r/walkingwithdinosaurs

Walking With Beasts

Ep1: Mammals on the Rise/Corral Bluffs, Colorado/Paleogene, 65 mya

Why include it?

• To show terrestrial ecosystem recovery post-KT extinction
• To show mammals alongside overgrown dinosaur skeletons
• To show the last relics of a former age die off, and to show a new bunch of beasts emerging
• To show just how fast the mammals skyrocketed in size once the competition cleared
• The story of an Eoconodon who regularly seeks to expand the size of his territory, for he is the largest land mammal on the planet right now and most of all, craves ever larger hunting grounds. As he eliminates all competition on the borders of his sphere of influence, he winds up scrapping with a variety of other individuals and makes so many enemies it stops being sustainable. As he ages, more creatures invade his territory and eventually drive him out; he is forced to become a lone wanderer and is unceremoniously killed when he impatiently messes up a hunt, and a Taeniolabis bites a major artery and causes him to bleed to death. There's definitely some Ancient Animal Tales influence leaking into this one, but I view our protagonist as more of a one-man Mapogo coalition.

Ep2: The Warmest World/Margaret Formation+Monte Bolca, Nunavut+Italy/Paleogene, 50 mya

• Copout! I'm using two formations here. Monte Bolca to show off how marine ecosystems are recovering post-KT, and the Margaret Formation to show off the PETM as well as the beginnings of the Azolla event.
• Together, I get to show off early lampriforms, Amphistium, a new kind of marine reptile (snakes!), as well as mammals like Coryphodon and the dinosaurs continuing to achieve megafaunal forms in the form of Gastornis.
• Freshwater Arctic!!!
• To show the restructuring of forests after the dinosaurs died
• The story of a Crocodilus vicetinus who swims off the coasts of Italy in the tropical Tethys sea, feeding on the wide variety of fish that call the local reefs home. One day, a storm surge sweeps him away while he basks, and the exhausted crocodile is sent spiraling out of the Tethys through the Global Equatorial Current. Once the storm ends, he's many miles out to sea, and with his navigational abilities disoriented, he winds up in the Arctic Ocean. Luckily, the Arctic is warm enough for crocodiles (though it's not particularly comfortable for him), and he explores the tropical forests and swims through the vast sheet of floating ferns. He makes himself at home, and mistakenly mates with an Allognathosuchus. But winter is coming soon, and while the Allognathosuchus is adapted to these conditions...he is not. Retreating back towards the warmth, he finally reorients himself and against all odds returns to a life of comfort in the tropics. He won't ever see his original home again, but he'll survive.

Why include it?

Ep3: Divide and Conquer/Jebel Qatrani, Egypt/Paleogene, 35 mya

Why include it?

• To highlight the diversification of the mammals.
• We can show off some of the first big whales in the form of the great basilosaurs; some earlier groups of PROPER huge mammals like Arsinoitherium, early primates and proboscideans...the mammals are coming into their own and expanding into new niches left and right.
• Mild acknowledgement of the Eocene-Oligocene transition and global cooling that defined the late Eocene: The environment is no longer extremely hot and warm; having gone from a really hot 82 degrees to a more subtropical 75 degrees at maximum; and the sea level has fallen a tad as well, creating expanses of swamp along the coast.
• The story of an Arsinoitherium who was born with dwarfism. Due to his small size, he was attacked by predators more often than others of his age. His survival was in part a matter of luck (even dwarf giraffes have somehow made it to adulthood in the wild, and an Arsinoitherium is much-better defended than that), in part a matter of sticking nearby bigger males, and in part a matter of him still being too big for many predators once he got "big" enough. He is shown repelling several Akhnatenavus, but only barely manages to escape a big hyaenodont that's a relative of Sekhmetops (which evolved a bit later, but still). And he's pushed around by the Phiomia, who see him as an easy target. As he competes for mates for the first time, he's beaten soundly by a rather large, aggressive male individual who injures him significantly. As the next year rolls around, however, he one day snaps at the Phiomia and realizes his low-slung stature gives him a competitive advantage; as he can gore from underneath and his opponents need to awkwardly crouch to fight him head-on. Bizarrely enough, he is able to twist what would normally be a disadvantage into an advantage.
• Based on that one elephant with dwarfism who also somehow won fights against bigger elephants for this exact reason.

Ep4: Great Herds/White River, Nebraska/Paleogene, 25 mya

Why include it?

• The Oligocene hosts some of the first grasslands - bunch grasses have been found in large numbers as early as 30 million years ago.
• With the expansion of the plains comes the expansion of grazing mammals. Ungulates and carnivorans begin to come into their own, and giant terror birds stalk the plains. With the development of vast open spaces comes the development of megaherds that sweep across the new grasslands.
• Hellpigs! Oreodonts! Skittish leggy dudes! Early horses and rhinos! Not to mention the nimravids and bear-dogs.
• The story of a Miohippus who leaves her birth herd. Along with ten other individuals, she forms a small group of mares who are looking for a stallion to reproduce with. Being the least assertive individual, she follows the lead mare. Soon enough, a pair of Daephoneus attacks the group, and being easily-frazzled, she breaks away but is miraculously saved when an Archaeotherium chases them off for being in its territory. Now alone, she immediately seeks the nearest watering hole, and is unlucky enough to be faced with a dust storm. Finally catching up to the watering hole, she camps around it for a few days until the herd comes, and then she joins it - but being the youngest and the last to join, she is once again the lowest-ranked mare. As the herd grazes, she is constantly chased away from the good feeding spots, but her increased vigilance compared to the others saves her when the herd is attacked by a Hoplophoneus. By virtue of being in a highly dangerous spot, our protagonist remains extremely stressed but also climbs the ranks by pure happenstance...and she finally gets the good grass.

