Animal Armageddon is a 2009 Speculative Documentary series that aired on Animal Planet. Each episode (there are eight in total, although the DVD only includes the first four) focuses on a different extinction event in Earth's history (although there are two episodes about the end of the Cretaceous, because, you know, dinosaurs). The basic plot is that several creatures are shown before the extinction occurs, and that only a few of those shown will survive the extinction event. It also features cutaway scenes of paleontologists talking about the extinctions and apocalyptic quotes from The Bible and other sources.
Provides Examples Of:
- After the End: The immediate aftermath of a mass extinction has the landscape as a barren desert, the percentage of species that has gone extinct in the upper double digits, and a small handful of surviving species left to rebuild. Downplayed in that after a few million years it becomes a Dawn of an Era.
- Alien Sky: Mentioned in the Triassic episode, when the oceans being filled with purple bacteria causes the sky to be tinted yellow with ammonia.
- Also implied in the Permian episode, with atmospheric clouds of Hydrogen Sulfide.
- Skies in general are sometimes tinted red, yellow, orange, brown, or gray due to clouds of ash and dust in the atmosphere.
- Always a Bigger Fish: After killing a juvenile hadrosaur, two Troodon are driven from their kill by a Tyrannosaurus.
- Anachronism Stew: It's played straight, but only true paleobuffs will notice it.
- More noticeable in "The Great Dying", which somehow put the crocodile-like Proterosuchus and the mammal ancestor Thrinaxodon in the Permian, while they are known only from the early Triassic.
- To be fair for Proterosuchus, a close relative called Archosaurus was known from the end of the Permian, and is the earliest known Archosauriform.
- What's Staurikosaurus doing at the very end of the Triassic?
- Gigantopithecus 74,000 years ago. It went extinct a good 300,000 years ago.
- More noticeable in "The Great Dying", which somehow put the crocodile-like Proterosuchus and the mammal ancestor Thrinaxodon in the Permian, while they are known only from the early Triassic.
- Ape Shall Never Kill Ape: Subverted. Hey, any species will commit cannibalism in the face of extinction.
- Apocalypse How: The basic premise of the series is to depict real-life examples of Class 4 Apocalypses that happened in prehistory, including the 'big five' (Ordovician, Devonian, Permian, Triassic, and Cretaceous) and the Toba supervolcano. A hypothetical near-future extinction event with a chicxulub-sized asteroid hitting New York City is also presented, and humanity faces major societal disruption or even societal collapse in this scenario.
- Artistic License – Biology: One of the weaknesses of Gorgonopsians as depicted in episode 5 is that they cannot chew, and instead take one bite out of a carcass and then abandon it, which serves them well in good times but proves their undoing in the extinction event. Real-life predators that cannot chew will instead tear out chunks of meat and swallow them whole, and would never be so wasteful as to abandon a carcass after just one bite.
- Artistic License – Paleontology: A recurring problem, especially given the
TV-grade CGI. To list some problems besides the special effects:- Naked raptors and troodonts. The raptors do have some feathers, but not nearly enough.
- Elephant-legged ceratopsians and sauropods, as well as incorrect hand posture on the carnivorous dinosaurs.
- Sauropods with their nostrils on the top of their head. A widespread image, but science shows it's wrong.
- And "Phobosuchus" should be called Deinosuchus, and it went extinct noticeably before the end of the Cretaceous.
- Not to mention a 20-ton mosasaur?!?
- And a 20,000-ton Dunkleosteus??!!??
- Perhaps they meant 20,000 pound?
- Jawless fish are mentioned as going extinct in the Devonian extinction. While hard-shelled jawless fish did go extinct in the Devonian, Hagfish and Lampreys are jawless fish and are still extant.
- Not to mention that the show used stock footage of Astraspis from the Ordovichian episode to mention jawless fish's extinction.
- The Permian Synapsids (such as Lystrosaurus, Gorgonopsians, and Dicynodonts) are described as "mammal-like reptiles".
Therapsids are currently considered proto-mammals rather than true reptiles. - Lystrosaurus is also described as related to Dicynodonts, and and that Dicynodonts went extinct in the Permian extinction while Lystrosaurus survived. Lystrosaurus is a type of Dicynodont, and while most Dicynodonts (including the eponymous Dicynodon, which the Dicynodonts in the show apparently represent) did go extinct at the end of the Permian, a clade of Dicynodonts called the Kannemeyeriformes survived until near the end of the Triassic.
