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Animal Armageddon

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Animal Armageddon
GenreDocumentary
Narrated byMichael Carroll
Theme music composerAlan Ett
Country of originUnited States
Original languageEnglish
No. of seasons1
No. of episodes8
Production
Executive producerJason McKinley
Running time45 minutes
Production companyDigital Ranch Productions
Original release
NetworkAnimal Planet
ReleaseFebruary 12 (2009-02-12) –
September 24, 2009 (2009-09-24)

Animal Armageddon is an American paleontology-based documentary television miniseries that originally aired from February 12, 2009 (2009-02-12) to September 24, 2009 (2009-09-24) on Animal Planet. All the prehistoric scenes are created 100% in Lightwave. It is produced by Digital Ranch Productions and all the computer graphics are designed and created by Radical3D.

Reception

The show was entered for Emmy consideration in many categories in 2009. It failed to be nominated in any. CommonSense Media praised the program, giving it four stars out of five and saying that "the show's stunning CGI makes ancient geology and evolution as enticing as any thriller" and that "If you think ancient geology and fossilized biology are about as interesting as, well, a box of rocks, then you've never experienced anything like this impressive series. Even if you can't recall a single fact from high school science class, you'll emerge from each hour-long episode with a general idea of Earth's make-up, its prominent inhabitants, and the theories behind the monumental disasters that threatened life's survival at various turning points in the planet's history. The series' CGI literally brings the ancient past to life, giving viewers an amazing visual image of life long ago."[1] The show maintains a rating of 7.6 out of 10 on IMDb.[2]

