open/close all folders
Both
Nigel Marven
- Adventurer Archaeologist: Not an actual archaeologist, but he nails the look.
- As Himself: Marven is a real host of wildlife documentaries.
- As You Know: He already knows that the creature in "The Giant Claw" is a Therizinosaurus, but he doesn't know how it looks or that it is a vegetarian.
- Badass Bookworm: He actually carries a field book, like any self-respecting naturalist.
- Bag of Holding: In "The Giant Claw", he appears to carry everything he uses in his backpack. However, this is undone by the fact that 1) he has a filming crew, presumably carrying more supplies; and 2) he has access to a jeep and a small plane in "Land of Giants".
- Be Careful What You Wish For: He spends all of "Land of Giants" wishing to witness the "ultimate hunt" — Argentinosaurus by Giganotosaurus. He comes to regret it.
- Bunny-Ears Lawyer: He seems Lethally Stupid at times, but he always comes out unscratched and succeeding. His cameraman, on the other hand...
- Crazy-Prepared: He never misses anything. Be it a red cloth to distract Protoceratops, enough truck weights for an adult Argentinosaurus or a plane to find a herd of them.
- Mr. Exposition: His main role, as he replaces the narrator.
- The Pollyanna: Downplayed. He is not miserable, but he seems to enjoy being threatened or (literally) spit on by prehistoric creatures.
- Riddle for the Ages: So how does he travel back in time? It is never explained, but
nobody cares anyway. If we factor in Prehistoric Park and Primeval, he might be capable of creating or controlling one of the time anomalies in the latter. - Title Drop: Almost. He describes his plane ride as "Flying with Pterosaurs".
The Cameraman
Nigel's unnamed, unseen, unlucky cameraman.
- Butt-Monkey: Due to the constant instances of Camera Abuse.
- Camera Abuse: Forced to fend off a Mama Bear Protoceratops with a microphone, hide from a Tarbosaurus while Nigel frantically tells him to stop recording, woke up in the middle of the night by Mononykus, chased by a Velociraptor pack, and also chased twice by Sarcosuchus. The second time is even more worrying.
- He Who Must Not Be Seen: Justified because he is a cameraman and doesn't want to ruin the shot.
- Intrepid Reporter: No matter how much Camera Abuse goes on, he never stops filming. Except when Nigel tells him to, but then he immediately begins to record again from a few feet away.
- No Name Given: Because Nigel never calls him by name.
- Oh, Crap!: Every time he lets out a worried "Nigel..."
- The Quiet One: He's not supposed to speak either, as he is just the cameraman. So the only time we hear him is when he alerts Nigel of a danger.
- Uncertain Doom: "Land of Giants" ends with the Sarcosuchus attacking him while Nigel yells him to watch out.
The Giant Claw
Therizinosaurus
- Anachronism Stew: Like Tarbosaurus, Saurolophus, and Mononykus, it lived around 4-5 million years after the setting of the episode.
- Camera Abuse: At the end, one licks Nigel's camera.
- Conviction by Counterfactual Clue: Nigel dares to walk up to one and touch it. His reasoning is that it will recognize him as a mammal, despite his size and walking on two feet, and don't fear it because all contemporary mammals are small and inoffensive to it.
- The Faceless: The entire point of the special is for Nigel to uncover the face of this creature. He does.
- Gigantic Adults, Tiny Babies: A near-term fetus skeleton fits in Nigel's hand; an adult is larger than a tyrannosaur.
- Herbivores Are Friendly: Acts friendly to Nigel right after driving a Tarbosaurus away.
- Killer Rabbit: One of the goofiest looking dinosaurs in this series, and also one capable to fend off tyrannosaurs.
- Mix-and-Match Critters: It is almost unrecognizable as a theropod and looks more like a prosauropod with the hindquarters of a bird. Its massive hand claws and lifestyle are reminiscent of ground sloths.
- Ripped from the Headlines: Therizinosaurus was named in 50s but is only known from its arms and claws. Much like When Dinosaurs Roamed America, the series capitalized on the therizinosaur craze in paleo-media at the time, due to the discovery of smaller but more complete “segnosaurs” during the 80s and 90s and their subsequent synonymization with therizinosaurs just before the Turn of the Millennium, which finally allowed us to fill in the missing gaps in the appearance of Therizinosaurus itself, revealing it as the biggest member of this bizarre group of theropods.
