For a list of characters in the Discovery Channel program.
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"White Tip's Journey"
Velociraptor mongoliensis
- Badass Crew / Caper Crew: They're depicted as being formidable pack hunters, and every hunt shown involves a clear strategy with certain members of the pack playing a specific role in executing what the narrator describes as "the play", which usually involves stealing eggs or babies from behind the backs of the parent dinosaurs.
- Eats Babies: Most of their onscreen predatory exploits involve targeting the eggs and hatchlings of other dinosaurs, and even their own kind in extreme circumstances.
- Evil Egg Eater: They're shown to constantly raid on dinosaur nests, often using a few members of the pack to distract the parents while the rest sneak and steal the eggs. They even do this to the Oviraptors themselves.
- Feathered Fiend: Subverted given that they're the protagonist species of the episode, but still depicted as being perfectly vicious towards each other in certain situations.
- Monstrous Cannibalism: Downplayed; despite their viciousness towards each other and general opportunism, they aren't shown to be habitually cannibalistic.
- Pale Females, Dark Males: Males are shown with slightly darker grey bodies and blue display feathers on their heads, arms, and tails.
- Raptor Attack: Subverted; aside from being generally accurate (being the right size and covered in feathers), the show seems to play on the expectations instilled in audiences regarding the animals' predatory capabilities. While still depicted as capable and clever pack hunters, they're mostly shown hunting the eggs and young of other dinosaurs, are unsuccessful when they set their sights on big game, and are quick to back down from confrontations with similar-sized opponents. And lone individuals barely stand a chance getting along by themselves.
White Tip
- Action Girl: Simply by virtue of being a cunning predator, although her mettle is put to the test when she's alone.
- Mama Bear: Even before she actually lays eggs, she becomes much more assertive with her new pack members when it comes to things like fighting over prime nesting sites. She then refrains from hunting entirely throughout the duration of her eggs' incubation period to guard the nest, and always brings food back for her chicks once they're hatched.
- Plot-Triggering Death: Her story arc begins just a few days after the offscreen death of her old pack.
- Sole Survivor: Ends up becoming this twice in the episode, first as the only survivor from her old pack, then towards the end of the story her entire new pack are all killed in a sand dune collapse.
- Staircase Tumble: A variant of this happens as a result of her pratfall, wherein she rolls down a sand dune after failing to catch a lizard.
Blue Brow
- Challenging the Chief: He unintentionally ends up doing so when he shows interest in White Tip in front of Broken Hand.
- Ensign Newbie: He definitely comes across as an inexperienced leader and is easily unnerved in high-pressure hunting situations.
- Historical Domain Character: The ending reveales that he's actually the Velociraptor who is one half of the famous "Fighting Dinosaurs" fossil.
- Mutual Kill: Blue Brow meets his end this way during a failed attack on a Protoceratops herd, becoming one half of the famous "Fighting Dinosaurs" specimen.
- When You Coming Home, Dad?: Blue Brow is never seen actually interacting with the chicks he fathers with White Tip, though he's often shown to be leading the pack on hunts in order to provide for them, at least indirectly.
Broken Hand
- The Exile: He becomes this after losing his leadership position to Blue Brow.
- Exit, Pursued by a Bear: He's last seen alive in the midst of an unsuccessful attack on a herd of Prenocephale, with the clear implication that he was either killed on the spot or succumbed to his injuries offscreen. His death is confirmed when the pack pass by his dead body a few days later.
- Handicapped Badass: When first introduced, he's shown to command full respect by his pack and described as "strong and aggressive, despite his injured limb." He also manages to survive by himself for several months after he's overthrown and exiled.
- Rugged Scar: He's the only raptor with prominent scars across his snout, as well as an injured forelimb to which he owes his moniker.
Protoceratops andrewsi
A small early ceratopsian that roams the desert in small herds. Their abundance makes them a common prey item and background creature.
- Animal Jingoism: As is the norm, they have a predator-prey relationship with Velociraptor, though in this depiction, the former are accurately depicted as being difficult to kill.
