History Trivia / WalkingWithDinosaurs

* ColbertBump: Outside of the already [[UsefulNotes/StockDinosaursTrueDinosaurs well-known]] ''Diplodocus'', ''Brachiosaurus'', ''Allosaurus'', ''Stegosaurus'', ''Rhamphorhynchus'', ''Iguanodon'', ''Utahraptor'', ''Tyrannosaurus rex'', and ''Ankylosaurus'', all the other featured animals gained much attention thanks to their inclusion in this series.

* ''Liopleurodon'' gained some minor notoriety among researchers at the time as one of the largest (then) known pliosaurs together with the Australian ''Kronosaurus'', but during the 2000s, the largest known ''Liopleurodon'' species were placed into the genus ''Pliosaurus'', which itself gained a further boost in fame around that time due to the discovery of a third giant species, ''Pliosaurus funkei'' (Predator X). [[AnimalsNotToScale Though its portrayal here]] [[HistoricalBadassUpgrade isn't the most accurate]], WWD is the main reason ''Liopleurodon'' hasn't faded into obscurity as just another "small" pliosaur.

* ColbertBump: Outside of the already [[UsefulNotes/StockDinosaursTrueDinosaurs well-known]] ''Diplodocus'', ''Brachiosaurus'', ''Allosaurus'', ''Stegosaurus'', ''Iguanodon'', ''Utahraptor'', ''Tyrannosaurus rex'', and ''Ankylosaurus'', all the other featured animals gained much attention thanks to their inclusion in this series.

** ''Polacanthus'' was just a typical Early Cretaceous nodosaur and known from fairly incomplete material. Following a boom of new early nodosaur taxa being described from the late '90s onward and from more complete material (most famously its cousin ''Gastonia''), it likely would have faded into obscurity if not for its inclusion in "Giant of the Skies".

** Evidence of cynodonts in the Chinle Formation was slim at the time, being mostly isolated teeth and other fragments (all of which couldn't be confidently assigned to cynodonts by later researchers), [[AllThereInTheManual and the main inspiration for the cynodonts in the episode were two large teeth]], later named as ''Kraterokheirodon'' (which was later deemed an indeterminate tetrapod). In 2020, however, we named ''Kataigidodon venetus'' based on a partial dentary, the first properly named cynodont from Chinle (though it was only rat-sized).

*** While the exact cause of the non-avian dinosaurs' extinction was still debated in the '90s, WWD opted to go with a minority opinion saying that dinosaurs were already on their way out by the end of the Maastricthian, as they lived on a "sick planet" poisoned by constant volcanic activity and the meteor impact was just the straw that broke the camel's back, even though we already had ample evidence, based on the various wildlife such as fish, insects, amphibians, and small crocodiles, as well as the local flora, that Hell Creek was a lush floodplain more similar to the Everglades than anything. At the same time, here, it's depicted as a barren, ashy wasteland dotted with volcanos and with only patches of forests scattered across it, and the dinosaurs are being choked out by excessive volcanism. This was very much an artistic license, as the novelization downplays this aspect and shows a more accurate version of the Hell Creek environment (while still keeping volcanism as a threat to the local dinosaurs), and ''Walking with Dinosaurs: The Evidence'' acknowledges that evidence of excessive volcanism at the time of the K-Pg extinction is slim.

** ''Brachiosaurus'' is said to be the largest land animal ever to have lived, a popular notion for most of the 20th century, but it was already surpassed in size by ''Argentinosaurus'' by 1993 (when the latter was described). This gets corrected in ''Series/ChasedByDinosaurs''.
** Even though ''Allosaurus'' was known from numerous well-preserved skulls, even back in the late '90s, the series erroneously showed its "brow horns" as being placed above its eyes instead of just if front of them, making it look as if it has permanent AngryEyebrows. Fortunately, this was fixed with the updated model in ''Series/TheBalladOfBigAl''.

** In "Time of Titans", ''Brachiosaurus'' is said to be the largest land animal ever to have lived, a popular notion for most of the 20th century, but it was already surpassed in size by ''Argentinosaurus'' by 1993 (when the latter was described). This gets corrected in ''Series/ChasedByDinosaurs''.