- Red Baron: "The Giant Claw".
- The Reveal: It is a large theropod, but it isn't a carnivore, and it isn't as big as expected because it is not a scaled-up version of a tyrannosaur.
- Shrouded in Myth: Nigel begins the episode by relying on how it was first known from the claws only, which were taken as belonging to a turtle, and was then identified as a carnivorous dinosaur.
- Vegetarian Carnivore: Much to Nigel's amazement, it is a theropod that eats plants.
- Wolverine Claws: Has these. And they are massive, the largest claws ever.
Saurolophus
- Anachronism Stew: Like Therizinosaurus, Tarbosaurus, and Mononykus, it lived around 4-5 million years after the setting of the episode.
- Boring, but Practical: Its chewing molars are highlighted.
- Mundane Made Awesome: It has over two thousand of them.
- Camera Abuse: One spits on the camera after breaking into Nigel's tent.
- Informed Species: Due to just being the WWD Anatotitan model (now Edmontosaurus) but with a stumpy crest on its head. The skull of the real animal
◊ was significantly different from that◊ of Edmontosaurus. - Herbivores Are Friendly: The break-in is done out of curiosity and the Saurolophus retreats soon after.
- Mix-and-Match Critters: Very similar to Anatotitan, but with a short crest reminiscent of some pterosaurs.
- Social Ornithopod: They live in herds and tolerate other species that mean no harm to them.
- Suspiciously Similar Substitute: Does all the things Anatotitan did in "Death of a Dynasty", except being eaten.
Protoceratops
- Beak Attack: Their large beak is their only means of defense. One manages to break a Velociraptor's arm before succumbing to the pack's attack.
- Bull Seeing Red: Deconstructed. Nigel uses a red cloth at the end of a stick to keep the Protoceratops away. They don't attack because the cloth is red, as they had already decided to attack Nigel; they attack it instead of Nigel because of its bright color, as they have a refined color vision (unlike cattle).
- Death by a Thousand Cuts: How one is killed by Velociraptors, because they aren't powerful enough to do it in one move.
- From Nobody to Nightmare: Though there were already large ceratopsians at the time (e.g. Styracosaurus), Protoceratops is often used as an example of what ceratopsians looked like before they acquired horns and large frills and sizes.
- Killer Rabbit: It may look less threatening than a boar, but it will stand its ground and use the beak to snap at any threat.
- Mama Bear: The females guard their nests and snap their beaks at anything getting close.
- Mix-and-Match Critters: A parrot-headed pig.
- Temper-Ceratops: They might be very small compared to their relatives, but they are highly aggressive towards predators and anything that approaches their nest.
Velociraptor
- An Arm and a Leg: One loses an arm to a Protoceratops beak. It is still hanging from the Velociraptor's body but it will likely never heal, even if its owner survives.
- Animal Jingoism: The famous Protoceratops fighting Velociraptor fossil is recreated, although Velociraptor survives this time.
- Camera Abuse: They chase Nigel and his cameraman to two tree stumps; one keeps trying to get the cameraman even after Nigel uses a high-pitched horn to scare the others away.
- Death by a Thousand Cuts: They scratch a Protoceratops with their sickle claws until it passes out from blood loss.
- Diurnal Nocturnal Animal: These dinosaurs were more likely nocturnal.
- Don't Go in the Woods: They begin to stalk Nigel the moment he leaves the dunes for the forest.
- Killer Rabbit: Tiny and just a little annoying, but still deadly.
- Lightning Bruiser: Fast and lethal up close.
- Raptor Attack: Scaly, diurnal, and pack hunters. This combination is highly inaccurate (especially the first two).
- Weaksauce Weakness: They can't stand Nigel's horn, though neither do other dinosaurs apparently.
- Wolverine Claws: One on each foot, like other dinosaurs. Interestingly, it is also smaller and straighter than in others.
- Zerg Rush: How they deal with prey larger than themselves.
Mononykus
- Anachronism Stew: Like Therizinosaurus, Tarbosaurus, and Saurolophus, it lived around 4-5 million years after the setting of the episode. The related Shuvuuia would have been a more accurate pick.
