Walking With Dinosaurs: A Cruel Sea (Episode III)
Posted by octron on 26 Nov 2006 | Tagged as: Documentaries
Continuing with our weekend series produced by BBC and hosted by Google Video, we bring you the third episode of - Walking with Dinasour: A Cruel Sea. While land was being ruled by late dinasours, the marine life was going under rigourious metamorphosis. The gigantic marine reptiles were ruling the water kingdom.
If you missed previous episodes, you can watch by clicking following links.
This episode concentrates on these amazing creatures that were every bit as awesome as their counterparts on land. The main source of fossil evidence comes from a layer of sediment called the Oxford Clay. The clay stretches from the English coast at Weymouth all the way to Scarborough in Yorkshire, but the richest fossil grounds in this clay are in the vicinity of Bedford and Peterborough where the clay is dug for brick manufacture.
Ichthyosaurs (fish reptiles) actually appeared much earlier than the dinosaurs; they are first found in the Early Triassic, and they are already very specialised, clearly recognisable as ichthyosaurs, with limbs modified into flippers. Jurassic ichthyosaurs looked very like dolphins. They even had a dorsal fin and a big vertical tail fluke - we know this from some fossils in Germany which have the body outline preserved as a carbonised film. Ichthyosaurs propelled themselves through the water with strong side to side movements of their tails, steering with their flippers
This episode opens with the biggest joke of the series. “The most fearsome predator of the Jurassic is watching his prey,” Branagh intones, as Eustreptospondylus, a medium-size allosaur first seen in shimmery reflection, peers into the water at ocean’s edge.
We get a closeup of his slowly blinking eye, then pan down to shiny white teeth with flecks of bloody red tissue in them as the narration continues: “Peering through the water, the carnivore fixes on his unwary victim, waiting for the perfect moment to strike.”
The camera pulls back to show the dinosaur poised on a narrow spit of land, looking down into the relatively calm waters of a bay…
If you missed previous episodes, you can watch by clicking following links.
Worth a Watch !
MetroMaaZa
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