Animals

Ordovician Extinction

Devonian Extinction

Permian Extinction

Triassic Extinction

Cretaceous Extinction

Pleistocene Extinction

Modern Extinction

Episodes

Episode Time Explanation Locations
Episode 1
Death Rays 		450 Million Years Ago
Ordovician 		A dying star explodes, causing the atmosphere to be destroyed. This wipes out most of the oceans' wildlife, including the vast majority of the straight-shelled nautiloids. However, in the end, Astraspis and the Eurypterids both manage to survive. Las Vegas, Mexico, Eastern Seaboard, Europe, Africa, Australia, Antarctica, South America
Episode 2
Hell on Earth 		377 Million Years Ago
Devonian 		A superplume causes increased temperatures worldwide. Fish must either adapt, or die. All of the placoderms, including the enormous Dunkleosteus, are completely wiped out, by this catastrophe. Siberia, Italy, Greenland, Morocco, Pennsylvania
Episode 3
Doomsday 		65 Million Years Ago
Cretaceous 		An asteroid the size of Mount Everest is about to end the age of the dinosaurs, followed by powerful earthquakes, megatsunamis, and a lethal rain of flaming rocky debris during the first 24 hours. The episode closes with a view of Earth plunged into a fiery red ball of baked rock, making it look like a red giant. This impact event sends several species of dinosaurs and pterosaurs to the brink of extinction, including Tyrannosaurus Rex, Hadrosaurs, Triceratops, Byronosaurus, Edmontosaurus, and Troodon. However, when the initial blast is over, it appears that the mammals, Purgatorius, are rather getting along, somewhat better, than usual… Alaska, Mexico, Montana, Texas, West Africa, Mongolia, Alberta
Episode 4
Panic in the Sky 		65 Million Years Ago
Cretaceous 		Wildfires, acid rain, earthquakes, global darkness, and snow storms spell death for the dinosaurs during their last year. In the first 24 hours after the asteroid impact, wildfires consume much of the United States around the Gulf of Mexico. Later, weather patterns bring sulphur and acid rain, killing off many animals on land and sea. After the rain stops days later, the world is engulfed completely in total darkness for up to 4 months, long enough to kill of most of the plant life, and all the herbivores starve to death, and also it is too dark for herbivores to see to feed. After the darkness has cleared, global temperatures drop to freezing worldwide. A year after the asteroid impact, earth is close to be a dead planet: every dinosaur, pterosaur, ammonite and marine reptile is now extinct, the sea is almost lifeless, just a few species of fish and sharks remain. Years later, life on earth slowly recovers as the Purgatorius from the previous episode emerges. Mexico, Alaska, Texas, China, Mongolia, Alberta
Episode 5
The Great Dying 		250 Million Years Ago
Permian 		250 million years ago, the Siberian Traps erupt into an active volcano. The eruption of the Traps causes land ecosystems to be put under serious stress, due to severe climate change caused by basalt flow volcanic eruptions in Siberia. This modifies the chemical composition of the atmosphere. The result is the largest mass extinction in Earth's history. Gorgonopsids, Dicynodonts, and numerous other creatures all become extinct. However, both Proterosuchus, and Thrinaxodon, (the ancestors of archosaurs and mammals, respectively), both manage to survive the mass extinction, and go on to become extremely successful, inheriting the Earth, as well as fighting, with each other, for supremacy, during the succeeding Triassic Period. Siberia, Kansas, South Africa, Egypt, Arizona
Episode 6
Strangled 		200 Million Years Ago
Triassic 		Volcanism starts as Pangaea starts to break up (Laurasia splitting from Gondwanaland along the Appalachians.) Scorching lava, suffocating heat and toxic gas violently causes a mass extinction 200 million years ago, allowing the dinosaurs to take the dominant role. The first thing to happen that triggers is the Yellowstone Caldera violently emitting toxic gas and then a superplume of ash. The resulting explosion envelopes Wyoming in ash. Thousands years later, Pangaea is filled with exploding volcanoes that keep spewing until 200,000 years later, when the dinosaurs are ready to take over the world. Eastern Seaboard, Arizona, South Africa
Episode 7
Fire and Ice 		74,000-10,000 Years Ago
Pleistocene 		The eruption of Lake Toba 74,000 years ago kills the giant mammals in prehistoric Asia. The lava and ash starts out in Sumatra, but soon spreads to the rest of the world, driving Elasmotheriums, Sumatran Leopards, Asian Pumas, European Cave Lions, and Stegodons, to extinction. Our very ancestors, the earliest Homo sapiens, also nearly become extinct, as well. However, the humans manage to survive, although they do suffer a genetic Bottleneck, in their population. However, the extinction of all of these other creatures then paves the way, for new species, such as the Woolly Mammoth, to replace them. Chicago, Sumatra, Vietnam, India
Episode 8
The Next Extinction 		Future 
Holocene 		An asteroid like the one that killed off the dinosaurs strikes New York City. The human race has to revert to the nomadic people that their ancestors were. New York City, Mexico, Arizona, Siberia

Sound

Animal sound effects in Animal Armageddon were produced like the filmmakers of Jurassic Park. For example, Tyrannosaurus and Tarbosaurus both had a low pitch roar, which was produced by combining a walrus and an Asiatic lion together. For Velociraptor, a parrot screech was added with a combination of a chimpanzee and a yellow warbler. For Lystrosaurus, the creators used an African Elephant and combined it with a bison and a cheetah. For Desmatosuchus, a combination of a frigate bird, a gull, and an leopard was used.

Paleontological inaccuracies

  • Troodon and Byronosaurus almost certainly had feathers, not scales.
  • Velociraptor has been proven to have much more feathers than was depicted in the programme, in real life.
  • The program says that Dunkleosteus weighed 20,000 tons. Needless to say, not even the blue whale weighs this much.
  • Thrinaxodon and Proterosuchus did not live in the Permian, although their ancestors, Procynosuchus and Archosaurus, did. It is possible that the creators confused Proterosuchus with Protorosaurus
  • Staurikosaurus did not live in North America.
  • The Permian was not a tropical time, it was seasonally desert.
  • The program claims that Panthera leo was wiped out near the end of the Pleistocene. However, it survives to the modern day in the form of the Asiatic and African lions.
  • The program claims that jawless fish were wiped out in the Devonian extinction. However, they survive to the present as the lamprey and hagfish.

Notes

  1. ^ "Animal Armageddon TV review". commonsensemedia.org. Retrieved May 23, 2011.
  2. ^ "Animal Armageddon". imdb.com. Retrieved May 23, 2011.

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