History Characters / WalkingWithDinosaurs

* AnimalsNotToScale: A strange example, as he's based on a specific individual fossil (known as MOR 693). Al is depicted in the episode as being over ten metres long at the end of his life, but the actual fossil is of an animal less than eight metres long.

* CradleToGraveCharacter: The special starts with his hatching, and ends with his death.

* AnimalsNotToScale: It's depicted as being able to reach over forty metres in length, but ''Diplodocus carnegii'' is only known to have reached up to twenty-six metres (even taking into account ''Seismosaurus'', which was later sunk into ''Diplodocus'' as ''D. hallorum'', it's still only up to thirty-two metres long). That said, taking into account how modern animals have very variable sizes, it's not impossible some individuals very rarely managed to reach such sizes. The contemporary diplodocid ''Supersaurus'' ''is'' known to have reached such sizes, however.

* GiganticAdultsTinyBabies: A large adult is over forty metres in length. An egg is as big as a football.

* AnimalsNotToScale: It's portrayed as being five metres long, the estimated size of the only ''Eustreptospondylus'' fossil, but said fossil is considered of a juvenile animal. The adult is hypothetically estimated to have reached anywhere from seven to ten metres long.

* ArtisticLicensePaleontology: It's said to be one of the largest dinosaurs inhabiting the European archipelagos during the Late Jurassic. That is flat-out wrong (even for its time), as large dinosaur fossils from the Upper Jurassic of Europe and especially Britain have been known since the 19th century, including stegosaurs, giant sauropods, and larger theropods (such as ''Megalosaurus'', the first non-avian dinosaur ever named).

* ScavengersAreScum: [[DownplayedTrope Downplayed]] for the most part. The narration acknowledges that they lead a difficult life, being the largest of the few dinosaur species in their region, and being fair game for marine predators like ''Liopleurodon''. They're shown as needing to swim from island to island in search of food, and two of them fight over the paltry remains of a dead turtle. That being said, they are demonstrated to be opportunists, preying on the much smaller ''Rhamphorhynchus'' and feasting on the old ''Liopleurodon'' after it dies from being stranded.

* {{Flanderization}}: In the original test pilot for WWD, ''Liopleurodon'' was depicted at a more modest 60 feet and 60 tons, which were controversial (and since debunked) estimates at the time based on a single large pliosaur vertebra. In "Cruel Sea" proper, however, this had ballooned out into 80 feet and 150 tons, with the HandWave that the ''Liopleurodon'' we were following was an unusually large specimen, over a hundred years old. Notably, the American cut of the series shrunk it back down to 60 feet and 100 tons.

* AnimalsNotToScale: Depicted as having a twelve metre wingspan, but described ''Tropeognathus'' fossils at the time only gave the animal a six metre width. The oversizing in the episode was based on then-undescribed remains which have since revealed a size of just under nine metres. Even at the time, a conclusion of twelve metre was massively optimistic and considered unlikely, chosen only because [[RuleOfCool it was more spectacular]].

* GiantFlyer: 40 feet from wingtip to wingtip (for the record, this was a high end estimate at the time, and most modern estimates put it at just over 28 feet; still very large but outsized by several species of azhdarchids).

* RuleOfCool: The producers chose the largest possible size estimate for this pterosaur to use in the show. In reality, a wingspan of 8 meters is more likely even for the large specimen the estimates were based on.

* AnimalsNotToScale: It's stated to be one-ton, but no no crocodilian from the formation was known to reach that size. And if it is meant to be ''Deinosuchus'', the real animal would have been ''several'' tonnes.

* WritersCannotDoMath: The novelization describes ''Deinosuchus'' as stretching 12 meters in lenght and weighing ''2 tons''. Yeah....

* VocalDissonance: Oddly, the ''Utahraptor'' is only heard making hiss-like noises akin to a squamate, even though the more basal T. rex and carnosaurs are shown uterring more complex roars, and the ''Ornitholestes'' and ''Dromaeosaurus'' make appropriately bird-like chirps and screeches.

* CanonForeigner: The only dinoaaur in the live show to appear solely there and nowhere else.