Ep5: Cruel Sea/Pisco Formation, Peru/Neogene, 10 mya

Why include it?

• An ecosystem with some of the most bizarre and iconic assemblages of marine life out there
• We show marine life earlier in the Cenozoic in previous episodes; this is the payoff. Strange sloths, dolphins and whales, "toothed" birds, and the obligatory enormous Megalodon.
• The sea is at its peak right now, and that's beautiful to me.
• The story of a mid-sized female Megalodon who makes her way to her nursery grounds in Panama from Pisco in Peru. An incredibly large animal, she is joined by marine sloths, Pelagornis, an array of smaller fish that feed on her scraps, an ecosystem of penguins and seals that eat said fish, and big whales that are...sometimes dead and edible, sometimes alive and edible, and sometimes huge and belligerent. As well as her bigger cousins, who she can't quite read the intentions of but fully intends to avoid. In the end, however, she makes it out alive - but will her children?

Ep6: Shifting Dynamics/Cerro Azul Formation, Argentina/Neogene, 7 mya

Why include it?

• An excuse to show the native South American wildlife going extinct before the GABI
• But also an excuse to show off some of the earliest South American migrants; and a way to have some funny scenes where the native animals react to, say, a skunk for the first time
• An introduction to the many powerful and unique animals of the Miocene
• The story of a massive female Argentavis. Although her strong legs allow her to pursue prey overland, and she is very much opportunistic, her neuroanatomy predisposes her towards scavenging; and she primarily follows, say, Devincenzia around to take their kills after they're done. Without big corpses to feast upon, she could not survive - yet for some reason, there seems to be less and less of them available as of late, likely due to climate change. The Thylacosmilus and Devincenzia will probably live through this phase of the Miocene, and our protagonist is lucky enough to be in an area of comparatively high prey availability, but her mate died a few years back and she hasn't seen another yet. In the meantime, something weird is happening: She sees something new pop up - Cyonasua. She's never seen anything like them, and watches the bizarre omnivores with some hesitation. Eventually, she goes on the attack; and miraculously manages to latch onto one and drag it away. Seeing as their brother is now a lost cause, the other Cyonasua leave. Months later, she starts going after a Thylacosmilus, who has led her to a sloth kill. The Thylacosmilus puts up a good fight and refuses to be bullied away, but another new intruder rolls up: The skunk. Having a fairly weak sense of smell, Argentavis is happy to take advantage of the situation. And because this kill is a fairly big one, it attracts another Argentavis. It's another female, so there's not going to be any reproduction here, but either way the two of them happily elope and become bird lesbians.

Ep7: Bright Minds/Hadar, Ethiopia/Neogene, 3 mya

Why include it?

• The beginning of the human journey.
• A sort of precursor to modern African savannahs.
• A lot of underrated wildlife that should be focused on just as much as the hominins, if not more
• The story of a young low-ranking male Australopithecus afarensis. He uses tools, like all the others of his kind, in order to access new feeding opportunities, reaching high-up fruits and butchering carcasses. But he's smaller than the dominant male, who rules with an iron fist and intimidates everyone else with his size. One day, lightning starts a grass fire. Being a rather curious animal, he investigates, and realizes it hurts. Putting the fire on a stick, he realizes that he can make other Australopithecus hurt as well, and chucks it at the big dominant male in an attempt at gaining dominance. He succeeds, but proves to be a terrible leader who doesn't care at all about the nearby Megantereon so long as it kills his competitors, attempts to kill a baby himself to get a female into estrous, and lets his overinflated ego almost spark an outright war with a neighboring troop. The females and younger males thus decide to perform a premediated murder, collecting and storing multiple disk-shaped rocks and jumping him before bashing his brains in.

Ep8: Land Down Under/Darling Downs, Australia/Quaternary, 150,000 kya

Why include it?

• I'm going 200,000 kya here to show off a Pleistocene ecosystem pre-humans
• Desert/outback environment is an interesting and visually striking one
• Unique Australian fauna
• In the midst of a previous glacial cycle, talk about indirect aridification via CO2/vegetation loss
• Big marsupials!!!
• The story of a mid-sized Meiolania who has lived for several years feeding on grass and scrub. It's the wet season, and he uses his enhanced sense of smell to track down a female's pheromones. He's slow, and the journey is long, and his fear of multiple predators around - especially Thylacoleo and Megalania - means he spends much of his time protecting himself and hunkering down, using his horns to stick his defenses outward. Because of this, another male has gotten there first. He produces a musk in order to initiate turtle combat, but he solidly loses, as his rival is bigger. Having been unable to mate during the season, he instead turns his attention towards making it through the dry season alive. The climate is unfavorable, as the lack of plants has caused desertification in the area. Like many "turtles," he is capable of aestivating through the harsh conditions; though he can gain moisture from eating some of the plants, he soon runs out and is forced to wait it out in a secluded cave, head inside and armored tail sticking out, until the rains come. He's generally not bothered (except by Thylacoleo, who gnaw on his tail a bit and decide he's more trouble than it's worth, and by curious wallabies that shelter above the cave). As the rain falls, wildflowers begin to bloom, and Meiolania comes back out after several months. The rain is being enjoyed by every animal, and as it briefly lulls, he picks up the scent of another female. Perhaps this time, things will go better.