* "New Blood":
** At the time, no pterosaur fossils were confidently identified from Triassic North America (beyond some fragments tentatively attributed to ''Eudimorphodon''). In 2018, however, we described the dimorphodontid ''Caelestiventus'' from the Late Triassic of Utah.

* ''Death of a Dynasty'':
** While the exact cause of the non-avian dinosaurs' extinction was still debated in the '90s, WWD opted to go with a minority opinion saying that dinosaurs were already on their way out by the end of the Maastricthian, as they lived on a "sick planet" poisoned by constant volcanic activity and the meteor impact was just the straw that broke the camel's back, even though we already had ample evidence, based on the various wildlife such as fish, insects, amphibians, and small crocodiles, as well as the local flora, that Hell Creek was a lush floodplain more similar to the Everglades than anything. At the same time, here, it's depicted as a barren, ashy wasteland dotted with volcanos and with only patches of forests scattered across it, and the dinosaurs are being choked out by excessive volcanism. This was very much an artistic license, as the novelization downplays this aspect and shows a more accurate version of the Hell Creek environment (while still keeping volcanism as a threat to the local dinosaurs), and ''Walking with Dinosaurs: The Evidence'' acknowledges that evidence of excessive volcanism at the time of the K-Pg extinction is slim.

*** This size of the show's ''Liopleurodon''. Back in the '90s, workers would have cited ''Liopleurodon'', based on fragmentary remains from Oxford Clay and younger fossils from Kimmeridge Clay subsequently assigned to ''Pliosaurus'', [[https://www.geokniga.org/bookfiles/geokniga-fossils-oxford-clay-1991.pdf as reaching a max length of maybe 15 meters]] (improved understanding of pliosaurid anatomy would place such specimens at around 10-12 meters). The larger size in the series was based on very fragmentary remains (namely a large vertebra) which yielded length estimates of anywhere between 16 to 20 meters. Even the tie-in book ''Walking with Dinosaurs: The Evidence'' admits that no expert truly thought that 25-meter pliosaurids existed.

* FalselyAdvertisedAccuracy: For all the ScienceMarchesOn, a few things claimed in the series were unambiguously wrong even for 1999.
** This size of the show's ''Liopleurodon''. Back in the '90s, workers would have cited ''Liopleurodon'', based on fragmentary remains from Oxford Clay and younger fossils from Kimmeridge Clay subsequently assigned to ''Pliosaurus'', as reaching a max length of maybe 15 meters (improved understanding of pliosaurid anatomy would place such specimens at around 10-12 meters). The larger size in the series was based on very fragmentary remains (namely a large vertebra) which yielded length estimates of anywhere between 16 to 20 meters. Even the tie-in book ''Walking with Dinosaurs: The Evidence'' admits that no expert truly thought that 25-meter pliosaurids existed.
** Bizarrely, when comparing the locomotion of ''Ophthalmosaurus'' and ''Cryptoclidus'' in "Cruel Sea", the narrator states that the latter represents the "norm" for marine reptiles by using its four flippers for propulsion, even though most other marine reptiles such as mosasaurs and sea crocs used their tails for propulsion just like ichthyosaurs, and plesiosaurs were actually the odd ones out.

** In "Cruel Sea", the narrator claims that large dinosaurs are rare in Late Jurassic Europe and that the 5-meter ''Eustreptospondylus'' is one of the biggest (at least in England). This is simply not true, as some of the first large dinosaurs ever named, like ''Dacentrurus'', ''Cetiosaurus'', and ''Megalosaurus'' (the first non-avian dinosaur ever named) all come from Late Jurassic England, and others, like the Portuguese ''Lustotitan'' (then lumped into ''Brachiosaurus'') were also known at the time. This is especially odd since the unaired pilot shows ''Cetiosaurus'' coexisting with ''Eustreptospondylus''.

*** An unnamed large pliosaur briefly appears in the episode. A [[WordOfSaintPaul tie-in video game]] claims that it's ''Plesiopleurodon'' (a case of both InformedSpecies and major AnachronismStew). In 2018, however, we described ''Sachicasaurus'', a very large pliosaurid from Barremian Columbia, which fits the former's profile quite perfectly.

