Trivia / Prehistoric Planet

• California Doubling:
  • The cliffside Velociraptor sequence in "Freshwater" has modern Palouse Falls, Washington stand in for Cretaceous Asia.
  • The Barbaridactylus sequence in "Deserts", meant to take place in North Africa, is quite obviously shot in Arizona, with the Grand Canyon clearly visible.
  • The Quetzalcoatlus sequence in "Freshwater", meant to take place in South Africa, was shot in Florida. This is doubly ironic considering the animal was not found in South Africa, but in North America.
  • The Secernosaurus sequence in "Deserts" is set in South America, but is shot in Namibia.
  • The Austroraptor sequence in "Swamps" is set in Argentina, but was filmed in Australia. The Beelebufo and Rapetosaurus segment is set in Madagascar, but filmed in Zambia (specifically in the Zambezi National Park).
• Cowboy BeBop at His Computer: An image of small ornithischians (which were baby Zalmoxes) was mislabeled by a magazine as "baby Therizinosaurus", which fans quickly realized made no sense given their anatomy and was confirmed to be an error by Word of God. This mistake likely stems from the fact that both animals are featured in the same episode, and both are juveniles.
• Creator Backlash: A minor example, Darren Naish stated that he didn't like that the "Swamps" episode was titled what it was, because most of the segments only have a tenuous connection to the biome (such as the Pachycephalosaurus segment, which is set in an arid prairie). He also said the sickle claw of the Austroraptor in the episode should've been much larger and more curved^note The reason it wasn't was because a physical foot prop was made, so the CG model had to correspond to it, which ended up being a moot point because the physical prop was never used in the final episode, and strongly disliked the aforementioned Pachycephalosaurus sequence's setting (in reality, Pachycephalosaurus is known from a very wet and forested region, which ironically would have fit very well with the title of the episode where it appears).
• Dear Negative Reader: In response to complaints about the depictions, Darren Naish responded on Twitter to topics such as:
  • How dinosaur vocalizations should work.
  • Dinosaurs being able to move their eyes in their sockets due to having a sclerotic ring in their eyes.
  • How proportional the arms of juvenile T. rex should look.
  • Dinosaurs showing affection by nuzzling.
  • The dimensions of the Carnotaurus skull.
  • How rounded vs pointed pterosaur wings would have appeared in life.^note Ironically nyctosaurid and pteranodontid wingtips in this show are round anyways, at least in flight (as the membranes are extremely retracted on the ground). It is worth to note that this is an ongoing debate either way.
• Dueling Shows: With Jurassic World Dominion because there's a close release window between the 2, and they caused a lot of dinosaur fans to argue over respective dinosaur depictions and accuracy.
• Production Posse: Several of the crew who worked with Jon Favreau on The Lion King (2019) return here, including composer Hans Zimmer and VFX vender Moving Picture Company.
• Refitted for Sequel: Season Two reuses segments cut from season one, most prominently the Isisaurus/Rajasaurus sequence.
• Science Marches On: Despite airing in 2022 the series began production in 2019 by the time the script and models had been finalized some of it had become outdated.
  • In 2021 a study was published describing the feature scales on Carnotaurus finding that they were absent on the neck and were more random in pattern rather than neatly arranged. The Majungasaurus seen in the second season portrays this accurately, however.
  • A study in 2021 suggests that Nanuqsaurus was not a dwarf due to cold, and grew as large as contemporary tyrannosaurs, such as Albertosaurus. However, the episode where they appear never states them to be adults, so one could assume them as adolescents. This is fixed in the Season 2 episode "North America", which shows an adult Nanuqsaurus hunting an Ornithomimus half its size^note Nanuqsaurus is now believed to have grown 30 feet in length, whereas Ornithomimus is 15 feet long.
  • Studies seem to go back and forth on whereas Tethydraco was a pteranodontid or azhdarchid. The show used the former interpretation.
  • The ammonites in the show essentially look like shelled vampire squids, while a 2021 paper found that they had two particularly long arms with serrated hooks. The second season does depict the ammonites Baculites and Diplomoceras with these features, however.
  • The Antarctopelta are depicted as relatively typical nodosaur-like ankylosaurs, however a a study in December of 2021 indicates it was part of a group of Gondwanan ankylosaurs known as Parankylosauria. A close relative from Chile (which, during the Cretaceous, would've been connected to Antarctica), known as Stegouros, had a stubby tail encased with several pairs of osteoderms, making it look like an aztec maquahuitl mace, making it likely Antarctopelta also had one.
  • It's confirmed that the Secernosaurus in the show are based on specimens which were, in February 2022, reclassified in their own genus, Huallasaurus.
  • "Freshwater" depicts mangrove ecosystems near the end, but a study published not even a full month after the show's release indicates there were no mangroves in the Cretaceous.