- Animals Not to Scale: One of the more notable examples in the WW series. The real animal was pretty dinky◊, but here, it’s depicted as man-sized. The closest real-life match would be the contemporary Bonapartenykus, but it lived in Argentina.
- Cat Scare: They "attack" Nigel's tent and one even has its head inside when it is discovered. They are completely harmless, however, as they are insectivores.
- Cow Tools: Their arms are even more ridiculously small than their heads, and topped by a single finger and claw. It is hard to think in them having any function.
- Feathered Fiend: Averted, they're actually quite docile.
- Goofy Feathered Dinosaur: They are the only feathered dinosaurs in the program, and harmless insectivores that run away from everything like spooked chickens.
- Lovable Coward: They can be very funny, due to their propensity to scream and run away from everything. When they are involved, Nigel stops being chased by dinosaurs and starts chasing them... in his underwear.
Tarbosaurus
- Anachronism Stew: Like Therizinosaurus, Saurolophus, and Mononykus, it lived around 4-5 million years after the setting of the episode. The closely related Zhuchengtyrannus did live at this time, but it wasn't described until 2011.
- Covers Always Lie: Nigel runs from one in the opening of Sea Monsters, which is implied to be a past adventure of Nigel's (chiefly, "The Giant Claw"). However, this scene does not appear in Chased by Dinosaurs. It also appears to be a lot bigger in that scene than in the previous special.
- The Dreaded: Nigel is (obviously) afraid of encountering it while in Cretaceous Mongolia and must hide from one in a grove at one point. The Saurolophus and Mononykus all flee from the water hole once the Tarbosaurus shows up.
- Suspiciously Similar Substitute: To T. rex. It was even classified in the genus Tyrannosaurus at one point.
- Terrifying Tyrannosaur: The Asian cousin and equivalent of Tyrannosaurus rex is presented as the apex predator of the area that means a threat to smaller dinosaurs. Therizinosaurus is the only herbivore that does not back off from it.
- The Worf Effect: Nigel compares the claw of a tyrannosaur to Therizinosaurus to note how massive the latter is. When a Tarbosaurus shows up at the end, it is confronted and driven away by the Therizinosaurus after a brief standoff.
Azhdarcho
- All There in the Manual: Only identified on the (now-removed) official website. The fact that the image shown here even still exists is nothing short of a miracle.
- Anachronism Stew: While it did live in the same general region as its costars, they weren’t even close to being contemporaries, since Azhdarcho lived during the Turonian (90 mya), not the Campanian (75 mya).
- Artistic License – Paleontology: Beside looking more like a Pteranodon and showing up in the wrong time period, they are referred to as scavengers, whereas actual azhdarchids were more like terrestrial hunters similar to storks and cranes.
- Informed Species: The promotional image looks like a recolored Pteranodon with a smaller crest.
- Circling Vultures: Averted. Despite being identified as a scavenger, when a flock circles over Nigel at one point, nothing sinister comes of it.
- Living Prop: They are only there for atmosphere, and are not even shown up close.
- Palette Swap: It suffered the same fate as its cousin Quetzalcoatlus, but starting with a different model. At least this one has no teeth.
Land of Giants
Argentinosaurus
- Anachronism Stew: Far less noticeable than most examples in the series, but it’s still present. Argentinosaurus lived during the mid to late Cenomanian (97-93 mya), not the Albian-Cenomanian boundary (100 mya).
- Death by a Thousand Cuts: Even a young individual is far too large for (several) Giganotosaurus to kill in one attack. So they keep biting until it collapses.
- Gentle Giant Sauropod: They tolerate the presence of Nigel in their nesting grounds.
- Giant Equals Invincible: Zigzagged. They are prey to Giganotosaurus, but Giganotosaurus prefer to hunt the younger, smaller individuals.
- Impending Doom P.O.V.: The Doom to Nigel while he is rushing to place the truck weights on the Argentinosaurus path.
- Mighty Glacier: They are even slower than Diplodocus. Nigel has no problem running to place half a dozen weights on their path, then away, before they get anywhere near him.
- Monster Is a Mommy: Turns out they were heading back to the lake shore to lay their eggs once again.
- Ripped from the Headlines: Like its predator, Argentinosaurus was named during the 90s and gained instant celebrity status as “the largest land animal of all time”, along with its connection with the theropod that was “bigger than T. rex”, thus ensuring its spot in this series.
