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Walking with Monsters

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Walking with Monsters (A.K.A. Walking With Monsters: Life Before Dinosaurs) is a three-part British documentary film series about life in the Paleozoic, bringing to life extinct arthropods, fish, amphibians, synapsids, 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:

[edit] 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 Anomalocaris 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 Cephalaspis, an armored fish which has the first good sense of touch. One Cephalaspis is chased by a Brontoscorpio - a giant scorpion arthropod, but due to its touch sensing ability, it dodges the attack and the Brontoscorpio gets eaten by a Pterygotus, a 2,40 m long eurypterid hiding in the sea floor. Cameroceras also live in these waters. The film also shows a school of Cephalaspis swimming from the ocean to rivers where they spawn. A group of Brontoscorpio crawl on land and also arrive at the Cephalaspis's spawning pool. The Brontoscorpio feast, but there's too many Cephalaspis for them to eat at once. One Brontoscorpio moults and misses the feast.

Then the show moves on to the Devonian, when Cephalaspis have evolved into Hynerpeton(though it must first evolve into lobe-finned fish), 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:

[edit] 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, ("If it was alive today, it would be hunting Cats"); Meganeura, a dragonfly the size of an eagle, ("With an appetite to match") and Arthropleura, a millipede relative the size of a car ("It can rear up and look you in the eye.") A Mesothelae hunts down a Petrolacosaurus, the descendant of Hynerpeton from the first episode. It comes back from its hunting expedition only to find its 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 Arthropleura, which is later killed in a fight with a Proterogyrinus, a huge,7 foot amphibian. The Mesothelae finally chases a Petrolacosaurus out of its 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,who finds the dead body of Mesothelae and eats it.

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 evolved 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.

Image:Mesothelae.jpg
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:

[edit] 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 "mammal-like" than reptile, are shown fighting to survive. The programme starts with an old Scutosaurus, an ancestor of turtles, being killed by a Gorgonops . Many animals, including several Gorgonopsids, gather at a small waterhole. Other inhabitants include Diictodon, a small burrowing dicynodont (a type of mammal like "reptile"). In the pool itself is a Rhinesuchus, which tries to attack a Gorgonops in desperation, but doesn't succeed. A herd of Scutosaurus arrive and drink the waterhole dry. They move on. The Gorgonops eats the Rhinesuchus, which had wrapped itself in a "cocoon" in the mud to wait out the drought. But, unable to catch the burrowing Diictodon, the Gorgonops eventually dies of starvation as well. The end of the Permian is the worst mass extinction in history. The scene ends with a description of the evolution of the tuber-eating Diictodon into the later and much larger Lystrosaurus.

Lystrosaurus live in the early Triassic. The world's number of Lystrosaurus is high, and the animals must migrate constantly to find plants to eat. As the Lystrosaurus herd cross a ravine, several Ericiolacerta attack. The program claims they may have powerful poison in its bite, helping to eventually subdue the bitten Lystrosaurus. As the Lystrosaurus cross a lake, they are attacked by several starving Proterosuchus , long-legged crocodile ancestors. Meanwhile, dragonflies are the prey of choice of a small reptile called Euparkeria that can run and hop on its hind legs due to evolved hip structure. Euparkeria will, according to the film, evolve into dinosaurs, which will dominate the Earth, leaving the mammals trapped under the shadows of dinosaurs for the next many million years.

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

[edit] Artistic Touches

As in the entire Walking with line of films, the animals sometimes interact with the camera:

  • A Brontoscorpio stings the camera and breaks it.
  • Another Brontoscorpio bumps the camera with its claw as it crawls onto land.
  • A Hynerpeton breathes on the camera.
  • A Mesothelae crawls on the camera, and so does an Arthropleura.
  • A Dimetrodon shakes intestines to avoid eating the faeces inside, and most of it splats onto the camera.
  • A Lystrosaurus bumps and sniffs the camera.

[edit] Inaccuracies

Because the series takes an artistic license with regards to its views on evolution, there are a number of inaccuracies especially related to ancestor-descendant relationships. Generally, one can never scientifically claim that a particular fossil form must be directly ancestral to another life form (fossil or not), at most it can be claimed what fossil forms are likely basal to what other life forms. Not only does the series repeatedly suggest this anyway, many of the claimed 'direct ancestors' are not even considered basal:

  • Cephalaspis was not the ancestor of gnathostomes (jawed vertabrates) or tetrapods. Gnathostomes (in the form of placoderms and sharks) appear in the fossil record before Cephalaspis and probably originated from, or are closely related to, thelodonts.
  • Gorgonops is only known from Africa. A Gorgonops-like animal that is known from Russia was Inostrancevia. Other animals that are known from Africa are Diictodon and Rhinesuchus. However, since the continents were all connected at the time it is conceivable that Gorgonops could have lived in Russia too, but there is no evidence for this.
  • Petrolacosaurus was an early diapsid and could therefore not have been the ancestor of any synapsids (e.g. Edaphosaurus). The most basal synapsid, Archaeothyris, would have been a more suitable candidate.

[edit] Criticism

Some viewers criticize Walking with Monsters to be an overly dramatic presentation of speculation as fact. [1] (see editorial review)

In the "Trilogy of Life" documentary, included on the Walking With Monsters DVD, the producers of the "Walking With" trilogy state that their intention was not to write a scientific thesis but to bring prehistoric animals to life. The documentary also states that science is littered with mistakes (some scientists might even say that science only progresses by making mistakes) and that while scientists can make guesses as to how these prehistoric creatures might have looked or behaved while they were alive, there is no guarantee that these guesses are correct and in this case, we have no way of knowing for sure.

[edit] Evolution According To The Program

Haikouichthys → Cephalaspis → Hynerpeton → Petrolacosaurus → Dimetrodon & Edaphosaurus → Gorgonops & Diictodon → Lystrosaurus → modern mammals

[edit] See also

[edit] References

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