Ep9: Mammoth Journey/Denisova, Russia/Quaternary, 90,000 kya

Why include it?

• We're going for Denisova due to Denny, the hybrid human fossil. That being said I don't think we're going to kill her off here lol
• Of course we were going to highlight a mammoth steppe here
• The most recent glaciation is an iconic one!
• Mammoths! Cave lions! Hyenas galore!
• We know so much about so many of these creatures.
• The story of a Denisovan-Neanderthal hybrid. After witnessing her father get gored by a woolly rhinoceros, she gained a quite-reasonable fear of big animals. But she's growing, and at the 13 (equivalent to 15 in sapiens), the expectation from her clan is that she learns to hunt the enormous megafauna that come down from the northern tundras during the winter. She witnesses a mammoth calf fall into a bog, and the mammoths mourning. The clan decides this is the opportunity to strike, cornering a mammoth as they're about to leave to prevent it from escaping and chucking spears into its hide. Another mammoth rushes to its defense, severely injuring two members of the clan, but the first mammoth is eventually taken down and every part of its body used. One of the hunters dies of her wounds. Having been an important figure, she is buried with the feathers of a golden eagle. Only a few days later, she is taking care of the remaining wounded man; but as night falls she awakes to blood and screaming - a cave lion has decided to take advantage of his injured state. Screaming to alert her Neanderthal and Denisovan bretheren, she picks up the injured man's spear and gets in a good, clean stab in an adrenaline-filled rage. Her relatives come in with the torches and drive off the injured lion. Having gained the confidence to defeat such a deadly animal, she now agrees to participate in the reindeer hunt when the time comes - and she does quite well, indeed. However, out of all of these animals, the only one that will last in the end is the reindeer - predation by Homo will take out most of the megafauna, and the other Homo species will be subsumed into sapiens.

Ep10: The Natural Trap/La Brea, California/Quaternary, 20,000 kya

Why include it?

• Show that Homo sapiens is now the dominant human species
• Deal with records of fire and megafaunal extirpation by humans
• A vast array of predators and some interesting herbivores as well
• The natural consequence of the GABI; we saw it begin in ep 7 and this is the followup
• Use modern fauna to show that the world is just ours...with more in it
• Follows two lineages: Smilodon and Columbian mammoth. The Smilodon behave much like a pack of wolves; and their pack is made of two parents and their children. They encounter a tribe of Homo sapiens; who angrily wave torches and spears at them to ward them off. The humans burn paths through forest vegetation, control pests of their favored plants, and use fire to increase acorn production in groves of oak trees. The Camelops have already begun to move out as their favored plants are being burned away. The Smilodon, too, have tried to move out, but the issue is that they're in the middle of multiple Smilodon territories already. They don't really have a good way out of the situation, and are now restricted to the space they're in. Because they have less resources, they can sustain less individuals, and they lose most of the territorial conflicts. Our protagonist Smilodon tries to hunt a long-horned bison, but she is quickly driven off by more humans, who steal her kill. Meanwhile, the Columbian mammoths migrate towards the tar pits as well. One individual - the matriarch - shows multiple wounds, and weapons are sticking out of her body, but she made it. The matriarch is already injured, and the humans know how to capitalize on it. They toss even more spears into her hide and prevent her from advancing or retreating with a wall of flames, ensuring her doom. Meanwhile, angry and desperate, the Smilodon protagonist attempts to kill a newborn mammoth. Horrible idea, in a sense - she ends up effectively trounced by the mother. The baby, however, now has a harder time keeping up with the herd, and eventually dies of exhaustion...right in the tar pit. The Smilodon's pack all dive in to dig in, but our protagonist sees dire wolves coming over to take the kill as well. She realizes that the big mammoth is dead and goes to eat that instead, but is chased off the carcass, so she goes into the tar pit as well. The Smilodona and Aenocyon squabble, but as everyone sinks into the tar, one can't help but feel that it was all quite a pointless endeavor. Even an Arctodus comes in to join in on the fun, but he quickly retreats once he sees what's going on. Meanwhile, for the mammoths, the second oldest female is forced to take the matriarch's position; her first executive decision is to leave. There's less food due to the burning trees. This place isn't safe, and she had underestimated the power of humans in the past. But as she turns tail and heads out, along with the camels and some other megaherbivores...she is immediately met with another tribe of humans. They aren't doing anything of note, right now, but she is intelligent, and she knows it's only a matter of time until they get hungry.

If this "documentary" was a Surviving Earth-like (8 eps) I'd probably get rid of the Darling Downs and Jebel Qatrani episodes, if it was a WWD-like (6 eps) I'd probably also get rid of the Pisco and La Brea episodes.

And because I forgot to do this with the WWD post:

If this "documentary" was a Surviving Earth-like (8 eps) I'd probably get rid of the Haiffangou and Niobrara episodes, if it was a WWD-like (6 eps) I'd probably also get rid of the Hateg and Burgersdorp episodes.