- Full-Boar Action: Despite their constant comparison to sheep (often referred to as "the sheep of the Cretaceous" and described as "the size of sheep and just as docile" in the show), their armament and aggressive temperament towards both Velociraptor and each other throughout the episode evokes this trope.
- Grumpy Old Man: An old one-eyed Protoceratops bull that White Tip encounters early in the episode. When White Tip tumbles into his nesting area, he goes into full defense mode and chases her for several hundred yards across the desert.
- Handicapped Badass: The old bull that chases White Tip is blind in one eye. Though he still receives a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown from a younger male after accidentally wandering into the latter's territory.
- No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: A territorial male enacts this on the old one-eyed bull after the latter chases White Tip into his space.
- Secondary Sexual Characteristics: Males are shown with larger square-shaped frills and prominent nasal ridges, as well as more striking color contrast between the golden-orange frill spots and their gray-brown bodies.
Oviraptor philoceratops
Strange feathered omnivorous theropods, depicted as aggressive rivals to Velociraptor.
- Animal Jingoism: Although they never truly come to blows, they are depicted as imposing competing predators that usually manage to win confrontations against Velociraptor, usually over kills. While we see the latter successfully preying on the former's offspring, the narration implies that Oviraptor are just as capable of returning the favor.
- Evil Egg Eater: Subverted. The episode does show them eating eggs from a nest, but they ironically become victims of nest raids from their rivals, the Velociraptors. A scientific segment even deconstructs the misconception of Oviraptors being egg thieves, though it does admit that their omnivore diet would include eggs.
- Feathered Fiend: The most bird-like of all the non-avian dinosaurs in the entire show (even lacking teeth), yet somehow one of the scariest-looking creatures in the entire show. They're portrayed as antagonistic rivals to the reputably fierce Velociraptor.
- From Nobody to Nightmare: Oviraptor and its relatives have historically been depicted as slinking cowardly egg thieves, but here they are shown as fierce and capable predators, taking live prey as well as eggs. Their actual appearance, demeanor, and calls make them even more intimidating.
- Informed Species: A complicated example. At the time the series was made, Oviraptor included numerous specimens from Late Cretaceous Asia of varying sizes, including two tall-crested specimens, but it was later deemed a wastebasket taxon. Subsequently, the tall-crested specimens were assigned to Citipati (named in 2001), which is also larger than the Oviraptor holotype, but later research questioned that classification as well, suggesting the tall-crested Djadochta oviraptorid is a wholly new taxon that has yet to be named (it's informally called "Ronaldoraptor").
- Irony: Despite its name meaning "Egg Thief", the Oviraptors end up having their nests raided by the Velociraptors.
- Jump Scare: Arguably one of the best in dinosaur media, an Oviraptor bursts from offscreen to viciously take out a Shuvuuia that had been running from the Velociraptor pack.
- Pale Females, Dark Males: The males have a slightly darker gray than the females, but also boast dark red display features (wing and tail feathers, head crest, and inflatable throat pouch).
- Red and Black and Evil All Over: Granted they're not actually evil, but their grey-ish coloration and dark red display features (particularly on the males) helps add to their imposing appearance, especially against the protagonist species Velociraptor.
Prenocephale prenes
A mid-sized dome-headed herbivorous biped that lives in small family groups.
- Anachronism Stew: It wasn’t a contemporary of Velociraptor, Oviraptor, and Protoceratops, as it hails from the geologically younger Nemegt Formation.
- Headbutting Pachy: Their very first appearance in the show features two young males jousting for fun.
- No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: A small herd of them enact this on Broken Hand when he recklessly attacks one of their ilk out of desperation. The scene ends with the heavy implication that they ultimately killed him offscreen, and his broken body encountered later on appears to confirm this.
- Use Your Head: Being pachycephalosaurids, this is a given. Every appearance in the show features them fighting either predators or each other.
Shuvuuia deserti
A small solitary insectivore that only appears in one scene.
