Life After Dinosaurs is a TV Documentary co-produced by NHK and the National Geographic Channel that aired in 2010. It focuses mostly on mammals, both during and after the age of Dinosaurs. It has rather mediocre CGI, and many, many clips are shared with NHK's previous Dinosaur documentary, Mammals vs. Dinos. It even re-uses music and some creature models from that series.
The work provides examples of:
- Anachronism Stew:
- T. rex shows up at the end of the Campanian alongside Kritosaurus and Deinosuchus (73 mya), when it's only known from the late Maastrichtian (68-66 mya). Daspletosaurus, Teratophoneus or Bistahieversor would have made more sense.
- Smilodon is shown meeting Thylacosmilus 2.7 million years ago, about 200,000 years before the former even evolved and around a million years before it's known to have entered South America, meaning it and the pouched sabretooth didn't overlap.
- Doedicurus is shown living alongside Thylacosmilus 3 million years ago (the Pliocene). While the closely related Eleutherocercus did coexist with the pouched sabretooth during the Late Miocene-Pliocene, Doedicurus itself only showed up during the Early Pleistocene, after Thylacosmilus died out.
- A very minor one with Embolotherium and Paraceratherium, as the latter vanished by the end of the Late Eocene (Priabonian) and the former showed up at the start of the Early Oligocene (Rupelian). The related Urtinotherium did coexist with Embolotherium. Entelodon and Hyaenodon, on the other hand, lasted throughout the Priabonian and Rupelian.
- Artistic License – Paleontology: While most of the other models are reasonably accurate, the Smilodon looks like it jumped out of a Saturday Morning cartoon, being built like a typical pantherine cat (when it should be much stockier) with a long tail (it had a short bobtail) and has its claws constantly extended (self-explanatory). The Hyaenodon is also designed with very short legs and tiny feet, akin to a rat, when it should have longer legs with large clawed paws (akin to a wolf).
- Artistic License – Physics: The Tyrannosaurus and Kritosaurus should have been blown away by the megatsunami's pressure long before they got swept up by the tsunami.
- Epic Fail: The Carnotaurus attacks both the Edmontonia and Saltasaurus - and fails both times.
- Expy: A lot of animals seem to be taken from Walking with Beasts, including Leptictidium (with a similar coloring, no less!), Propalaeotherium, Embolotherium, Indricotherium, Hyaenodon, and Gastornis, while others seem to have been inspired by WWB creatures, like Europolemur and Promacrauchenia
- Informed Species: Smilodon and Hyaenodon. Aside from its trademark saber teeth, the former looks like a generic panther-like feline who sports nonretractable claws and a long, rat-like tail, while the latter resembles an overgrown corgi with a Hyaenodon's head mounted on it, when the real animal was built more like a stocky wolf.
- Misplaced Wildlife: Edmontonia, named after Edmonton, Canada, appears in Bolivia, in South America. This is actually based on footprints attributed to ankylosaurs from the Bolivian track site (Cal Orck'o) shown in the documentary
, but it's still baffling why they opted to specifically call the ankylosaur Edmontonia. Using the name of the ichnogenus (Ligabueichnium) would have been iffy but better than just plucking a North American taxon and putting it in South America long before there was a landbridge connecting the two continents. - No Ending: The confrontation between the Smilodon and Thylacosmilus. The two saber-toothed carnivores confront each other over a kill and the scene...just cuts off.
- Shown Their Work:
- Carnotaurus is accurately portrayed as a very lanky and long-legged theropod with tiny arms and a small, pug-like head, unlike some other portrayals that just show it as a generic predatory theropod with horns.
- We do have footprints attributed to ankylosaurs at the Cal Orck'o track site in Bolivia ('Ligabueichnium), though the documentary undermines that by deciding the call the track-maker Edmontonia (a North American ankylosaur).
- Unlike Walking with Beasts, the Messel Pit primates are accurately shown as lemur-like instead of monkey-like. Here, they use Europolemur instead of Godinotia but the two are very close relatives (being caenopithecine adapid primates).
- Stock Footage: As stated above, this documentary uses a lot of footage from Mammals vs. Dinos and it is quite jarring, considering that the quality of the CGI is noticeably different between the two.
- Stock Sound Effect: Multiple sounds from NHK's previous Dino Doc, Mammals vs Dinos, are used throughout. Also some animal roars are taken from Walking with Beasts
