siphon enables them
to shoot through the water at great speed.
But so can the mosasaur.
Globidens has broad, rounded teeth
that easily crack the ammonites' shell,
releasing the air that keeps them buoyant.
Without it,
they sink helplessly to the seabed.
Before the ammonites can escape,
the mosasaur disables as many as it can.
Finally, time to tuck in.
but even this makes only a small impact
on the overall numbers of ammonites.
Most of the shoal have survived
and continue on their journey
to their spawning grounds.
The rocky seabed here
has many cracks and crevices,
ideal places for attaching
the ammonites' precious egg sacs.
The females then abandon them.
But safe in this coastal nursery,
these eggs will produce
the next generation.
These coastal seas are full of life.
Yet on land,
and only a few hundred miles away,
there is desolation.
Here, powerful movements deep
in the earth's crust are beginning
to raise the Rocky Mountains.
The immense changes in the landscape
have cut off this lake from nearby rivers.
Its waters evaporate in the strong winds
and intense summer sun.
And the minerals that are dissolved in it
are beginning to reach toxic levels.
For most, this water is simply
too poisonous to drink.
Even so, every year this place is visited
by all kinds of animals.
Flocks of Styginetta,
a primitive relative of ducks,
stop here on their travels.
And they're not alone.
Dinosaurs are here too.
A family of Pectinodon.
They're feathered but flightless.
And they're led by their father.
These dinosaurs
and the Styginetta are both drawn here
by a strange seasonal bonanza.
Flies.
The larvae of these insects are able
to filter out the lake's toxic salts,
and, as a consequence,
they thrive in immense numbers.
in their millions.
They are a rich and abundant source
of protein for all the lake's visitors.
Pectinodon are
particularly intelligent dinosaurs.
It doesn't take them long to work out
the best way to collect flies.
But their father has
his eyes on a bigger prize.
Pectinodon are not only intelligent,
they're also very skillful hunters.
The Styginetta are
unaware of his approach.
Success.
A rather more
substantial meal for the family,
and just as well.
The flies will only be here for so long.
And the dinosaur family
will be forced to find food elsewhere.
Further north,
the Rocky Mountains
are still slowly rising.
And as they do,
they create higher, cooler landscapes
where vast pine forests flourish.
As spring arrives,
strange calls echo through the trees.
The mating season has arrived
for one of North America's
most heavily armed dinosaurs.
Triceratops.
Every year, large numbers
of these giants gather in clearings.
The females have come to choose a mate.
The six-ton males fight
and display their strength.
This young male
looks to be in prime condition.
Showing off
and his colorful head-frill.
His horns appear perfect.
Not yet damaged by battle.
To a female, however,
the absence of any wear and tear might
suggest a potentially critical weakness.
A lack of experience.
These gatherings are crucial events
in the lives of Triceratops.
They provide the best chance in the whole
year for the adults to become parents.
And young hopefuls are not
the only ones here.
A 30-year-old male
weighing more than ten tons.
If there's one thing
that he has in spades,
it's decades of wear and tear.
He may be old,
but he's still strong enough
to challenge a young rival, however fit.
The stakes are high,
and neither is willing to back down.
The veteran
and the skill to make it count.
The youngster's horns
are no longer perfect.
The old bull's fighting prowess
certainly seems to have impressed
this female.
For the loser, the mating season is over.
However, his newly won battle scars
might be just enough to attract a female
next time the herds gather here to mate.
For plant-eating dinosaurs
like Triceratops,
the vast forests that cover much of
North America offer plenty to eat
all year round.
But for those that live in
the cold far north of the Americas,
food is much harder to come by.
Here within the Arctic Circle,
for three months of the year,
the sun barely rises.
When its warmth finally returns
feathered Ornithomimus
are quick to take advantage.
These fleet-footed travelers are among
the fastest runners of all dinosaurs.
Capable of covering vast distances
in search of fresh vegetation.
They're so fast that they're
very difficult for predators to catch.
After a tough winter,
this female Nanuqsaur
needs to make a kill soon.
A smaller relative of T. rex,
but more agile and, critically, faster.
There is nowhere to hide,
so a surprise attack is impossible.
Instead, she resorts to creating panic.
and stick with it.
The Ornithomimus' bursts of speed
just give them the edge.
Each failed hunt
bringing her ever closer to starvation.
It may be spring,
but this far north, freezing winds
can quickly cause temperatures to fall.
Flurries of snow and a rocky outcrop
could give the Nanuqsaur a second chance.
Now she's harder to spot.
Every inch forward
brings her closer to success.
She selects her target.
This prize is not only for her.
She is a mother.
Fresh meat for her youngsters.
Perhaps the first for many weeks.
If her babies are to thrive,
she will have to repeat today's success
over and over again.
Until her young are old enough
to join her in the hunt
and eventually fend for themselves.
Here, in this remote
and perhaps most challenging frontier
of the North American continent,
66 million years ago.
This is one of the most dramatic skulls
from our prehistoric planet.
It belonged to a plant-eating dinosaur
called Triceratops.
This dinosaur is instantly recognizable
from the massive frill
at the back of its head.
But 140 years after
the first fossil was found,
scientists are still asking,
"What was the frill for?"
These were enormous structures,
so it's an enormous investment
in bone and in tissue
and also in the muscular effort
to hold these structures up.
All of this investment must mean
that these features are very important
to the animal's way of life.
But how?
Evidence of injury
on Triceratops fossils suggests
that the frills were important
in defense and combat.
We can see lesions on the skull
which are areas where
the skull has been damaged and healed.
We can also see where a predator
has taken a chunk out of a frill.
That might indicate that we're looking
at some sort of defensive structure.
But the story doesn't end there.
Another possibility is that the frill
was used to attract prospective mates.
We see this in living animals
where structures like horns
show off how healthy they are
and who's a good prospect
for producing lots of young.
For a moose,
having large antlers makes
the male more attractive.
Vital when it reaches sexual maturity.
Could the same apply to
the Triceratops' frill?
If it was only for defense,
then we would expect to see them develop
to the same degree
in juveniles as in adults, but we don't.
We see them being much smaller
in the juveniles
and not really developing
into the very, very large structures
of the adults until much later.
This isn't the only evidence
that they were used in sexual display.
The surfaces of the frills
are very heavily grooved.
These grooves probably carried nerves
and blood vessels
that would have supplied
the skin growing over those frills.
This may have been very brightly colored,
a big surface area for the animal
to show off to potential mates.
Scientists now believe that
the Triceratops' best-known feature
was truly multipurpose.
but also ideal for attracting a mate.
It would have been
an awe-inspiring sight to friend or foe.