- Exactly What It Says on the Tin: It's species name is deserti, and its lives in a desert.
- Fragile Speedster: The only dinosaur in the episode whose main anti-predator defense is to simply run fast.
- Monster Munch: Poor Shuvuuia ends its brief cameo getting brutally ambushed by an Oviraptor, which from the perspective of the Velociraptor pack is a monstrous rival species.
- Palette Swap: Of the related Alvarezsaurus.
- Red Shirt: The species' entire screen time is spent being preyed upon by two different predatory species.
- Take a Moment to Catch Your Death: After easily outpacing the trio of Velociraptor that got too close for comfort, the Shuvuuia pauses before turning a corner to lose them among the foliage - even running at a slower pace than before - only to be intercepted by the Oviraptor.
Deltatheridium
A nocturnal mammal that makes a brief one-time appearance.
- Conveniently Timed Distraction: The Deltatheridium happens to appear at just the right time to distract the hungry White Tip from her nesting duties, allowing Blue Brow to sneak in and steal some eggs.
Lizard
A small lizard that appears throughout the early parts of the episode.
- Fragile Speedster: In typical lizard fashion, these little lizards just skitter across the desert, always one step ahead of their pursuers.
- No Name Given: It's never identified as a specific genus, though there are several known from the Djadochta Formation.
"Pod's Travels"
Pyroraptor olympius
A small pack-hunting dromaeosaur that serves as the focus species of the episode.
A young male and the leader of his sibling pack.
A pair of young female Pyroraptor who make up the rest of Pod's sibling pack.
- Feathered Fiend: Subverted given that they're the protagonist species and portrayed as sympathetic underdogs in an ecosystem teaming with large dinosaurs.
Pod
- Action Survivor: He lives through a tsunami and drifts on the open ocean for days, with no food, and at the mercy of the scorching sun and hungry marine reptiles (his sisters weren’t so lucky), before getting washed up on Hateg Island.
- Bittersweet Ending: Very much so. On one hand, his sisters are dead and he can never return home, but on the other hand, he has been accepted into the dwarf troodont pack and is now the new apex predator of Hateg.
- I Just Want to Have Friends: Being a naturally social species, he spends the entire episode looking for a new pack, but the dwarf raptors of Hateg are scared of him and shun him. The troodonts though, turn out to be more accepting.
- Interspecies Friendship: He gets taken in as their de facto leader by the troodont pack.
- Normal Fish in a Tiny Pond: As a small dromaeosaur, Pyroraptor is anything but apex predator material in a typical Late Cretaceous ecosystem. But once Pod winds up on an island of dwarfs, his speed, agility, and fierce claws and talons make him the top dog on Hateg, outclassing the Allodaposuchus and dwarf Tarascosaurus.
- Red Is Heroic: As the protagonist of the story, his entire body is covered in red feathers.
- Robinsonade: A rare non-human version, as the plot resolves around him getting marooned on Hateg Island, a place inhabited by dwarf versions of dinosaurs Pod's familiar with.
- Sole Survivor: Seemingly the only dinosaur from his old home to survive the tsunami. One of his sisters also survives…only to get eaten by a plesiosaur.
- Who's Laughing Now?: In his old home, his kind was dominated by the larger Tarascosaurus. On Hateg though, he kills a dwarf Tarascosaurus with ease and asserts himself as the new apex predator.
- You Can't Go Home Again: Somberly acknowledged by the narrator at the end, leading to Pod’s Bittersweet Ending.
Pod's sisters
- Disposable Woman: Both sisters receive this treatment; hardly any time or focus is spent on them, and they both die early on in order to further Pod's story arc of loneliness. They don't even get names.
Dwarf Pyroraptor pack
A trio of aggressive miniature island-dwelling dromaeosaurs.- Lilliputians: The Dromaeosaur equivelent.
- Pint-Sized Powerhouse: They are dwarfed by the pony-sized Pod, but they can take on prey bigger then he is.