* AccidentallyCorrectZoology:
** Several scenes in "Giant of the Skies" show a generic midsized pterosaur with a ''Pteranodon''-like crest, most notably the one who gets its fish stolen by the ''Ornithocheirus'' (''Tropeognathus'') in Europe. At the time, no such animals were known from the Lower Cretaceous, but then in 2003, we named ''Ludodactylus'', a midsized anhanguerid with a ''Pteranodon''-like crest that lived in Brazil at roughly the same time as its larger cousin ''Tropeognathus'', and two years later, we also described the similar-looking ''Caulkicephalus'', who lived in Britain during the Barremian (when “Giant of the Skies” takes place).
** In "Giant of the Skies", the tapejarids are depicted as having black bodies and red crests. In 2017, a tapejarid was discovered with preserved melanosomes (pigment cells). Guess what colors its body and crest were.
** An unnamed large pliosaur briefly appears in "Giant of the Skies". A [[WordOfSaintPaul tie-in video game]] claims that it's ''Plesiopleurodon'' (a case of both InformedSpecies and major AnachronismStew). In 2018, however, we described ''Sachicasaurus'', a very large pliosaurid from Barremian Columbia, which fits the former's profile quite perfectly.
** The ''Deinosuchus'' shown in "Death of a Dynasty", which has a gharial-esque head and is described as weighing about one ton, is actually very similar to the largest crocodylomorph actually known from the Hell Creek area: ''Thoracosaurus''.
** The ''Anurognathus'' in "Time of the Titans" was a case of MisplacedWildlife. In 2007, the Morrison pterosaur ''Mesadactylus'' became classified as an anurognathid (although the classification is rather tentative, as it's based only on a single set of fused vertebrae).
** The ''Dinilysia'' is live-acted by a boid snake and unnamed. There is an actual, unnamed boid in the Hell Creek Formation (the earliest boid in the fossil record, in fact).
** Though fossil discoveries disproved the show's depiction of a stocky, badger-like ''Didelphodon'', it also turned to be a largely true portrait of ''Repenomamus'' by sheer coincidence (although ''Repenomamus'' didn't live anywhere close, geographically or temporally, to the Hell Creek Formation).
** ''Iberomesornis'' an enantiornithine is depicted with a tail fan, which until the the discovery of enantiornithines with [[https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822%2815%2901430-X?_returnURL=https%3A%2F%2Flinkinghub.elsevier.com%2Fretrieve%2Fpii%2FS096098221501430X%3Fshowall%3Dtrue fan-shaped]] tail feathers and [[https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02724634.2015.1054035?journalCode=ujvp20 elaborate]] tail displays, it was thought that all enantiornithines instead possessed ribbon like tail feathers.[[note]]Though it is not known if ''Iberomesornis'' itself possessed such a structure.[[/note]]
** The European theropod ''Eustreptospondylus'' is [[AnachronismStew inaccurately shown living at the end of the Jurassic]] and is a PaletteSwap of ''Allosaurus'' (despite being a megalosaur). Coincidently, in 1999 (when WWD debuted), paleontologists in Portugal described fossil material of ''Allosaurus'' itself from the Late Jurassic Lourinhã Formation, which would later be named ''Allosaurus europaeus'' (2006).
** The German ''Rhamphorhynchus'' is shown coexisting with Oxford Clay Formation in England, likely based off fragmentary fossils from the site previously classified within the genus (and ''Rhamphorhynchus'' being thought to have a much bigger geographical range at the time due to scrappy Jurassic pterosaur fossils from around the world ascribed to it), but have since been determined to be dubious and likely represent unrelated rhamphorhynchoids (on top of the fact the episode is set more than ten million years after all the Oxford Clay fauna died out). However, an actual English ''Rhamphorhynchus'' was discovered in 2002 (named ''Rhamphorhynchus etchesi'' in 2015), and lived at the exact time the episode is set to boot (in the younger Kimmeridge Clay Formation).
** At the time the series premiered, the inclusion of ''Torosaurus'' in "Death of a Dynasty" (set in Hell Creek at the time of the Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction) was considered a minor example of an AnachronisticAnimal. While ''Torosaurus'' was indeed part of the Hell Creek biota, it was at the time only known from the middle Maastrichtian about 1-2 million years earlier than the setting of the episode. However, late Maastrichtian ''Torosaurus'' material has been uncovered since then and confirms that the genus really was still around to witness the K-Pg event[[note]]That said, the late Maastrichtian ''Torosaurus'' material comes mainly from the Scollard Formation in Canada. We don't actually know whether it was still present in Hell Creek at this point (given the overall extreme rarity of ''Torosaurus'' fossils from Hell Creek, the idea they were there at the time and we just haven't found their fossils is highly plausible).[[/note]].