Walking With Dinosaurs

Ep1: Dawn After the Dark/Burgersdorp Formation, South Africa/Triassic, 245 mya

Why include it?

• Unfortunately I'm skipping over Lystrosaurus dominance. Given my previous episode is P-T themed, that would be two dicynodont-focused episodes and two burrow-focused episodes in a row. Overdoing it from a storytelling perspective.
• We will, however, establish the recovery of the giant temnospondyls, predatory and herbivorous synapsids, and the archosauromorphs
• By establishing the arid climate of Pangea, we can flip it on its head with the CPE next episode. This also gives us a proper Mesozoic desert episode complete with sand dunes, allowing me to skip Cretaceous Mongolia.
• The story of a Cynognathus who protects her eggs nearby a small oasis. She must defend them from the small but determined Euparkeria and feed herself as she braves sandstorms, droughts and collapsing dunes. As her young hatch and grow, a big male Cynognathus attempts to commit infanticide during the wetter season, and the group is forced to relocate; and the mother is eventually killed during a bungled dicynodont hunt, forcing her young to disperse prematurely, ending off with an uncertain fate.

Ep2: Goodbye, Clear Sky/Santa Maria Formation, Brazil/Triassic, 234 mya

Why include it?

• CPE is too interesting not to include, and the intensification of the Pangean megamonsoons would be interesting as well.
• Unfortunately, I don't know how the CPE would *interact* with the already-present monsoons. No idea as to whether it would "overwrite" the dry season or intensify the wet season or do both simultaneously.
• Dinosaurs of the hererrasaur and sauropodomorph groups, as well as some rad pseudosuchians. I might present speculative proto-theropods just to give us a picture of what dinosaur groups were existing, so we can follow them later. Similarly, I'm willing to humor the idea that silesaurs are ornithischians...
• The story of a young male Gnathovorax who is washed into unfamiliar country during a flash flood. With no way of making it back home, he must find a new place to establish himself but makes enemies of a variety of carnivorous fauna, becoming incredibly battered and worn as time passes and he just...keeps getting rejected by the locals, in a sense. In the end, he is forced to face his fears and settle down in the territory of an especially big and nasty Rauisuchus who rules the highly productive expanded riverbank, but despite finding a place to live he remains constantly on-edge, in fear of the tyrant who hogs all the good opportunities...

Ep3: Antediluvian/Blue Lias, England/Jurassic, 200 mya

Why include it?

• Ultrasignificant to the history of paleontology
• Gives us ichthyosaur and early pterosaur and plesiosaur rep, which can work as foreshadowing for a later episode
• We seem to know a lot about Ichthyosaurus and Temnodontosaurus
• Mesozoic Marine Revolution talk?
• The story of a Temnodontosaurus who was recently severely injured by another individual of his kind. Being direct, swift, and brutal is no longer enough to survive during the recovery period - he must learn how to make greater use of his amazing stealth capabilities and incredible senses to find food, while avoiding the litany of opportunists who want to take advantage of him in his newly-vulnerable state. Never in his adult life has he ever felt weak before, but it's something he'll have to adapt to so long as he can stay alive.

Ep4: Small World/Haifanggou, China/Jurassic, 165 mya

Why include it?

• A lot of small beauties, from anurognathid pterosaurs to little early mammals to gliding dinosaurs to a spectacular array of bugs!
• Could work very well as a focused, small-scale episode dedicated to a limited region
• There should be a parasitic insect revolution around here
• Leads up to the Jehol biota proper, featured in a future episode
• The story of a mid-sized Ginkgoites tree. Watch the four seasons pass over it, as a variety of insects, small mammals and climbing dinosaurs and pterosaurs make their homes in it and clamber all over. Leaves fall and grow back. Fruits are grown and dispersed. Bugs bore holes in it, spiders make webs in it, a variety of critters use it as a resting spot. Anyways, then an Omeisaurus knocks the whole thing down and everyone scatters.

Ep5: Time of the Titans/Morrison, Colorado/Jurassic, 150 mya

Why include it?

• So many good sauropods
• So many good theropods
• So many good...everythings
• This is an extremely complete ecosystem with a diversity of paleoenvironments. What else could you ask for???
• I'll be honest: This one is basically just gonna replicate the OG WWD's Time of the Titans. The idea of following a tiny baby sauropod as it grows into one of the largest animals on Earth will basically always be a really cool one.
• The story of a Diplodocus. She hatches in a forest already stalked by multiple predators like Hallopus and Harpactognathus but makes it through the gauntlet. Four years pass, and she is now two tons. She associates with other herbivores, including some of her siblings. Having forced themselves into the center of a Camptosaurus herd with their sheer size alone, a local Torvosaurus chooses to hunt one of the ornithopods on the periphery instead. A Stegosaurus is also sighted; though they eat at similar heights, the Stegosaurus prefers tougher plants, and so they coexist. We skip another 6 years. She is now 10 years old, and 5 tons - almost too big for the forest. Her growth drives her and the remaining creche out. It's the dry season, and a smaller weaker member of the group is savaged by a group of Allosaurus, who in turn attract a bunch of smaller scavenging predators. At age 20, she is sexually mature, and mates. The Allosaurus are back; but she and her mate are able to drive them off; though she is injured. She then goes on to lay her own eggs.