- Small Taxonomy Pools: Averted, as the mini-raptors were based on very fragmentary material from Hateg (namely isolated teeth and cranial fragments) thought to belong to dwarf dromaeosaurs.
Troodon
- Interspecies Friendship: They take in Pod as their unofficial leader and follow him around everywhere.
- Informed Species: They are actually based on the fragmentary Elopteryx, Heptasteornis and Bradycneme (which may or may not be troodontids) but are called Troodon, despite the latter being only known from North America. note
Ichthyornis dispar
A prehistoric toothed seabird.
- Feathered Fiend: Though it's more annoying than dangerous. They are essentially depicted as toothy seagulls (even uttering seagull calls) and are just as much of a pest.
- Misplaced Wildlife: Only known from North America, not Europe, but fossils of similar ichthyornitheans have been found in Europe. And like with modern seabirds, it’s plausible that they are migrating.
- Scavengers Are Scum: They are shown as Circling Vultures waiting for Pod to waste away so they can feast.
Tarascosaurus
The largest carnivorous dinosaur in the European island chain.
Mainland Tarascosaurus
- Animals Not to Scale: It’s depicted as 20-feet long, but the one specimen we have (two vertebrae and a partial thigh bone) is estimated to be around half that size. Though given the paucity of the remains, it’s unclear if it’s fully grown.
- The Dreaded: A given, as it’s the top predator of southern Europe, with the music and framing in its introduction highlighting its menacing nature.
- Misplaced Wildlife: Addressed by Scott Sampson, who cites how abelisaurids were thought to be exclusive to the Southern Hemisphere but the discovery of Tarascosaurus (and later Arcovenator) showed that southern Europe was the exception.
- Normal Fish in a Tiny Pond: It’s not very imposing by theropod standards, being only mid-sized, but due to the absence of any larger predators in the European isles (such as tyrannosaurs), it reigns supreme.
- Palette Swap: Of the related Aucasaurus. Given the fragmentary nature of Tarascosaurus, it’s as good a guess as any.
- Unholy Matrimony: The two we see are a mated pair. Though being animals, there is no true affection between them, as the female abandons her mate to the mercy of Pod and his sisters after the male trips and breaks his leg.
Dwarf Tarascosaurus
- Mighty Roar: The main one lets out several of them trying to intimidate Pod. Unfortunately for him, the raptor calls his bluff.
- One-Hit Kill: Pod kills the male by slashing his flank and the dwarf Tarascosaurus drops dead.
- Small Taxonomy Pools: Averted, since (like with the mini-raptors) the dwarf abelisaurs are based on very fragmentary theropod fossils from Hateg, which might not necessarily even belong to abelisaurs.
- The Worf Effect: Pod curb-stomps the male with one hit and then scares off the two females, cementing himself as the new apex predator of Hateg.
Allodaposuchus
- Dumb Muscle: Described as such by the narrator, who comments that they have a long name for an animal “short on brain”.
- Informed Species: Looks more like a notosuchian than the animals it’s based on
◊. Unsurprising, since it’s a Palette Swap of the Notosuchus. - Misplaced Wildlife: Allodaposuchus is indeed known from Hateg (where the genus was first described from), but the one species thought to have been somewhat terrestrial (A. hulki) is only known from Spain.
- Never Smile at a Crocodile: Downplayed. They are mainly depicted as scavengers and are easily scared away by Pod.
- Scavengers Are Scum: Depicted as opportunists who go after dead or dying animals and are easily deterred when faced with an opponent who can fight back.
Iguanodon
A large herbivorous dinosaur that travels in herds.
Mainland Iguanodon
- Animals Not to Scale: It's described as weighing 3 tons, which is more comparable to the actual Iguanodon. The largest specimens of Rhabdodon would have weighed less than one ton.
- Anachronism Stew: Rhabdodon is known from the late Campanian-early Maastrichtian (73-68 mya), not the early Campanian (80 mya).
- Dumb Muscle: The narrator implies that they are even less intelligent than the titanosaur (who are often the poster child for Dumb Dinos) and calls them “giant dumdums”. Harsh.