** The dromaeosaurid from "Death of a Dynasty" was seen as an example of AnachronismStew, as ''Dromaeosaurus'' (what the animal was called during production despite its flaws) was extinct by the K/Pg extinction (it was likely based on numerous dromaeosaur teeth from Hell Creek tentatively assigned to ''Dromaeosaurus''). Skip ahead to 2013, and a dromaeosaur just the right size to match with this creature was discovered in the exact formation the episode takes place in, ''Acheroraptor'' (indeed, the study that described ''Acheroraptor'' stated that it was likely the various "''Dromaeosaurus''" teeth from Hell Creek actually belonged to ''Acheroraptor''). ''Dakotaraptor'' lived in the same time and place, but was much bigger than the one in the show[[note]]That said, ''Dakotaraptor'' may be a chimera rather than a real animal[[/note]].

* ''Diplodocus'' (and later ''Apatosaurus'' in ''Series/TheBalladOfBigAl'') having horizontal, relatively inflexible necks was a theory sauropod expert Kent Stevens (the main advisor for "Time of Titans") was developing while the series was in production, so its inclusion in "Time of Titans" was very cutting-edge for its time ([[ScienceMarchesOn but later research on diplodocid biomechanics would heavily criticize it]]). ''Diplodocus'' having iguana-like spines was also a very new idea, thanks to the 1990 discovery of the "Howe Quarry diplodocid", which preserved impressions of long, keratenous spines.
** "Spirits of the Ice Forest" was certainly this for 1999, due to the then-recent boom of fossil finds from the Dinosaur Cove site in Victoria during the late 1980s and '90s, which helped boost our understanding of South Pole dinosaurs, not to mention the 1997 description of ''Koolasuchus'', a giant temnospondyl amphibian that survived long past its kin’s glory days.

** This size of the show's ''Liopleurodon''. Back in the '90s, workers would have cited ''Liopleurodon'', based on fragmentary remains from Oxford Clay and younger fossils from Kimmeridge Clay subsequently assigned to ''Pliosaurus'', as reaching a max length of maybe 15 meters (improved understanding of pliosaurid anatomy would place such specimens at around 10-12 meters). The larger size in the series was based on very fragmentary remains (namely a large vertebra) which yielded length estimates of anywhere between 16 to 20 meters, so treating the highest estimates as fact and speculating that even larger animals could have existed is essentially this trope. Even the tie-in book ''Walking with Dinosaurs: The Evidence'' admits that no expert truly thought that 25-meter pliosaurids existed.

* This size of the show's ''Liopleurodon''. Back in the '90s, workers would have cited ''Liopleurodon'', based on fragmentary remains from Oxford Clay and younger fossils from Kimmeridge Clay subsequently assigned to ''Pliosaurus'', as reaching a max length of maybe 15 meters (improved understanding of pliosaurid anatomy would place such specimens at around 10 meters). The larger size in the series was based on very fragmentary remains (namely a large vertebra) which yielded length estimates of anywhere between 16 to 20 meters, so treating the highest estimates as fact and speculating that even larger animals could have existed is essentially this trope. Even the tie-in book ''Walking with Dinosaurs: The Evidence'' admits that no expert truly thought that 25-meter pliosaurids existed.

* ActorAllusion: From the 3D movie, this wouldn't be [[WesternAnimation/IceAge the first time]] Creator/JohnLeguizamo played a prehistoric animal, although this time he's playing a bird. And not [[Film/SuperMarioBros1993 the first time]] [[WesternAnimation/IceAgeDawnOfTheDinosaurs he's been surrounded by dinosaurs]]. Humorously enough, his Ice Age costar, Creator/RayRomano was picked to host the Creator/DiscoveryChannel premier of "Walking With Beasts" in order to promote Ice Age. This was an America only thing however, Canada was Romano free. Also amusing, Skylar Stone, the voice of Scowler, would later be [[TheOtherDarrin the new voice actor]] for Diego in ''WesternAnimation/TheIceAgeAdventuresOfBuckWild''.