Trivia / Planet Dinosaur

• Science Marches On:
  • Or at least may be marching on very soon. There is reportedly unpublished data showing that the troodont skulls in the oviraptorid nest actually tumbled into the nest, instead of being evidence of interspecific interaction.
  • Spinosaurus and Carcharodontosaurus are shown coexisting with Sarcosuchus and Ouranosaurus. This was likely due to all four genera being used wastebasket taxa for any fragmentary fossils of spinosaurs, carcharodontosaurs, large crocodylomorphs, and ornithopods found in Mid Cretaceous rocks in North Africa respectively, creating the illusion that all these genera coexisted for over 10 million years. But if we just look at the more complete and properly diagnostic material, Spinosaurus and Carcharodontosaurus are only known from the Cenomanian, while Sarcosuchus and Ouranosaurus lived over 10 million years prior in the late Aptian-early Albian.
  • Bradycneme is so fragmentary that its classification is anyone’s guess. Troodont? Dromaeosaur? Alvarezsaur? Flightless bird? It was likely chosen in favor of the far more complete Balaur bondoc (who at the time was envisioned as a stocky dromaeosaur) so the producers could cut costs by doing a Palette Swap with their Troodon/Saurornithoides model. Amusingly, Balaur has since been reclassified as a flightless bird. A vegetarian one, at that.
  • Rugops is very oversized by today’s standards. A 2008 study suggested that the Rugops holotype (the only known specimen of the animal) was potentially a subadult based on certain features of the skull like the lack of fusion between the nasals and the presence of the fenestra between the prefrontal, frontal, postorbital and lacrimal bones. As the animal was originally estimated to have stretched around 6 meters or more, it led to speculation about how big a hypothetical full-grown specimen could be, leading to portrayals of 8-9 meters in length. However, later studies gave it a more modest length of 4.4-5.3 meters, so even if the holotype wasn't fully grown, it probably didn't grow as huge as popularly depicted. That said, there are also fossils of a another, still-unnamed abelisaurid from the domain of Spinosaurus (specially the Kem Kem Beds) that did grow as big as the show’s Rugops.
  • Raptorex, which is briefly mentioned in the third episode, is likely an inaccurately dated juvenile of a larger tyrannosaur, possibly Tarbosaurus. One wonders why they didn't use Dilong, who would have been equally acceptable, and there are no doubts about its validity. ^note Unless, of course, you happen to be Dougal Dixon.
  • Similarly, Mojoceratops is also mentioned in the third episode (probably in an attempt to show how up-to-date the documentary is, as it was only described one year prior), but subsequent studies strongly suggest it's a synonym of Chasmosaurus (although a 2020 study suggests that the "Mojoceratops" fossils and "Eoceratops" fossils, along with some other Chasmosaurus fossils, might collectively be a new species of related ceratopsid).
  • The last episode also references Stygimoloch, but most later research (and even some studies at the time) strongly suggest it's actually the adolescent form of Pachycephalosaurus, although it might be a distinct species, P. spinifer, rather than sunk into P. wyomingensis.
  • It turns out we now have an idea of what the colours of Microraptor were.
  • Only a year after the series aired, "Predator X" was officially described as Pliosaurus funkei, a fairly common genus of large pliosaurs during the Late Jurassic of Europe. And it turned out to be a lot smaller than initially claimed◊, at an estimated 9-10 meters and about 8-10 tons (the size of a very large orca), and similar in size to related pliosaurs from the time, such as the British P. macromerus and Russian P. rossicus.
  • A major reason behind the initial 15-meter estimates for P. funkei was a huge and rather complete 3-meter flipper, but subsequent research showed that other known elements of its skeleton (such as the vertebrae) didn't correspond to such a huge size, instead being similar in size to corresponding bones in other large pliosaurs. This led to the conclusion that P. funkei had unusually large flippers, even for the Pliosaurus genus, while here, it's depicted with proportionally small flippers.
  • Predator X (Pliosaurus funkei) is shown hunting the British cryptoclidid Kimmerosaurus, but the latter is not known from Svaldbard's Agardhfjellet Formation. This was likely down because no named cryptoclidids were known from the site at the time, until 2012, when we named Djupedalia engeri and Colymbosaurus svalbardensis alongside P. funkei (the latter two genera are also known from Britain, albeit different species). In 2020, we got a third cryptoclidid from Agardhfjellet, Ophthalmothule cryostea.