- Informed Species: They're actually meant to be Rhabdodon, who is only distantly related to the genus Iguanodon that existed millions of years before the time, being considered more basal than the latter. This is another example of Iguanodon's former status as a wastebasket taxon.
- Mix-and-Match Critter: Its large size, thumb-spikes, and being facultatively bipedal are all lifted from the actual Iguanodon, while its general appearance is otherwise based on Rhabdodon.
- Social Ornithopod: They always travel in large herds.
Dwarf Iguanodon
- Anachronism Stew: Zalmoxes and other Hateg rhabdodonts stem from the Maastrichtian (70-66 mya), not the early Campanian (80 mya). Granted, up until 2003 (when DP aired) Zalmoxes was classed as a species of Mochlodon, which did live 85-80 million years ago.
- Informed Species: Like its mainland cousin, they are actually rhabdodontids (who are more basal than iguanodonts), and most likely meant to be the Hateg native Zalmoxes (which was named the same year the series aired, being previously classed as a species of Mochlodon).
- Herbivores Are Friendly: Refreshingly subverted. Two males are shown engaging in a fierce territorial battle, with the victor fatally wounding his opponent and leaving him to get eaten by the Allodaposuchus. The fight also highlights the deadly thumb-spike of iguanodonts, even though rhabdodontids (being more basal) didn’t actually have them.
Magyarosaurus dacus
- Anachronism Stew: It stems from the Maastrichtian (70-66 mya), not the early Campanian (80 mya).
- Animals Not to Scale: They are around the same size as Pod (though notably plumper), while the real Magyarosaurus and other Hateg titanosaurs were the size of rhinos.
- Monster Munch: For the dwarf Tarascosaurus and likely for Pod in the future.
Titanosaur
Towering above them: a skyline of titanosaurs, Europe's foremost vegetarians. At five tonnes, adults weigh roughly the same as a jumbo elephant.
A large herbivorous dinosaur from the mainland.- Anachronism Stew: If it’s indeed Ampelosaurus, as that taxon is known from the late Campanian-early Maastrichtian (73-68 mya), not the early Campanian (80 mya).
- Dumb Muscle: Described as such by the narrator, to the point that it barely registers earth tremors and once they’re over, it immediately goes back to eating.
- Gentle Giant: As is often the case with depictions of sauropods, it’s a very passive giant that spends all day browsing.
- No Name Given: Only referred to as a “titanosaur”. Given the setting, it’s most likely meant to be Ampelosaurus.
- Palette Swap: Of Saltasaurus.
Plesiosaur
A dangerous, long-necked aquatic reptile.
- Animals Not to Scale: It’s described as 50 feet long (slightly larger than the currently accepted 40-foot max length), but it looks even bigger compared to the 8-foot Pyroraptor, who are the size of its (proportionally small) head.
- Artistic License – Paleontology: Overall, it acts more like a Stock Ness Monster than how we believe plesiosaurus to have behaved, down to lifting its neck out of the water (which would have been impossible in real life) to snatch unsuspecting prey. A mosasaur (which were very common in Late Cretaceous Europe) would have been a better option.
- Hazardous Water: Very much embodies the danger of Late Cretaceous waters.
- No Name Given: It’s never referred to by a specific genus, but given its size and the time period of the episode, it’s likely meant to be either Elasmosaurus or Styxosaurus.
- Sea Monster: Played straight. Exaggerated by the fact that Pod and his sister have never seen anything like it before, making the plesiosaur look downright alien.
"Alpha's Egg"
Saltasaurus
One of the biggest dinosaurs alive. These titans are called Saltasaurus.
