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Walking with Monsters

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Walking with Monsters is a three-part British documentary film series about life in the Paleozoic, bringing to life extinct arthropods, fish, amphibians, mammal-like reptiles, and reptiles. It was narrated by Kenneth Branagh. Using state-of-the-art visual effects, this prequel to Walking with Dinosaurs shows for example how a two-ton predatory fish came on land to hunt. The series draws on the knowledge of over 600 scientists and shows nearly 300 million years of Paleozoic history, from the Cambrian Period (530 million years ago) to the Early Triassic Period (248 million years ago). It was written and directed by Tim Haines.

As with some of the other BBC specials it was renamed in North America with the title Walking with Monsters: Before the Dinosaurs. It has also aired as a two-hour special on the Canadian and American Discovery Channel.

Walking with Monsters is part of a series of documentaries that also include:

Episode One

The first episode begins with an illustration of the giant impact hypothesis: approximately 4.4 billion years ago when the Earth was formed, it is conjectured that a planet-like object referred to as Theia collided into the early Earth, dynamically reshaping the Earth and forming the moon. The episode then jumps ahead to the Cambrian Explosion, showing the first diversification of life in the sea. Strange predators called Anomalcaris feed on Trilobite, but one gets injured in a fight and is feasted on by a school of Haikouichthys.

The Haikouichthys are said to evolve into Cephlaspis, an armored fish which the program claims can sense electrical currents made by other animals. One Cephlaspis is chased by a Brontoscorpio and ambushed by a Pterygotus, but due this ability, it dodges both attacks and the Brontoscorpio is the one that gets eaten by the Pterygotus. Cameroceras also live in these waters. The film also shows a scool of Cephlaspis swimming from the ocean to rivers where they spawn. A group of Brontoscorpio crawl on land and also arrive at the Cephlaspis's spawning pool. The Brontoscorpio feast, but there's too many Cephlaspis for them to eat. One Brontoscorpio moults and misses the feast.

Then the show moves on to the Devonian when Cephlaspis have evolved into Hynerpeton, amphibian-like tetrapods. Though they can go on land, Hynerpeton have to keep wet, and must return to the water, where sharks like Stethacanthus and a two ton killer fish -- Hyneria can hunt them down. One male Hynerpeton finds a mate, but just after spawning, he and his mate are ambushed by a Hyneria. They escape to land, but the narrator explains Hyneria has strong fins that can propel itself out of the water. The episode ends with the male Hynerpeton being killed by the Hyneria which has crawled onto land.

Filming Location: Devil's Postpile National Monument, California, USA
530 Million Years Ago - Cambrian — the Chengjiang biota, China:
418 Million Years Ago - Silurian — South Wales, UK:
360 Million Years Ago - Devonian — Pennsylvania, USA:

Episode Two

The second episode shows the swampy coal forests of the Carboniferous. It explains that because of a much higher oxygen content in the atmosphere, giant land arthropods evolved, like Mesothelae, a spider the size of a human head, Meganuera, a dragonfly the size of an eagle and Arthropluera, a millipede the size of a car. A Mesothelae hunts down a Petrolacosaurus, the descendant of Hynerpeton from the first episode. It comes back from it's hunting expidition only to find it's burrow has flooded. Not only that, the Petrolacosaurus it caught is stolen by a Meganeura. On the Mesothelae's search for a new burrow, it is chased by an Arthropluera, which is later killed in a fight with a Proterogyrinus, a huge amphibian. The Mesothelae finally chases a Petrolacosaurus out of it's own burrow and moves in. Thunder, rain and a forest fire pours in, devastating the life around. At last, only some animals survive...including Petrolacosaurus.

The episode then moves on to the early Permian, where the swamp-loving trees of the Carboniferous have been replaced with more advanced conifers that are better adapted to survive in a changing climate. Petrolacosaurus has evloved into Dimetrodon, a pelycosaur. A female Dimetrodon hunts down a baby Edaphosaurus, another pelycosaur. She is getting ready to lay eggs. But when she does, another female Dimetrodon tries to take over her nest. They fight, and the original female manages to win, but she is weakened. Both a Seymouria and a male Dimetrodon take the chance to steal some eggs. Luckily, the male Dimetrodon eats the Seymouria and the eggs are unharmed. But when the eggs hatch, the mother-young bond is severed. This episode ends with the female Dimetrodon joining other adult Dimetrodon to cannibalize the young Dimetrodon.

File:Mesothelae.jpg
Mesothelae chasing a small reptile, Petrolacosaurus
Filming Location: Jonathan Dickinson State Park, Florida, USA, and some painted or computer-generated backgrounds. A model of a fallen rotted-out Lepidodendron or Sigillaria trunk is sometimes used as a prop.
300 Million Years Ago - Carboniferous — Kansas, USA (in a coal forest):
Filming Location: Inyo National Forest, California, USA
280 Million Years Ago - Early Permian — Bromacker Quarry, Thuringia, Germany:

Episode Three

The third episode is set in the Late Permian, on the supercontinent Pangaea, which was covered by a vast and inhospitable desert. In this arid climate, early therapsids, which are described as more more "mammal-like" than reptile, are shown fighting to survive, including the fierce predator Gorgonops and the mole-like Diictodon. The episode discusses the simplified jaw of the Diictodon, that allowed some of its jaw bones to be used for primitive hearing (and that ultimately led to the evolution of the mammalian ear). It also shows the Scutosaurus, a distant relative of the turtle, whose body lacked a shell but which was heavily armoured with bony scutes on its skin and knobs and ridges on its skull.

The episode ends with a discussion of the Permian-Triassic extinction, the greatest extinction of life on earth, and how it led to the rise of the dinosaurs. Shortly after the mass extinction, herds of therapsids known as lystrosaurs soon dominated the terrain. The coinhabiting ancestor of the dinosaurs is shown to be the small archosaur Euparkeria, which was very swift but still in the process of evolving to be able to run on its hind legs. Of course, by the end of the Triassic, dinosaurs would radiate from these small archosaurs to dominate the land.

250 Million Years Ago - Late Permian — Siberia, Pangaea:
248 Million Years Ago - Early Triassic — Antarctica, Pangaea:

Inaccuracies

  • Cephalaspis was not the ancestor of gnathostomes. The ture ancestor of gnathostomes were beleived to be the thelodonts (meaning nipple teeth).

References

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