Re: 'Walking with Monsters' or 'Before the Dinosaurs'

[Eric Martichuski <herewiss13@hotmail.com>]

A couple observations:

1) Had some trouble figuring out just how Anomalocaris got the food from 
those lovely grasping arms to the mouth.  It didn't seem to eat, it just 
liked to hold onto things. ;-)

2) Would have killed them to throw in a Hallucigenia?  Even as a cameo?

3) Much glossing over of early tetrapodal terrestrial transition...but at 
least Hynerpdon (sp?) had more than 5 toes. ;-)

4) When talking about the Scutesaurs digestive prowess, did they really mean 
"gastropods" or did they _actually_ mean "gastroliths".  I'll admit, though, 
snail-aided digestion would be much cooler.

5) The other glaring error I caught as a layman was the comparison of that 
ambush preadator's venom to that of a komodo dragon, which has major 
bacteria in its saliva, but no actual poison.  Given that we've got a 
modern-day non-injecting poisonous lizard out there, the Gila Monster, I'm 
surprised they didn't use that instead.  Bonus points, though, for 
mentioning such a relatively recent discovery.

6) It did seem at times like the producers just said "Let's get a bunch of 
contemporary animal plots (the drought, the river crossing, the spawning 
migration, etc.) and change the names and faces!"

7) And finally, on the plus side of the ledger, it seems like it would be 
fairly tough to find a lot of angiosperm free terrain to film in, but they 
seem to have done the trick.  It was definitely gratifying to see no signs 
of grass or flowers anywhere...even if that made the ground rather dusty.



______________________________________________________________________
"There is no other wisdom,
And no other hope for us
But that we grow wise. -- Diane Duane
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