- Suspiciously Similar Substitute: They pretty much do everything Diplodocus did in "Time of the Titans". Just larger.
Giganotosaurus
- Anachronism Stew: A more minor example, but it was not a contemporary of Argentinosaurus (being around 2-3 million years older), but its close relative and likely descended Mapusaurus was. Likewise, Giganotosaurus is known to have coexisted with a still unnamed but equally massive cousin of Argentinosaurus.
- Always a Bigger Fish: Nigel believes that an iguanodont is running in front of his jeep because it is scared of the jeep, but it is actually fleeing from a Giganotosaurus running behind the jeep. Fortunately, it is still more interested in the iguanodont.
- Bad Vibrations: Downplayed. The camera shakes briefly when the Giganotosaurus leaves with an iguanodont carcass on its jaws.
- Cruel Mercy: Their choice attack is biting and leaving the prey to bleed to death, instead of killing it directly.
- Composite Character: Its huge size (said to outsize a T. rex) and general anatomy are based on Giganotosaurus carolinii, but its coexistence with Argentinosaurus and the mobbing behavior is based on the closely related Mapusaurus roseae (known from a bone bed with multiple individuals of different ages). note
- Covers Always Lie: One chases Nigel (on foot) on the opening of Sea Monsters, in a scene implied to be one of his previous adventures (namely, "Land of Giants"). No such scene appears in the special, however, where he is only chased on a jeep. The Giganotosaurus chasing him is also very small, although it may be a juvenile.
- Death by a Thousand Cuts: Their signature attack cannot be put in practice against Argentinosaurus because of its massive size and they have to keep biting until it dies on the spot, hours later.
- Lightning Bruiser: Despite its gigantic size, it is also a fast runner.
- Prehistoric Monster: Almost called that by Nigel ("What a monster!"), due to its size. It is also reddish and with horn-like structures over the eyes, giving it a demonic appearance.
- Ripped from the Headlines: Like the behemoth it hunts, Giganotosaurus was named during the 90s (1995 to be specific) and gained instant media attention for its (controversial) status as the theropod that was bigger than the ''Tyrannosaurus rex'', along with its predator-prey dynamic with the “largest land animal of all time” (though those specimens turned out to be a related genus, Mapusaurus), thus ensuring its spot in this series.
- Super-Persistent Predator: They like to follow their prey over long distances, sometimes after biting them in a way they'll pass out from blood loss eventually.
- Suspiciously Similar Substitute: To Allosaurus. Not surprising, as they are related and Giganotosaurus could be its descendant.
- We Have Reserves: Giganotosaurus don't care if they lose a tooth in one attack, because another will grow back in its place. The teeth even have anatomical features that make them detach easily. They can go through 500 different teeth in their lifetime.
- Zerg Rush: Despite their monstrous size, they are forced to rely on this to hunt the even more gargantuan Argentinosaurus.
Patagonian iguanodont
- Adaptational Badass: Some accompanying artwork depicts a Mama Bear defending her calf from two Giganotosaurus. The show version is pretty much Monster Munch.
- Anachronism Stew: If it is indeed inspired by the then-undescribed Macrogryphosaurus, which lived some ten million years after the setting of the episode. The only evidence of large ornithopods from the Rio Limay Group (where Argentinosaurus and Giganotosaurus hail from) are fossilized trackways, which show the presence of roughly Iguanodon-sized animals (like the ichnotaxon Limayichnus major).
- Blood Is Squicker in Water: How Nigel finds one. The poor beast fled along a stream after being bitten by, and Cruel Mercy'd by Giganotosaurus. On the way there, it painted the river red with its blood.
- Boring, but Practical: Iguanodonts are probably the less distinctive dinosaur ever, but they are also among the most successful and have colonized all continents, as told by Nigel.
- Butt-Monkey: Made even worse in accompanying artwork, which shows it being hunted by both Giganotosaurus and Sarcosuchus.
- Cruel Mercy: One poor individual is on the receiving end of this from the Giganotosaurus, which left it to bleed out instead of killing it instantly.
- Hero of Another Story: The main plot is Argentinosaurus vs Giganotosaurus, but it is shown interacting with both the Giganotosaurus and Nigel himself.
- Monster Munch: Its main purpose is to show that Giganotosaurus does not usually eat Argentinosaurus.