- Badass Decay: Orthocones, identified in the show as "straight nautiloids", are hit hard by this in the Ordovichian episode, as a result of the Ordovichian-Silurian extinction. At the beginning of the episode, an orthocone is described as "a merciless killer feared by all", and casually dining on Eurypterids. After being hit hard by the extinction, the tables have turned and Eurypterids have the upper hand over orthocones. By the Devonian, an orthocone only makes an unnamed cameo to get eaten by a Dunkleosteus in the giant placoderm's Establishing Character Moment.
- Inverted for the ancestors of Tetrapods in the Ordovician and Devonian episodes. Jawed fish are depicted evolving during the Ordovician extinction, and Tiktaalik evolves into Icthyostega during the Devonian extinction.
- Big Creepy-Crawlies: Sea scorpions in the first episode and the giant (1-foot-long) cockroaches in the last episode.
- Bittersweet Ending: An Apocalypse How happens, more than half of all species go extinct, the landscape is reduced to a barren desert, the oceans have become cesspools, and a geological Period is brought to an end (or an entire Era in the case of the Permian and Cretaceous episodes), but the survivors of the extinction are always able to rebuild, and the next Period begins.
- Camera Abuse: When the gorgonopsian kills a Lystrosaurus, the camera is splattered with blood.
- Crapsack World: Goes hand in hand with the extinction events.
- Dawn of an Era: Each episode ends on an optimistic note by mentioning how the survivors of the mass extinction go on to dominate life in the next Period.
- This Trope is also specifically noted during the Triassic episode, when the Triassic extinction marks the beginning of the Age of Dinosaurs.
- Dragon Ascendant: In several episodes, a secondary or even tertiary predator becomes the new Apex predator after the old one goes extinct or goes into decline- including Eurypterids in the Ordovician episode, Proterosuchus in the Permian episode, Staurikosaurus in the Triassic episode, and hawks and rats in the near-future episode.
- The Dreaded: Straight Nautiloids in the first episode, Dunkleosteus in the second, Tyrannosaurus in the third episode, and Gorgonopsians in the fifth episode are all depicted as this. Unfortunately, nature doesn't care about their reputation, and doesn't spare them from extinction.
- Earn Your Happy Ending: The survivors of the extinction.
- End of an Age: Each mass extinction (except the Toba Super-eruption) represents the end of one geological Period and the beginning of the next.
- Establishing Character Moment: Half of the episodes give one to an apex predator of the time period- Straight Nautiloids for the Ordovician, Dunkleosteus for the Devonian, Gorgonopsians for the Permian, and Tyrannosaurus Rex for the Cretaceous. Each of these apex predators is given a scene showing them hunting and eating, shortly before the extinction begins.
- Straight Nautiloids are described as merciless killers who prey on sea scorpions.
- A Dunkleosteus swims up to a Straight Nautiloid, the apex predator from the previous episode, swallows it whole, and then chomps down with a powerful bite.
- A Gorgonopsian is shown stalking a herd of Lystrosaurus, chases one, bites down on the neck while shaking it to death, then takes one bite and abandons the carcass.
- Tyrannosaurus Rex is introduced scaring away a pair of Troodons from a wounded hadrosaur, casually tosses one of the Troodons aside, rips the Hadrosaur's head off, and swallows it whole.
- Family-Unfriendly Death: Quite a number, but the Lystrosaurus and young hadrosaur stand out. In the first case, a gorgonopsian bites down on its neck, spurting blood on the camera. However, the gorgonopsian's jaw structure means that he can only shear off one piece of meat, leaving an enormous pool of blood. What's left of the lystrosaur is scavenged by the protomammal Thrinaxodon. As for the hadrosaur, it is attacked by two Troodon who fail to actually kill it. They are chased away by a Tyrannosaurus rex, who slits the hadrosaur's throat and eats its foot.
- Feathered Fiend: A scantily feathered Velociraptor (with the model also used for Dromaeosaurus) and naked Troodon (with the model also used for Byronosaurus).
- Foregone Conclusion: Some of the episodes try to add a sense of suspense by emphasizing how all life on Earth hangs precariously in the balance after a mass extinction... of course, the viewer is well aware that things eventually worked out, given how Earth is flourishing quite nicely.