Ep6: Flowers and Feathers/Yixian, China/Cretaceous, 125 mya

Why include it?

• Token cold-weather (or rather, seasonal) environment
• High-altitude environ is interesting
• So many feathers - extremely useful as representation of more recent paleontology
• So many animals are so well-preserved that we could probably make a full-length episode with basically zero speculation
• Beginning of angiosperms, highlight the Cretaceous Terrestrial Revolution
• The story of three Psittacosaurus families living together in a colony. Every day, the parents go out foraging to bring plant material back to the over-thirty, largely-helpless chicks. Four (or more) of their young, at varying ages, take care of the many babies in the meantime. It's spring, and life is in full bloom. The first flowering plants, such as Sinocarpus, are emerging, and she stuffs many herbs into her mouth while gathering even more in her arms. She runs by a buried Confuciusornis nest, and is mobbed by the angry parents, and is stalked by a Sinornithosaurus that glides between the treetops. Using camouflage, she waits until they leave. Upon her return, she realizes that one of her daughters has wandered off for some reason; and that her nest has been largely massacred by a Repenomamus. Summer and fall come and go, and she meets a cast of characters including Beipiaosaurus, Caudipteryx and Liaoningosaurus. Her daughter continues to be an incompetent helper; and at this point it becomes extremely clear that her brood is largely doing the worst out of the three. Come winter, she is slain by the mountain tyrant, Yutyrannus. When it becomes clear her mother isn't coming back, the helper Psittacosaurus is forced to take a more active role in assisting. When the Repenomamus makes its grand return; this time the babysitters are prepared.

Ep7: Changing Nature/Kem Kem, Morocco/Cretaceous, 94 mya

Why include it?

• Similar to Surviving Earth, this one focuses on life during the Cenomanian-Turonian boundary event; but with a balanced focus between terrestrial and aquatic life. Carcharodontosaurus, Rebbachisaurus and Spinosaurus will be featured, and both will be implied to have gone extinct shortly after. So will leptocleidid plesiosaurs.
• A hard part is the "Kill mechanism" - how do you convey mass-redistributions of plants, crazy weather and sinking coastlines combined with anoxia and mass ocean acidification? I'd probably highlight the most impressive and terrifying weather events and imply that the entire region just kind of gets beaten down to the extent that many animals can no longer take it. For whatever reason, the Rebbachisaurus don't move out while many of the titanosaurs do, and the killing of many of the lower-height plants means they decrease in number, with the overall decrease in megaherbivores killing off the carchs while aquatic anoxia and habitat destruction takes the spinosaurs and plesiosaurs.
• The story of a Carcharodontosaurus who has fallen on hard times. Repeated saltwater inundation as well as a climate crisis has been killing off many of the lower-lying plants. Titanosaurs can reach the taller, hardier ones, but the smaller and more common Rebbachisaurus is declining in population. Those that haven't...have been moving away. With an overall decrease in Kem Kem megaherbivores, the Carcharodontosaurus turn to scrapping over limited resources. Emaciated and sweltering in the heat, one male violently rips at what would otherwise be a prospective mate, shredding the corpse and relishing the meal. Meanwhile, a bloom of toxic algae in the waterways has been exuding cyanotoxin, which has accumulated within fish as well as plesiosaurs. Their time is up, and a pod of leptocleidids is forced to watch as their social structure is ripped apart; each individual having to watch a family member die of poisoning before at last, there is only one left, who is unceremoniously snagged by a starving Spinosaurus. The stories intertwine as the injured male Carcharodontosaurus now attempts to steal the Spinosaurus's kill; leading to the deaths of all three creatures.

Ep8: World Beneath the Waves/Niobrara Formation, Kansas/Cretaceous, 85 mya

Why include it?

• The Western Interior Seaway is wild as all heck, and has so so many species of animal it's kinda crazy.
• Xiphactinus, a variety of mosasaurs and plesiosaurs and giant turtles, pteranodontians, toothed birds, giant crocs...I might even use this as an excuse to include lambeosaurines, combing the beach, because I need and want lambeosaurs in there!
• This is our chance to show off Cretaceous oceans in their full glory.
• The story of a Pteranodon in Appalachia who crosses the Western Interior Seaway at its greatest extent to reach a rookery on the Laramidian coast. As he makes repeated dives for prey, he encounters a huge amount of mosasaurs and plesiosaurs, and passes by a ton of the Niobrara fauna in the process, encountering huge bait balls and vicious predators and being battered by powerful storms and scavenging animals washed up on the beach en masse for reasons he can't particularly comprehend. When he finally reaches his destination; he's late to the session, and must navigate the confusing word of pterosaur breeding politics in order to court females on the peripheries on established male harems. He does eventually mate a few times; and then flies off, his job done. One day, he may claim a section of beach himself - but not yet.

Ep9: Island Living/Densus-Ciula Formation, Romania/Cretaceous, 70 mya

Why include it?