A mid-sized sauropod dinosaur; the main focus of the episode.- Artistic License – Paleontology: They are so slow that they only move at a snail’s pace, as emphasized during the scene when they are attacked by the carcharodontosaurs, who just casually walk up to them and kill one. While this might make more sense for larger sauropods, especially 50+ ton titanosaurs, an elephant-sized taxon like Saltasaurus was likely much more nimble (at least as much as an elephant)
- Death of a Child: Implied. Out of the hundreds of baby saltasaurs, only around 10% survive past their first night in the woods, as most get eaten by predators such as Alvarezsaurus and Notosuchus. The rest of them get eaten by Dragonfly’s family, with only Alpha and two others being shown surviving. Much like with sea turtles, it’s implied that very, very few live to reach adulthood.
- Gentle Giant Sauropod: Downplayed in the sense that while they are generally harmless, male saltsaurs can be territorial and aggressive during the mating season, as shown when two of them fight over who gets to mate with Alpha. Although Alpha herself does kill the antagonist Dragonfly, it's mainly because the latter attacked her while Alpha's injured leg caused her to be disoriented and crush Dragonfly's skull, killing him instantly.
- Informed Species: Likely meant to be Neuquensaurus, which is sometimes treated as a synonym of Saltasaurus. The holotype species of the latter, S. loricatus, lived around 10 million years after the setting of the episode. They also lack the enlarged osteoderms that Saltasaurus and kin are famous for, only having very tiny ones that could easily be mistaken for spots.
- Parental Neglect: Much like the Diplodocus from Walking with Dinosaurs, they follow the sea turtle model of parental care; that is, they lay their eggs and abandon them to their fate. They do leave a few sentries to guard the communal nests against nest-raiding predators, but they don’t help much once the babies hatch. The surviving hatchlings are allowed to hang out with an adult herd for protection (though that’s cold comfort for the 90% that got eaten in advance).
Alpha
A young female who serves as the main protagonist of the story. Aucasaurus garridoi
An Aucasaur is a ton of terror with an insatiable appetite for flesh.
A mid-sized carnivorous abelisaurid theropod, a family of which serves as the episode's main antagonists.- Amazing Technicolor Wildlife: Male Aucasaurus have bright red snouts, which distinguish them from the duller-colored females and also serve as a sign of physical maturity.
- The Family That Slays Together: Like the Daspletosaurus, they form nuclear families that hunt cooperatively, though young males like Dragonfly eventually leave their family in order to become the patriarch of their own family.
- Foil: Unlike the Parental Neglect with the saltasaurs, Aucasaurus raise their young and are very protective of them, especially the mother, and let them stay with the family until adulthood.
- Overshadowed by Awesome: They are formidable predators in their own right but they are literally overshadowed by the gargantuan carcharodontosaurs.
Dragonfly
A young male who is the focal point of the Aucasaurus family.- Attention Deficit... Ooh, Shiny!: During his first encounter with Alpha, he gets distracted by an insect, buying enough time for Alpha to excape.
- Deuteragonist: To Alpha.
- Carnivores Are Mean: Unlike other carnivores, he's portrayed in a villainous light.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: Him tearing a chunk out of the shoulder of Alpha’s already injured leg caused her to fall on him, killing him by crushing his skull.
- Villain Protagonist: He is this compared to the herbivorous Alpha.
Carcharodontosaur
A large carnivorous theropod.
- Animals Not to Scale: If it’s indeed based on Aerosteon, which is estimated at 25-26 feet in length, and even the highest estimates put it at around 30 feet, compared to the T. rex-sized behemoths seen in the episode.
- The Dreaded: They are the biggest theropods in the episode (and the series as a whole), easily dispatching a fully grown saltasaur and intimidating the smaller Aucasaurus.
- Informed Species: A particularly confusing example.
- While the episode only refers to it as a carcharodontosaur (a large and widely distributed family of Cretaceous allosaurs), the show’s website identifies it as Carcharodontosaurus itself, despite also acknowledging how it lived in North Africa during the Cenomanian (95 mya), instead of early Campanian Patagonia. Even stranger, since the very similar Giganotosaurus would have been no less anachronistic but also avoided Misplaced Wildlife.