- From Bad to Worse: Repeatedly at the end of the Permian and Cretaceous.
- Giant Flyer: The ever-popular Quetzalcoatlus.
- Gorn: Mostly averted. This is a noticeably less gory documentary than Jurassic Fight Club and Monsters Resurrected. However, it's played straight in "The Great Dying", when a gorgonopsian rather brutally kills and eats a Lystrosaurus.
- Grand Finale: Mankind nearly goes extinct in the last episode.
- The Hunter Becomes the Hunted:
- Before the Ordovician extinction, the eurypterids are easy prey for the straight nautiloids. During the extinction, the latter becomes smaller, turning the tables.
- In the grip of the Great Dying, the wolf-like gorgonopsians, the top predators before the extinction, are easy prey for the aquatic Proterosuchus.
- Just Before the End: Each episode begins shortly before the mass extinction, to establish what a healthy ecosystem in the time period looks like. Then the extinction hits.
- Mega Neko: The cave lion. The "Sumatran leopard" and the pumas may qualify.
- Misplaced Wildlife:
- Lystrosaurus in Kansas. It's never been found in the Americas.
- Staurikosaurus in North America. It never made it outside South America.
- Eudimorphodon and Megazostrodon, on a related note. Eudimorphodon only lived in Europe and Megazostrodon only lived in South Africa.
- Elasmotherium in the jungles of Sumatra. It lived on the tundra of Asia and Europe.
- Giant leopards are not known from Sumatra.
- Monstrous Cannibalism: Dunkleosteus, Rutiodon, and Tyrannosaurus Rex are all depicted resorting to cannibalism when all other sources of food have been exhausted.
- Outrun the Fireball: Episodes 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7, with implied instances in episodes 2 (or is it Outswim the Fireball?) and 8.
- Panthera Awesome: The cave lions, pumas and "Sumatran leopard".
- Raptor Attack: A Velociraptor with the wrong skull shape and a pair of naked Troodon that take down a subadult hadrosaur. Cameos by Dromaeosaurus and Byronosaurus aren't any better.
- Rocks Fall, Everyone Dies: The extinctions all qualify, with the most literal examples ever at the end of the Cretaceous and the hypothetical future.
- Rodents of Unusual Size: In "The Next Extinction", after humanity hides underground to survive an asteroid strike, in cities, rats grow to the size of dogs.
- Rule of Cool: Several less cool and more plausible theories are abandoned in favor of cooler, less likely ones. This is especially noticeable in the Ordovician episode.
- The show definitely has a bias for showing the bigger and more odd looking animals, range and chronology be damned.
- Scavengers Are Scum: Averted. Animals are often shown scavenging carrion when their normal sources of food have been exhausted, without being judged for it by the narrator.
- Thrinaxodon is introduced in the Permian episode as scavenging a carcass abandoned by a Gorgonopsian, and is presented more sympathetically than the apex predator.
- Small Taxonomy Pools: Orthocones and Eurypterids in the Ordovician episode, Dunkleosteus and Icthyostega in the Devonian episode, Lystrosaurus and Gorgonopsians in the Permian episode, Rutiodon and Eudimorphodon in the Triassic episode, and almost every named species in the Cretaceous and Toba episodes.
- Sole Survivor: Of the named species in the Cretaceous episodes, Purgatorius is the only one that survives the Chicxulub impact.
- Stock Footage/ Recycled Animation:
- Volcanic eruption shots from the Devonian episode are recycled for the Permian and Triassic episodes. Volcano footage from the Permian episode is also recycled for the Triassic episode.
- Destroyed, desolated, and deserted landscapes from the Devonian and Cretaceous episodes are also recycled for the Permian and Triassic episodes.
- Footage from the Permian episode is also used to recap the Permian Extinction in the beginning of the Triassic episode, establishing that the Earth has only just recovered from one mass extinction and is about to face another.
- Stock Sound Effect:
- One roar is used for the Triceratops, Velociraptor, Quetzalcoatlus, Dicynodon, and Elasmotherium.
- The Gorgonopsians in the Permian episode use the same generic Large Animal Roars used in The Land Before Time, Doom, and Ginger Snaps.
- At one point in the Cretaceous episode a Tyrannosaurus Rex can be heard making the stock roar from The Land Unknown.
- Since the special effects were from the same studio that made Dogfights, ''Animal Armageddon uses much of the same Stock Music as the latter show.