  • While this is still very much an area of debate and should be taken with a grain of salt, some experts now argue that giant maniraptoriformes such as Deinocheirus and Therizinosaurus may have been only sparsely-feathered on the body to account for their sheer size^note they still would have had pennaceous feathers on the arms and tail though, as they are still considered a trait ancestral to all maniraptoriformes, more similar to the show's depiction of giant tyrannosaurids, and in contrast to their shaggy depictions in Prehistoric Planet. Darren Naish defended the choice of a shaggy-coated Deinocheirus (and by extension, the contemporary Therizinosaurus) because climate charts found the region in which it lived was relatively cool and the different physiology of large dinosaurs versus large mammals.
  • A borderline example with Adalatherium being depicted as being oviparous. The reproduction of early mammals and non-mammalian synapsids is largely unknown, so for the gondwanatherians, the producers decided to depict it as an egg layer to show a unique reproductive strategy unknown in modern mammals. However, a 2022 study showed it was more likely that multituberculates gave live birth to well-developed young like placental mammals. Gondwanatherians are often allied with multituberculates in cladistic studies, so this could also be the case with them, but it is also possible gondwanatherians are stem-mammals unrelated to multituberculates, in which case laying eggs is still plausible.
  • A 2021 study found that Tethyshadros, previously considered to be from the Maastrichtian, was actually from the Early Campanian, making it about 10 million years too early for the show (which focuses exclusively on Maastrichtian biota) and would not have been temporally contemporary with Hatzegopteryx. The same study also found Tethyshadros' small size was because it was a very primitive hadrosaur that was always small, rather than having evolved into a small animal in an insular environment from a large ancestor.
  • A study presented at the 2023 Society of Vertebrate Paleontology conference tentatively suggests that Imperobator was a giant unenlagiine similar to Austroraptor, which would indicate it had a more slender build and narrow snout than shown (it's also hypothesized that most unenlagiines were fish-eaters on account of their narrow jaws and conical teeth, so if this is the case for Imperobator as well then its portrayal as hunting Morrosaurus may also be questionable).
  • Phylogenetic studies in 2022 have suggested that Alcione may not in fact be a nyctosaurid (a baseline assumption for its reconstructed life appearance in the show), instead being a sister taxon of Epapatelo and Simurghia falling just outside of Nyctosauridae.
• Similarly Named Works: The series shares its name with two other dinosaur documentaries that are repackages of media from the Walking with… franchise: Prehistoric Planet (2002) (a kid-friendly recut of the original Walking with Dinosaurs), and Prehistoric Planet 3D (2015) (an IMAX-exclusive recut of the 2013 Walking with Dinosaurs movie). Funnily enough, Prehistoric Planet (2022) itself could also be considered a Spiritual Successor to Walking With Dinosaurs.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Acording to Darren Naish, there was a sequence where a pair of juvenile Tyrannosaurus take on an adult Edmontosaurus - and are badly beaten. This segment was likely retooled into a segment in the season 2 episode Swamps, where a successful hunt occurs with a pair of adult Tyrannosaurus and a herd of Edmontosaurus.
  • The injuries of the female Majungasaurus in "Islands" were going to be explained to be an attack by the crocodyliform Mahajangasuchus. Props were made and the sequence was filmed, but it was cut late in post-production.
  • Segments focusing on the various small mammals of the Late Cretaceous, such as early therians and multituberculates, were also conceptualized early on, but abandoned due to these animals deemed to not have the star power or importance to hold their own scenes.
  • One piece of concept art◊ revealed that a sequence with Alcione divebombing prey was considered.
  • "Coasts" was originally titled "High Seas" early in development.
  • Hydrotherosaurus (A species of elasmosaur discovered in California) was originally planned in an early draft of the Hesperonis baitball scene from Season 2, but was ultimately scrapped. This was confirmed by concept art made by Gaëlle Seguillon.
  • Another cut sequence as revealed by concept art was a shoal of polycotylid plesiosaurs being trapped by an earthquake at sea.
• Word of God:
  • It was confirmed on Twitter that the Velociraptor depicted in the series are base on indeterminate Maastrichtian velociraptorine fossils that might represent additional species of Velociraptor.
  • Darren Naish confirmed on Twitter that the team wanted to dispel the stereotypical Gentle Giant Sauropod trope with the Dreadnoughtus battle.
  • The unnamed elasmosaur species shown in "Freshwater" are South American not South African which would not be known otherwise as the episode doesn't state that the location has changed.
  • Darren Naish confirmed that the polar mammals are multituberculates of the genus Cimolodon.
  • Darren Naish also confirmed that the mosasaur seen in the first sequence of "Islands" is meant to be Prognathodon.

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