- The animal was likely based on the then-undescribed fossils of the megaraptoran Aerosteon, but megaraptorans weren’t recognized as a natural group in the early to mid 2000s and many of their members were then misidentified as carcharodontosaurids, hence its portrayal here. Megaraptorans would have looked quite different from carcharodontosaurids, with elongated snouts and large arm claws.
- Mighty Roar: The same one as the Daspletosaurus. It does the job of scaring away the Aucasaurus from their kill.
Notosuchus terrestris
- Eats Babies: It eats baby Saltasaurs.
- Evil Egg Eater
- Never Smile at a Crocodile: Well, Crocodylomorph, but its still a menacing creature.
Alvarezsaurus calvoi
About to tuck in to delicious Saltasaurus eggs.
A small fast-running birdlike theropod.- Feathered Fiend: They're manaces to baby saltasaurs, breaking into their eggs and eating them up when they make a run for the forest.
Unidentified dragonfly
A large flying insect that recurrently appears in the early half of the episode as the target of Dragonfly.
"Little Das' Hunt"
Daspletosaurus torosus
A large tyrannosaurid theropod, a family of which serves as the main focus of the episode.
A juvenile male and the main character of the episode.
- Balance, Speed, Strength Trio: The sisters are the balanced one (being of fast and strong), Das is fast (but also small and inexperienced), and their mother is strong (but also a poor runner).
- Demythification: Like with the raptors, the episode subverts the common perceptions of tyrannosaurs as invincible killing machines and instead present them as fallible animals who often fail to catch their prey (Truth in Television for most extant predators).
- Disappeared Dad: Das’ father is nowhere to be seen. It’s not made clear if he’s dead or if male Daspletosaurus simply don’t partake in child-rearing.
- The Family That Slays Together: They are depicted as living in a nuclear family that hunts cooperatively, akin to wolves (albeit with much fewer members).
- Large and in Charge: Subverted. They are indeed the biggest dinosaurs in the episode, but they still struggle to catch their prey and fail twice in a row.
- Mighty Roar: All of them have a very impressive set of pipes. Even Das lets out higher-pitched versions of his mother and sisters’ roars.
- The Nose Knows: Like their famous relative, they have very acute senses of smell, which they use to track their prey.
- Terrifying Tyrannosaur: They are portrayed as smaller and faster versions of T. rex, and rightfully so since they are fellow tyrannosaurs and closely related to Tyrannosaurus rex, even being depicted as its ancestor (though that might not be accurate). But it's subverted in that they are main protagonists and are portrayed sympathetically when their meal escapes their jaws.
Little Das
- The Baby of the Bunch: He's the only juvenile within his pack/family.
- Children Are Innocent: He treats hunting more like a big game and has a hard time staying focused, which botches his family’s hunts twice in a row.
- Death of a Child: Implied, along with Buck and Blaze.
- The Millstone: He tries to be a good hunter, but his inexperience and Leeroy Jenkins tendencies tend to screw things up. Just as he’s learning the ropes, he dies.
- Yank the Dog's Chain: Just as he finally gets his chance to finish the hunt, the volcano erupts, and he's killed in it.
Little Das' mother
A large female and the leader of her family pack.- Artistic License – Paleontology: She's unusually slow, being only able to move at a fast walk. While this might be plausible for a larger tyrannosaur like T. rex, at around 2-3 tons (about the weight of a big rhino), even an adult Daspletosaurus was likely more nimble than that.
- Disappointed in You: She's quite furious at Little Das after he wanders off and ruins the hunt, even biting his face.
Little Das' sisters
A pair of young females.- Satellite Character: Not much to them outside of being part of Das' family.
- Vague Age: They are implied to be adolescents (given how they are both fast and big) but they are the same size as their mother.
Maiasaura peeblesorum
A large herbivorous hadrosaur that travels in large herds and serves as the deuteragonist species of the story.
- Social Ornithopod: They travel in herds for protection.
Buck and Blaze
A male and female (respectively) pair of juveniles. Einiosaurus procurvicornis
- Dumb Muscle: Subverted. They are smart enough to realize that little Das' presence means that adult Dapletosaurus are likely lurking nearby, poised to attack.