• I want a discussion on insular dwarfism; and showing the unique island fauna of Europe would thus be quite interesting. Cool stuff always evolves on islands; this is true today as well, of course.
• Hatzegopteryx is fucking awesome
• We could even "island-hop" - Hatzegopteryx probably wasn't only sticking to one island.
• The story of a Struthiosaurus who lives a solitary lifestyle. He eats a variety of foodstuffs, from ferns to wood; and even seaweeds when he can. Having been born on a small, isolated island, he uses his dense body and Europe's shallow oceans to travel between the isles, resting on smaller islands in between, in which he finds fellow travellers looking for opportunity elsewhere as well. The thing he longs for is food and mating opportunities. As he travels, he is trailed by a curious yet menacing Mosasaurus, who is clearly interested in knowing what he tastes like but wary of the spikes, and quickly learns that the very shallowest seafloors are the only ones that are truly safe...in the end, every travelling creature is drawn towards Hateg itself. The survivors of the trip begin to graze on the vegetation on this new, larger island, but are accosted by the great Hatzegopteryx; a gang of which have been following them the whole time. As one of the hadrosauromorphs is taken down by the beasts, who quickly snap their attention towards the funny pokey very-slow Struthiosaurus, he is tormented by the creatures and forced to lay low before they finally leave. Already dehydrated and nearly dead from exhaustion at this point, it becomes clear that a bigger island, while having more resources and mates...also has more predators.

Ep10: Death of a Dynasty/Hell Creek Formation, Montana/Cretaceous, 66 mya

Why include it?

• Hell Creek has so many big names. Edmontosaurus, Ankylosaurus, Triceratops, and Tyrannosaurus could all get chances to have interesting behaviors and interactions with one another.
• Hell Creek has a pretty diverse freshwater ecology.
• Hell Creek has very well fleshed-out plant life, an array of smaller lizards and dromaeosaurs and birds and mammals...what more could you want?
• Asteroid. lmao that had to be done
• This story follows two lineages - Tyrannosaurus and Edmontosaurus. It's spring, and many species have started nesting. The flowers are blooming, the birds are singing and Edmontosaurus has laid a nest of eggs in a pit in the ground and covered it in vegetation. She watches the Triceratops, meanwhile, locking horns, fighting over mates. They too are preparing to reproduce and birth a new generation of dinosaurs. Suddenly, PANIC as a Tyrannosaurus rex bursts out of a forest clearing, attempting to take an Edmontosaurus, but all of them realized quickly and began to run. The rex catches up to a slower "supergiant" individual, but is quickly shoved out of the way as its jaws attempt to close around its neck. The hadrosaurs had gotten away, and there would be no meal for it...but an Ankylosaurus is nearby, and perhaps this one is more edible. Ankylosaurs also fight for mating rights, and this one is injured after losing a scuffle. Though putting up a valiant fight, it is ultimately unable to defend against a penetrated braincase. In the meantime, Pachycephalosaurus are rutting, Avisaurus are nesting and mobbing intruders, Anzu are lekking, Acheroraptor are slinking through the shadows...and a Pectinodon is looking for tasty eggs. And it uses its big brain to scout out some scrapes in the soil...Tyrannosaurus's nest. T.rex quickly drives it off into the darkness when an asteroid hits the gulf of Mexico, and suddenly everyone's world is turned upside-down. The flash is visible from many, many miles away and every dinosaur in the locality is pretty much deafened by the approaching shockwaves. Tsunamis flood the area, and as ejecta burns the entire exposed biosphere, the Edmontosaurus and T.rex perish. Months later, eggs hatch. They are born into a dark and desolate world. Altricial animals, the Edmontosaurus lie squealing helplessly under the burnt vegetation atop their nest. This will not provide enough nutrition for their long-term survival. The T.rex, meanwhile, are precocial, and have a strong sense of smell. Their nest was buried, and so they survived as well. Sniffing out and hearing the chirping of their herbivorous prey, they quickly decimate the nest, newborn killing newborn. But in only a month, they've run out of food, having decimated their prey items, and so they split up; and one by one, they too die of starvation. Over their corpses, a Purgatorius looks up into the hazy sky as a flock of Styginetta passes overhead and a Borealosuchus emerges from the river to claim its prize. A new age is coming.

Obviously this is well out of budget for literally anyone reasonable, but perhaps it could make for an interesting webcomic...

There are a few goals here - namely, to - yes - tell a narrative about prehistoric ecosystems and their development over time; a grand evolutionary story that aims not to fall into the pitfalls that others might have. Of course the structure would follow individual animals and ecosystems, more like Dynasties than Planet Earth. Another thing is that this time we're going chronologically and leading with Monsters: Another reason this wouldn't work as a TV show...

Walking With Monsters

Ep1: Wonderful Life/Maotianshan Shales, China/Cambrian, 518 mya

Why include it?

• anomalocarids and hurdiids to depict niche partitioning
• interesting ecological information such as Synophalos's chaining, Vetulicola's parasites, skeleton'd ctenophores and shell-dwelling priapulids
• a good opportunity to tell a smaller-scale story about a prehistoric reef, and a good opportunity to explain the dynamics of some of the earliest reef ecosystems
• showstopper Omnidens
• The story of a Haikouichthys that is miraculously lucky enough to survive threat after threat - at the cost of its shoal, which continuously dwindles as predators attack. Now alone, the chordate must find another shoal or its time is up.

Ep2: Deep Freeze/Boda Limestone, Sweden/Ordovician, 450 mya

Why include it?