  • Sarcosuchus has been downsized from 12 meters to smaller but still impressive 9-9.5 meters, since the original estimates were obtained using the head-to-body ratio of modern crocodilians, while Sarcosuchus was a far more basal crocodylomorph. Likewise, a 2014 biomechanical study cast doubt on its ability to perform the famous “death roll”, which, along with the narrower, more gharial-like snout, suggests that Sarcosuchus had a more generalized diet of large fish and perhaps smaller tetrapods.
  • The limb proportions of Spinosaurus have recently been shown to be considerably different than depicted. With hind limbs barely longer than its front ones making it top-heavy, Spinosaurus probably walked in a tripodal stance or maybe even scooted on its belly. Post-2014 discoveries revealed that it was an amphibious animal with short back legs and a paddle-shaped tail◊ (essentially a cross between a crocodile and waterfowl).
  • Saurornithoides and what appears to be Oviraptor, known from the Djadochta Formation, are shown coexisting with Gigantoraptor and Alectrosaurus, known from the Iren Dabasu Formation, during the Santonian, 85 million years ago. Turns out neither party lived at the time, as later studies concluded that Djadochta dates to the upper Campanian (75-72 mya), while Iren Dabasu is likely Cenomanian in age (96-94 mya).
  • Hatzegopteryx was much more heavily built than depicted, with a shorter, much thicker neck, and an even more gargantuan head. It used these adaptations to specifically tackle the adult dinosaurs, making it even more terrifying in Real Life than it already was in the show.
  • Thanks to the discovery of Yi qi, it seems unlikely that scansoriopterygids like Epidexipteryx used their fingers for probing wood for bugs. Instead, it seems increasingly likely that said fingers actually supported batlike wings or gliding membranes.
  • The sequence with Epidexipteryx takes place 154 million years ago, but subsequent dating of the Daohugou Beds indicate that they were most likely about ten million years older than this, with a margin of error of four million years, making them 160 million old at the youngest. Sinraptor, although not from the same formation, also lived at around this slightly earlier date.
  • "Zunityrannus" was officially named as Suskityrannus in 2019 (and it's only known from juvenile specimens so it's questionable whether it would have grown large enough to menace Nothronychus).
  • "Zunityrannus" is also depicted as scaly (probably more due to budget limitations involving harder to simulate feather coatings leading to a more conservative restoration), which was arguable at the time because only very small tyrannosaurs were known with them at the time, but only one year after the series aired a giant tyrannosaur was discovered with direct evidence of feathers, Yutyrannus, so it's extremely likely Suskityrannus did too.
  • If the chaoyangopterid pterosaur featured in "New Giants" is in fact Lacusovagus, then it may be a victim of this - a few recent studies have recovered it as a tapejarid or thalassodromine instead.
  • The discovery of the polar tyrannosaur Nanuqsaurus means the large Alaskan troodontids weren't the top predators of the region and didn't grow so big due to a lack of competition, being more likely just an example of Bergmann's rule. The Alaskan tyrannosaur was known since 2006, initially thought to be a polar Gorgosaurus or Albertosaurus before being recognized as a new taxon in 2014, so this was more likely an oversight.
  • Onchopristis is portrayed as a straight-up perfect replica of modern sawfish in size and shape, but more recent research indicates that they were actually unrelated despite both possessing serrated rostrums (which means this feature evolved independently at least three times amongst cartilaginous fish), and Onchopristis was actually related to skates. It was also much smaller than shown, only around three to four metres in length rather than seven metres, and covered in large spiky denticles.
  • The use of Troodon has since become outdated, because the genus was deemed a nomen dubium in 2017, due to its holotype is just isolated teeth. The formerly defunct name Stenonychosaurus was therefore resurrected for the more complete Campanian "Troodon" specimens, while the giant Alaskan troodontid (known only from teeth and two braincases) remains unnamed.
  • The "Last Killers" episode specifies how abelisaurids and tyrannosaurs were the "last killer dinosaurs". However, a third group of large carnivorous theropods was later determined to have survived to the end of the Mesozoic in the southern hemisphere, the megaraptorans. Although a number of studies suggest that megaraptorans might be giant primitive tyrannosaurs, making the original statement correct by technicality.
  • The series espouses the idea Allosaurus used its head like a hatchet to hack prey to death. This idea was highly contentious even back then (a 2003 study disagreed with the hypothesis) and later studies have supported the alternate idea that it more likely killed prey by a "ripping and pulling" method of attack used by modern birds-of-prey (unlike the hatchet method, which isn't used by any known predator). The wide gape would have helped prevent the jaw from dislocating while biting onto large, struggling prey.