Walking with Monsters

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Walking with Monsters
Genre	Documentary
Developer(s)	Andrew Wilks
Narrated by	Kenneth Branagh
Theme music composer	Ben Bartlett
Country of origin	UK
Language(s)	English
Production
Producer(s)	Chloe Leland
Executive producer(s)	Tim Haines
Running time	2 hr (including commercials)
Broadcast
Original channel	Discovery Channel
Original run	November 5, 2005 –
Chronology
Related shows	Walking with Dinosaurs, Walking with Beasts
Links
Official website

Walking with Monsters (also distributed as Walking With Monsters: Life Before Dinosaurs and Before the 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 is 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, where its title was 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 includes:

1 Episode One
2 Episode Two
3 Episode Three
4 Artistic Touches
5 Body Part Close-Ups
6 Inaccuracies
7 Criticism
8 Evolution according to the program
9 References

[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 Trilobites, fight with each other, whereupon the wounded loser is attacked and nibbled 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 — but due to its electric touch sensing ability, it dodges the attack and the Brontoscorpio gets eaten by a Pterygotus, a 3 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. and later a Stethacanthus is eaten by a Hyneria. 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:

Anomalocaris
Trilobite (not identified, revealed in encyclopedia)
Haikouichthys
jellyfish (live acted)

Haikouichthys as seen in Walking with Monsters

418 Million Years Ago — Silurian — South Wales, UK:

Brontoscorpio
Cephalaspis
Pterygotus
Cameroceras (identified as orthocone, revealed in encyclopedia)
sea urchin (live acted)
Cooksonia

Hyneria attacking the shark Stethacanthus, as depicted in Walking With Monsters.

360 Million Years Ago — Devonian — Pennsylvania, USA:

Hynerpeton
Hyneria
Stethacanthus (identified as shark, revealed in encyclopedia)
scorpion (live acted)

[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, seven-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 that got hit by lightning 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 Edaphosaurus, a pelycosaur (Though, according to current scientific data, this is inaccurate). They live in herds and have outgrown their arthropod contemporaries in size so they are no longer a threat to them. A female Dimetrodon, another pelycosaur, hunts down a baby Edaphosaurus after disperging a herd of them. She is getting ready to lay eggs. She abandons her kill when the scent of blood attracts male Dimetrodon. She forms a nest on a hill and while she lays her eggs, she is watched by a Seymouria. Some time after laying her eggs, another female Dimetrodon tries to take over her nest. They fight for an entire day, and the original female manages to win. But she is weakened and has her right eye bitten out. The Seymouria takes the chance to steal some eggs in the mother's weakened state. Luckily, a 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 some of the young Dimetrodon while they race to the trees to escape.

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):

Petrolacosaurus
Megarachne servinei (thought to be a giant spider, and so depicted, but in the story renamed as Mesothelae when (too late to rewrite or re-CGI this episode) the fossil Megarachne was found to be a eurypterid)
Arthropleura
Meganeura
Proterogyrinus (identified as large amphibian, revealed on web and in encyclopedia)

Filming Location: Inyo National Forest, California, USA

Edaphosaurus confronting a smaller Seymouria.

280 Million Years Ago — Early Permian — Bromacker Quarry, Thuringia, Germany:

Dimetrodon
Seymouria (identified as amphibian, revealed on web and in encyclopedia)
Edaphosaurus

[edit] Episode Three

Gorgonopsids as seen in Walking with Monsters

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 female Gorgonops . She than joins other members of her kind at a small waterhole but scares them off at first. Other inhabitants include Diictodon, a small burrowing dicynodont (a type of mammal like "reptile"). In the pool itself is a large amphibian Rhinesuchus, which attacks the female Gorgonops in desperation, latching onto her jaw but lets go and returns to the waterhole after being intimidated by the strength of the Gorgonops. A herd of Scutosaurus arrive and eventually drink the waterhole dry. The female Gorgonops tries to nab some Diictodon but is unsuccessful. She returns to the waterhole and un-earths the Rhinesuchus wrapped in a "cocoon" which it utilized to live through the drought. Because it is in a torpid state, it is helpless and is devoured by the Gorgonops. The Gorgonops is eventually killed by a sandstorm which is a foreshadowing of the oncoming Permian-Triassic extinction event. 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 kill the bitten Lystrosaurus. As the Lystrosaurus cross a lake, they are attacked and eaten 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.

Euparkeria as depicted in Walking With Monsters.

250 Million Years Ago — Late Permian — Siberia, Pangaea:

Gorgonops (identified as gorgonopsid, revealed in encyclopedia)
Scutosaurus
Rhinesuchus (identified as labyrinthodont, revealed in encyclopedia)
Diictodon

248 Million Years Ago — Early Triassic — Antarctica, Pangaea:

Lystrosaurus
Euparkeria
Ericiolacerta (identified as therocephalian)
Proterosuchus (identified as chasmatosaur, revealed in encyclopedia)

[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 knocks the camera while it is swimming, so does a Hyneria.
A Hynerpeton breathes on the camera.
A Hyneria splatters water on the camera while diving back into the water.
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 Dimetrodon digs up some dirt, and it lands on the camera.
A baby Dimetrodon splatters some dung on the camera when it jumps in a pile of it.
A Gorgonops sniffs the camera.
A Gorgonops splatters water on the camera when it jumps in some water.
A Diictodon looks curiously at the camera.
A Proterosuchus knocks the camera while it is swimming.
A Lystrosaurus bumps and sniffs the camera.

[edit] Body Part Close-Ups

Occasionally, the camera gets a close-up of certain body parts of animals. Here are the list of body part close-ups:

[edit] Inaccuracies

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This article has been tagged since February 2007.

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.^{[citation needed]} Not only does the series repeatedly suggest this anyway, many of the claimed 'direct ancestors' are not even considered basal:^{[citation needed]}

Cephalaspis was not the ancestor of gnathostomes (jawed vertebrates) or tetrapods. Gnathostomes (in the form of placoderms and acanthodians) appear in the fossil record before Cephalaspis, probably originated from, or are closely related to, thelodonts, instead. In fact, Cephalaspis was found only during the early Devonian, and shown being pursued by the Silurian Brontoscorpio.^{[citation needed]}
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.^{[citation needed]}
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.^{[citation needed]}
Megarachne was shown as a giant spider, but it is now known to be a eurypterid.

[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

Hynerpeton (egg) → Petrolacosaurus (egg)

Petrolacosaurus → Edaphosaurus

Dimetrodon → Gorgonops

Diictodon → Lystrosaurus

Euparkeria → Allosaurus

The Hynerpeton does not evolve into a Petrolacosaurus in the adult stage, but with an egg. The Hynerpeton egg did not have a shell, and it evolves into Petrolacosaurus by evolving a shell and the Carboniferous part of the program starts with a Petrolacosaurus hatching from its egg.