• I want to show off a glaciation, and Baltica is far south enough that the oceans would freeze
• I can also show off meteors falling from Earth's potential planetary ring; some have landed in Sweden *Ok meteors might still be possible but the ring would probably be faint at best and invisible at worst...
• Brachiopod radiations can be emphasized
• Cameroceras turrisoides (yeah at the end of the day I still want a big charismatic animal, sue me)
• This is where we highlight the trilobites at their peak
• I could also shove in polar giant trilobites like Hungaroides - a bit too early, but surely they existed, right?
• The story of an enormous Cameroceras. She attempts to travel north to escape the encroaching sea ice and intolerable temperatures. However, she knows no other life than the sluggish one forced by the cool water, and as she attempts to make it across the open ocean, a massive storm strands her on a newly-exposed landmass, where she inevitably perishes.

Ep3: One Small Step/Bertie Formation, Ontario/Silurian, 420 mya

Why include it?

• Eurypterids! Jawed fish! Both are probably the things you'd come to the Silurian to see, because it's otherwise a pretty short period.
• Silurian-Devonian terrestrial revolution. We have some of the first true terrestrial scorpions, as well as Cooksonia, here. I might pretend Prototaxites is there as well for the hell of it honestly.
• Graptolites will make for fun setpieces underwater.
• The story of a hatchling Dolichopterus. We follow the animal as it molts several times over the course of its life, changes diets, and crawls onto the beach to lay its eggs. The land is no longer something to fear, and she is one of many lineages that are starting to venture out of the water for longer periods of time...

Ep4: Age of Fishes/Gogo Formation, Western Australia/Devonian, 380 mya

Why include it?

• The Devonian is known as the Age of Fish, and Gogo has basically all the good ones.
• Australian representation.
• We can show off the anoxic basins where things die!
• Materpiscis, Bothriolepis, Eastmanosteus...both lobe and ray-finned fish as well as cartilage-boned ones...
• This is probably a good time to bring up ammonoids, at least for a bit
• The story of an Eastmanosteus. Watch as it cannibalizes other Eastmanosteus, crunches up some placoderms, and makes the mistake of following a corpse into an anoxic basin. Narrowly making it out, he joins a shoal of fellow Eastmanosteus to engage in a feeding frenzy as coastal erosion washes prey into the water. Little does he know that this is the beginning of the end - and he won't have the time to, as after making a social misstep he himself is eaten by a bigger Eastmanosteus.

Ep5: Shake a Leg/Fram Formation, Nunavut/Devonian, 375 mya

Why include it?

• Tetrapods making their way onto land. Need I say more? We have Tiik and its waterbound relative Qikiqtania.
• We can use this to showcase a Devonian forest, and then display how this transitions into a Carboniferous forest in the next few episodes.
• The Late Devonian extinction would have been impacted by the formation of forests, and would have hit riverine bodies hard. The story practically writes itself!
• The story of a Tiktaalik. She has deposited her eggs in a slow-moving river, and she guards them ferociously. But in recent years, it's grown murkier - and what's worse, toxic algae is building up in the water. Abandoning her eggs, she is forced to travel overland if she is to successfully reproduce ever again. And so she marches, keeping herself moist in the wet forests, crawling over obstacles and breathing the fresh air as everything she leaves behind is left to die. The placoderms will asphyxiate. The lobe-fins that can't make the journey will starve. Perhaps not even she will survive the extinction event ahead, but her adaptations give her a fighting chance.

Ep6: High and Dry/Mecca Quarry, Indiana/Carboniferous, 310 mya

Why include it?

• Potentially an extremely bizarre shallow-water environment covering a ghost forest and filled with predatory fish that are often trapped and desperate to survive
• I can highlight a few eugeneodonts; I want to show that the placoderms are GONE gone
• I've heard of records of fish being sliced in two by these things and I want to depict that
• Iniopteryx and Stethacanthus too
• The story of an unfortunate Ornithoprion. Having come to a shallow-water lagoon in an inland sea to give birth, along with a bunch of other Ornithoprion, the eugeneodonts left their young to their fates. But then a dry season hit, and the water levels receded - cutting them off from the ocean and cutting the ocean off from them. Trapped in a pool with little to eat, and stressed by the heat and rapidly increasing salinity levels, a massacre begins. Stethacanthus, Iniopteryx, all sorts of invertebrates engage in a violent frenzy as everyone rushes to survive with what they have and kill off the competition. The dry season starts to end and some water comes back, but that just washes in the new king of the oceans: A massive Edestus who kills basically everything else before stranding itself on the shore. What was intended to be a place of birth becomes a mass grave.

Ep7: Swamp Kings and Giant Trees/Coal Measures, France/Carboniferous, 305 mya

Why include it?

• We need to show coal swamps
• We need to show big bugs and big amphibians
• We can look at amniote evolution here
• Big forest fires!!
• The story of a Meganeura larva who witnesses her home burn down in a fire. Kept relatively safe in a deep lake, she and her kin emerge a few weeks later to witness the beginning of a world recovering from the fire. Luckily, as a hawker dragonfly, she doesn't need to live in a coal forest to survive, and simply flies off to an adjacent area with medium-tall ferns. But the fleeing temnospondyls and reptiles that do need to live there can't find another forest, and now they pose a threat. She is agile and she is tenacious, and if she is to survive, she must continue to be, because the Rainforest Collapse shows no signs of letting up...

