Walking with Dinosaurs: Difference between revisions

** Apparently some paleontologists strongly criticized the scene from the first episode of ''Walking with Dinosaurs'' where ''[[Prehistoric Life/Non Dinosaurian Reptiles|Postosuchus]]'' was shown urinating in a way more similar to that of mammals than that of reptiles and birds, despite it was an ancient relative of both crocs and dinos - so strongly in fact, that one of the series' scientific consultants, Prof. Michael Benton, [http://palaeo.gly.bris.ac.uk/Essays/WWD/default.html decided to address their criticism]. The relevant bit: "Another category of WWD-haters, the fact checkers, began compiling lists of errors in the first week. These were gleefully circulated on the e-mail lists. For example, in the first programme, ''Postosuchus'' urinates copiously. There is no doubt that it does so in the programme, and this was a moment that my children relished. However, of course, birds and crocodiles, the closest living relatives of the dinosaurs, do not urinate; they shed their waste chemicals as more solid uric acid. Equally, though, we can’t prove that ''Postosuchus'' did not urinate like this: copious urination is the primitive state for tetrapods (seen in fishes, amphibians, turtles, and mammals), and it might have been retained by some basal archosaurs."

*** This combines the twin arts of whining and digging oneself deeper into a hole. His argument is similar to "well. we can't prove for certain that ''[[Stock Dinosaurs True Dinosaurs|T. rex]]'' didn't breathe fire, so there's nothing wrong with having it do so in our documentary." Also note that excreting uric acid uses less water than excreting urea, which gives doing so a selective advantage in dry environments like deserts. Guess where New Blood is set? That's right, the biome least conducive to a urea-excreting reptile.

** Scaly raptors weren't to the paleontologists' liking even back then.

** Reusing models meant that some correct anatomical details that got carried over from one animal to the other suddenly turned erroneous. Case in point: the thumbs on hadrosaurs.