Somewhere a Palaeontologist Is Crying: Difference between revisions

== Documentaries ==▼

* ''[[Walking with Dinosaurs]]'', after its first episode had aired, found itself a target for angry palaeontologists because of one scene that showed a ''Postosuchus'' urinating and not excreting its wastes the way its modern relatives, birds and crocodilians tend to. Later episodes gave more fuel to the debates. While beloved by many, and hailed as a milestone in paleo-documentaries (rightfully so), a number of dino enthusiasts still frown upon its "spectacle over science" approach.▼

* ''[[Jurassic Fight Club]]'', the [[Poor Man's Substitute|Poor Man's]] ''[[Walking with Dinosaurs]]'' on [[Network Decay|The History Channel]]. Sadly, this does not involve lines like "you are not your fucking primitive feathers" or a ''Tyrannosaurus'' trying to punch itself in the face with those scrawny little arms. It's pretty much just a bit of paleontological pretext to some Cretaceous predators having dust-ups. Let's take a look at the errors:▼

** They have the same naked generic "raptor" dromaeosaurs and improbably fierce dinosaurs that have been hanging around since ''Jurassic Park'', plus the weird, unfounded suppositions about how dinosaurs behaved ("raptors" coordinated their hunts by using hand signals? Okay, then...) from ''Walking With Dinosaurs'' without quite the special effects quality of either.▼

** Juvenile ''T. rex''es did NOT look like exact miniature copies of the adults and, in fact, looked more like ''Nanotyrannus''. Oh, and also, there is a debate among paleontologists as to whether or not ''Nanotyrannus'' was even a separate genus of dinosaur at all or if the specimens found were really that of juvenile ''T rex'' skeletons.<ref>The evidence is pointing in the direction that ''Nanotyrannus'' is a juvenile tyrannosaur.</ref> However, for all its other flaws, the series does dedicate a portion of that episode to the controversy over whether or not ''Nanotyrannus'' was its own genus.▼

*** It's interesting that in the narration they did ''say'' that juvenile T-rexes were not shaped like miniature adults and were in fact physically very similar to ''Nanotyrannus''. But then in the actual animation the juvenile T-rexes were basically copies of the adult models and shrunk down. Perhaps it was a budget thing.▼

**** Well, [[They Just Didn't Care|they could've at least]] used the ''Nanotyrannus'' model and changed the color scheme.▼

** There is some anachronism in the series as well. Episode 8, "Raptor's Last Stand", has a flock of pterosaurs standing on the back of a ''Gastonia''. Only problem, they were miniature azdarchid pterosaurs, pterosaurs who in some cases were [[Up to Eleven|bigger than a giraffe]], and were at least condor-sized. And of course, there is the ' little'' fact that azdarchid pterosaurs didn't appear until the Late Cretaceous, which began at the earliest 90 MYA, while ''Gastonia'' and ''Utahraptor'' lived a full thirty-five million years earlier. To clarify, that is the equivalent of a [[wikipedia:Uintathere|Uintathere]] being labelled a contemporary of man.▼

** Also, ''[[wikipedia:Pachyrhinosaurus|Pachyrhinosaurus]]'' is portrayed with a horn on its nose. What's the problem, you might ask? It got famous for ''lacking'' this feature.▼

** ''Majungasaurus'', just ''Majungasaurus''. Not only did the show not get the memo that the dinosaur had gotten a name change from ''Majungatholus'' to ''Majungasaurus'', but the host goes on to state that ''Majungasaurus''' ugly appearance was caused by inbreeding, leading to horrible mutations. Apparently "Dinosaur George" doesn't know that ''Majungasaurus'' was the pretty member of the abelisaur family, and in fact other species like ''Carnotaurus'' were a lot more ugly looking.▼

*** Or perhaps "Dinosaur George" just happens to have weird ideas about dinosaur beauty?▼

** They fail [[You Fail Biology Forever|animal behavior]] pretty hard, too. The ''Nannotyrannus'' episode, for example—large predators kill competing species and their young all the time. Just look at the interactions between lions, leopards, spotted hyenas, and cheetahs on the African savannah. It isn't even unheard of for a predator to continue to maul the carcass of a threat or rival long after such attacks are necessary. But the mother tyrannosaur tearing up the remains of the ''Nannotyrannus'' and scattering them around as a warning to other predators? That's probably giving them credit for a little too sophisticated of thinking.▼

*** If anything, scattering blood, guts, and bone around the area would have ''drawn'' other predators closer. [[You Fail Biology Forever|Fail]].▼

*** The animal behavior issue also comes up in the episode where a "raptor" pack takes on an ''Edmontosaurus'' as well. The narrator repeatedly says that the dromaeosaurs normally wouldn't take on such large prey, but they're driven to protect their territory. That's not quite how territoriality works. Have you ever heard of a family of foxes attacking a moose to drive it out of their territory? Carnivores defend their territories from other members of the same species. They don't care about keeping ''every living thing'' out of their space. After all, what would they ''eat'' if they did that? If it was near a den/young or if they were desperately hungry that would be one thing, but it makes no sense for them to keep attacking such a formidable animal because it's in their territory.▼