- Temper-Ceratops: Downplayed. They certainly can make the Daspletosaurus back off by forming a wall, but otherwise, they run away from them. Somehwat justified, as its thin frill and downward-curving horn didn't make for great defenses, so they mainly rely on strength in numbers.
Quetzalcoatlus
- Anachronism Stew: Quetzalcoatlus would have actually coexisted with the T. rex and Edmontosaurus from the end of “Little Das’ Hunt” (late Maastrichtian, 68-66 mya), though it did have a close relative called Cryodrakon boreas which did live at the time episode takes place (77-74 mya), though it wasn’t recognized as a new taxon until well after the series aired.
- Artistic License – Paleontology: Scaly, skinny, leathery wings, cumbersome on land, needing to jump off clifftops to get airborne, and piscivorous, it’s pretty much a hodgepodge of early 2000s generic pterosaur tropes.
- Family-Unfriendly Death: Most of the flock gets wiped out by the blasts of volcanic steam and their burnt bodies are left to slowly waft to the ground, which the narrator describes as omens of the incoming catastrophe.
- Giant Flyer: Though on the lower end of “giant”, given that they only have a 21-foot wingspan, which is more comparable to the smaller Quetzalcoatlus lawsoni than the more iconic Quetzalcoatlus northropi (whose wingspan was almost twice as wide and it stood as tall as a giraffe).
- Hope Spot: You'd think that being able to fly might save them, and indeed, once the volcanic blasts arrive and destroy their cliff home, the flock manages to escape…only to then fly into another series of volcanic blasts and they get fried alive. The survivors get killed during the subsequent eruption.
- Informed Species: With the exception of its long neck, it looks nothing like an azhdarchid and more like a Pteranodon (who also more closely matches its size and piscivorous diet).
Troodon
- Black Comedy: The unlucky member of the Terrible Trio who conveniently walks into the path of an incoming blast of volcanic steam. The scene wouldn’t be out of place in a cartoon, except that it kills him instantly.
- Fantastic Fauna Counterpart: The narrator likens them to Wile E. Coyote. Quite fitting, as troodontids are often interpreted as the ecological equivalent to modern coyotes (small, wily and opportunistic carnivores).
- Feathered Fiend: Wily, carnivorous, and very bird-like, they fit the bill.
- Raptor Attack: Averted. They are decently feathered (by early 2000s standards) and are depicted as small-game hunters, and the show doesn’t overemphasize their purported intelligence either.
- Super-Persistent Predator: Subverted. They stop pursuing the Orodromeus as soon as the chase leads them to rocky terrain, as they don’t want to risk tripping and breaking their feet.
- Terrible Trio: How they are introduced, though are quickly cut down to a duo. By the time they reappear, they seem to have found a new member.
Orodromeus makelai
Small fast-running bipedal herbivores.
- Fragile Speedster: They lack any defense features to combat predators, but their speed more than makes up for it, as they outpaces the attacking Troodon trio.
- Social Ornithopod: They travel in small bands and have a sentry who keeps an eye out for predators.
- Ridiculously Cute Critter: As is the norm with small ornithischians, they are cute little dinosaurs with big eyes, and babyish features, and they also bleat like lambs.
Edmontosaurus annectens
A large herbivorous hadrosaur that appears at the end of the episode as part of the flash-forward epilogue.
- Artistic License – Paleontology: Being a remodel of Maiasaura, it has the squarish skull that its earlier relative had. Also, it was not a direct descendant of Maiasaura.
- Social Ornithopod: Like Maiasaura, it travelled in herds.
Tyrannosaurus rex
- Artistic License – Paleontology: They're stated to have evolved from Daspletosaurus, but it's more likely they evolved from tyrannosaurs that migrated from Asia.
- Terrifying Tyrannosaur: They are bigger and more terrifying successors to the Daspletosaurus torosus and will continue the cycle of predator and prey with the Edmontosaurus.