- No Name Given: Called just "iguanodont", as the only evidence of iguanodonts from Cenomanian Patagonia are tracks.
- Palette Swap: Of the Iguanodon from The Lost World (2001).
- Social Ornithopod: They are seen browsing in herds.
Sarcosuchus
- Adaptational Badass: Shown succeeding in nabbing a drinking iguanodont in the accompanying artwork.
- Anachronism Stew: Both the African and the South American species died out at least 10 million years before the setting of the episode. Furthermore, some workers believe that S. hartti might even be older than S. imperator, though the former’s exact age remains unclear. Either way, there is no evidence of giant crocodylomorphs from Cenomanian Patagonia.
- Brick Joke: It attacks the Cameraman at the end of the episode in almost the same fashion as when it attacked Nigel earlier.
- Composite Character: Its huge size, general appearance, and even its survival into the early Cenomanian note are based on the famous African Sarcosuchus imperator ("Super Croc") but its presence in South America is based on the much smaller and more fragmentary (and possibly older) Sarcosuchus hartti.
- Historical Badass Upgrade: If it's meant to be Sarcosuchus hartti, who was much smaller than the famous S. imperator from Nigeria, as the former was only as big as a large Nile crocodile (big by modern standards, but hardly capable of nabbing giant dinosaurs).
- Jump Scare: Twice. One to Nigel, another to the Cameraman.
- Never Smile at a Crocodile: As one of the biggest crocs ever and an ambush predator...yes, be VERY afraid...
- Palate Propping: Spoofed in the first encounter with Nigel. The Sarcosuchus grabs a tree branch from Nigel's hand and snaps it in half with one bite.
- Ripped from the Headlines: Though named in The '60s, it only became popular around 2000, when complete skeletons were found in Africa.
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here/The Worf Effect: Jumps into the water when an Argentinosaurus herd interrupts its basking.
Pteranodon
- All Animals Are Domesticated: Despite never encountering humans before, they act almost dolphin-like in Nigel's presence. First by allowing him to feed them with fish, then by flying around when he takes a plane to locate the Argentinosaurus herd.
- Amazing Technicolor Wildlife: Compared to most other pterosaurs in the franchise, it’s a lot more vibrantly colored and has more elaborate body patterns.
- Anachronism Stew: One of the most notable examples in the WW series. Pteranodon lived during the Coniacian to early Campanian (88-80 mya) but here it shows up in the very early Cenomanian (100 mya), over 10 million years before its time.
- Composite Character: Almost entirely based on the iconic Pteranodon longiceps, who is known from extensive fossil material from Late Cretaceous of North America, but its presence in the Mid Cretaceous seems to be based on older, much fragmentary fossils once attributed to Pteranodon (like Bennettazhia) and/or pteranodontids of some sort (such as scrappy fossils from Mid Cretaceous Australia). See Rule of Cool.
- Giant Flyer: It might not be the largest ever but it is goddamn big, with a 20-foot wingspan.
- Misplaced Wildlife: Shows up in Patagonia despite being only known from North America. Though it could be explained away as them migrating, which many large and analogous seabirds are known to do today.
- One-Gender Race: Given their large size and prominent crests, the flock Nigel encounters is an all-male squad. Female Pteranodon were half the size of the males and only had a small stump of a crest. It could be attributed to budget cuts, but then again, their Azhdarcho is a Palette Swap of Pteranodon but with a stumpy crest, making it look like a female Pteranodon.
- Rule of Cool: It looks identical to its appearance in the final segment of Sea Monsters, the latter set 25 million years later. If Pteranodon had hypothetically existed that long then logically, the much earlier species would have looked quite different from its successor; likely being much smaller and less specialized (as is usually the case in evolution) instead of the Giant Flyer with an extravagant head crest.
Ornithocheirus
The other flying reptile made famous by the show itself. Click "Original Series" above for tropes related to "Giant of the Skies".
- Anachronism Stew: Shows up ten million years after its time.
- Bigger Is Better: As much as Nigel became friends with Pteranodon, he was clearly more excited to fly with the larger Ornithocheirus.note
- The Cameo: Shows up randomly in the middle of one scene and doesn't appear again in the special.
- Rule of Cool: The "largest flying creature" approach is repeated, even though the closest thing at the time would be anhanguerid pterosaurs half its size.