* ''[[Monsters Resurrected]]'', a recent [[Discovery Channel]] series, is easily one of the most inaccurate documentaries on prehistoric animals ever made; particularly in regards to the ''Spinosaurus'' episode. If anyone thought ''[[Jurassic Park]] III'' did a misleading job at portraying creature, it was nothing compared to this episode. Essentially, the ''Spinosaurus'' is portrayed as the ultimate predator of all time, able to effortlessly kill any other predator that lived in its time and region. In short, it is depicted as devouring a ''Rugops'' with one bite, killing a ''Carcharodontosaurus'' by slashing it across the face with its claws and effortlessly tearing apart the giant crocodylomorph, ''Sarcosuchus''. And that isn't all, its size is practically [[Godzilla]]-portioned, as it is able to pick up a 30&nbsp;ft long ''Rugops'' in its mouth and the thing appears to be no bigger than its head. ''Spinosaurus'' didn't grow much larger than 60&nbsp;ft, [[Critical Research Failure|meaning the one depicted in the episode would have been close to 300ft]]. The episode also seems to take a lot of facts that we know about the animal out of context, seemingly with no other reason than to turn ''Spinosaurus'' into some kind of prehistoric [[Villain Sue]].▼

** They also got away with flexible-necked plesiosaurs and naked raptors in other episodes.▼

** A full list of errors in the program would be the size of the show's ''Spinosaurus''.▼

* ''[[Clash of the Dinosaurs]]'', which ''really'' [http://svpow.wordpress.com/2009/12/15/lies-damned-lies-and-clash-of-the-dinosaurs/ caused grief to one of the paleontologists they interviewed] by ''[[Quote Mine|QUOTE MINING]]'' him.▼

* ''[[Animal Armageddon]]'', while not a bad program when it comes to explaining science, had some of the worst and most ugly-looking CGI dinosaur recreations imaginable, almost all of which suffer from anatomical inaccuracies.▼

* ITV's ''[[March of the Dinosaurs]]'' had dinosaur-freaks up in arms with just its preview images. While feathered tyrannosaurs and arctic [[Prehistoric Life|mosasaurs]] might have looked awesome, the not properly feathered, small-winged (they should have actual wings with wing feathers) ''Troodon''s worked as horrible eye-sores for them. Indeed, we live in a time in which popular dinosaur restorations are forced to take a middle route between being too feathered for the general public's comfort, but not feathered enough to please dino-maniacs.▼

* While not specifically about prehistoric life, ''[[The Most Extreme]]'' messed up big in episode 65, ''Awesome Ancestors''. Just what did they screw up on, you may ask? [[Tyrannosaurus Rex]] was more closely related to ''your standard chicken'' than it was to the Komodo dragon. A more appropriate anscestor for the Komodo dragon would be the 50-foot long mosasaur, a predatory sea-going lizard that lived around the same time as the last dinosaurs and are thought to be distantly related to modern-day monitor lizards.▼

** Not to mention that ''T. rex'' had many traits similiar to those modern-day birds and was most-likely warm blooded, unlike the cold-blooded Komodo dragon which has more standared reptilian traits. [[Did Not Do the Research|Oops]].▼

*** ''Megalania'' would work just as well, being an actual giant lizard related to the Komodo dragon.▼

* The ''Dinomorphosis'' episode of ''[[Naked Science]]''. Even disregarding that woefully outdated and unrealistic reconstruction of ''Oviraptor'', it had actual scientists [http://deinonychusempire.deviantart.com/journal/?offset=20#/d3nrn95 lamenting over the fact] that the "poor ''T. rex''" may have been feathered in real life, as if this somehow made it less [[Badass]]. Um, nice job trying to forward the latest findings to the audience there, by explictily saying how lame the new dinosaur image is. [[Sarcasm Mode|Surely, its immensely powerful bite (possibly the strongest ever) and title as the baddest North American predator around at the time mean nothing now that we know it had fuzz somewhere on its body.]]▼

* ''[[Paleoworld]]'' all but completely averted this for its time. However, having aired in the nineties, it has become a major victim of [[Science Marches On]].▼

* There is an episode of ''[[Ancient Aliens]]'' that claims that dinosaurs survived into historical times, and were nuked by extraterrestrials. Not only does all shown evidence look fake or exaggerrated, but they have religious archaeologists and come up with all sorts of strange ideas, including that aliens used genetic engineering to reintroduce animals like coelocanths and crocodilians because they existed in the Mesozoic and somehow had to appear in the present, and that dinosaur bones are painted with lead because they are extremely radioactive!▼