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

[don ohmes <d_ohmes@yahoo.com>]

Mostly what Eric said, especially points 4-7. "Baby
dino's avoiding predation by rolling in kryptonite
dung" ??? Sheesh, where'd they get that? 

The "gastropods" thing sort of came across as a
practical joke somebody played on the narrator, but
still... more clarification of what is and is not
speculative would have been nice.

That said, the restoration of the fossils is the main
thing, and made wading through any whimsical
extrapolations from extant taxa (WEETs) rewarding.
Soon as I catch up to Gates/Buffet et al, I promise to
fund restoration of the entire fossil record, in
multiple-case format where appropriate, and with
special attention to the locomotive envelope.

Don't hold your breath, but what a gas that would be.


--- Eric Martichuski <herewiss13@hotmail.com> wrote:

> 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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> 
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