Ep8: Red Bed Redemption/Arroyo Formation, Texas/Permian, 280 mya

Why include it?

• Sailbacked "pelycosaurs" are staples of the Early Permian
• To show off the rising prominence of amniotes on the ecological stage
• A wet and dry season that can be exploited for story structure
• An overall distinct set of fauna from later periods
• The story of an unusual leucistic Dimetrodon. In his youth, he is far too often attacked by predators due to his conspicuous nature. During his second year on this planet, he learns that he's better at catching fish than other Dimetrodon due to his pale nature, and leans into that before being bullied away by Secodontosaurus. Barely eking out an existence by stealing their scraps (with difficulty) and scavenging on their kills (with difficulty), he also becomes extremely proactive when it comes to finding buried Diplocaulus when the dry season rolls around. Needing less food to survive, he is able to take the spot of a big male and grow larger, but he can't attract mates due to his white sail. Nevertheless, he eventually rises to power by chasing away Secodontosaurus smaller than him to become a sort of "fisherman-king," and spends the rest of his life as a bizarre, isolated figure that hunts the greatest of aquatic game.

Ep9: Winter Warning/Abrahamskraal, South Africa/Permian, 260 mya

Why include it?

• Temperate polar environment is fundamentally interesting and a subversion of expectations. I walked into this assuming it would be tundra, but turns out winters were probably frost-free based on plant rings.
• I wanted to show off a polar forest.
• Dinocephalians deserve a spot here.
• Last varanopids and declining "pelycosaurs"
• The story of an old female Anteosaurus. She has lived here for many years, defending her territory against a variety of rivals, and she has the scars to show for it. Last time she engaged in combat against a young male, a bite got infected, and she lost her front foot. She is still smart and strong enough to hunt the Styracocephalus and Moschops that browse in the area, even with her injuries, but this year she is on edge. Winter is coming, and she knows that winter is when the leaves die, and when food becomes scarcer, and when the plucky upstarts come out to challenge her because they desperately need the resources - well, so does she. It's also the beginning of the Capitanian extinction, so it's been getting a bit drier every year, stressing her out more. She surplus kills a small herd of herbivorous synapsids and stocks them in a secluded area to ensure she can survive. As winter falls and the nights grow long, that same young male arrives. He fights her under the aurora australis - and initially, she has the upper hand, even despite her wound, but as the fight drags on she grows more and more angry, more and more desperate, until in a blind rage her foot gets lodged in a Diictodon burrow. Her fate is sealed.

Ep10: Ashes to Ashes/Vyazniki, Russia/Permian, 252 mya

Why include it?

• Siberian traps, duh!
• Late Permian needs some rep. No gorgons, alas, but Megawhaitsia and Archosaurus instead.
• They live in the middle of an apocalypse. This could be an incredibly cool 70-or-so-minute episode with two halves to it.
• We follow two groups of animals this time. One is Elginia, a parieasaur. Another is Interpresosaurus, an elphid dicynodont.
• Elginia has fallen on tough times. The small group she lives in is running out of food, and to make things worse, she is haunted by the specter of a Megawhaitsia that has been stalking them over the past few days. It took one of the group, and everyone is on the lookout for the predatory monster. Interpresosaurus, meanwhile, has been stockpiling food for the past several months. He lives in a small colony of burrowing dicynodonts, and his adaptations to food scarcity allow him to eke out a living in such a hostile environment. For the past few months, an Archosaurus has been camping outside the burrows, and every now and then she snags one. But it's winter right now, and so they haven't been out in a while. Eventually, Elginia is the last of her group, and she, too, is being chased. Desperate and scared, she looks for shelter, and is able to scramble into the Interpresosaurus burrow right as the Megawhaitsia catches up to her. Hungry and tired, she finds the stockpile and begins to feast on it, not realizing its owner is in the burrow right now...but hibernating. Needing a safe place to lay her eggs, the Elginia decides to stay in the burrow and excavates her own side chamber for her young. The young eventually hatch, and as the Interpresosaurus wake up, they realize the food is gone, and realize that they've been invaded. They eat her babies and rush at her from behind. They shove her towards the exit, but she refuses to leave - as the snout of the Archosaurus pushes into the burrow. It just can't get around her armored head. The Interpresosaurus don't particularly realize or care that this may be useful, and so they nip the hell out of her tail and try shoving her out of the hole, but the Archosaurus is still pushing her inwards. Eventually, it's chased away by the Megawhaitsia, and the Elginia stays no matter how irritating the burrow's owners may be for the sake of shelter. Months later, lava comes spewing out of a crack in the ground. The smoke suffocates everyone inside, and the lava buries the burrows. The Elginia, Interpresosaurus and Megawhaitsia, who all made the mistake of settling down in a deeply inopportune location at the wrong time, perish. The Archosaurus, who was chased away, now has a short and desolate life in which she finds a mate, and seeing the clouds of smoke over the horizon, makes the choice to travel even further west. Her lineage will survive, at least for the time being.

If this "documentary" was a Surviving Earth-like (8 eps) I'd probably get rid of the Gogo and Abrahamskraal episodes, if it was a WWD-like (6 eps) I'd probably also get rid of the Arroyo and Mecca episodes.