You combine that with a technique called phylogenetic bracketing. What you actually see in the final thing is the tiny tip of the iceberg. It's difficult to emphasise how much research we did for every single species you're seeing. We know from some of these footprints, we know from associated skeletons, how social or anti-social some of these animals were. We know from footprints exactly how it placed its feet, details of its gait. So for a dinosaur like Tyrannosaurus rex, from tooth marks it left on the bones of other animals, we know exactly which species it was eating and how it was attacking them. Animals adapt to those conditions, which means they perform a certain set of behaviours.ĭN: There's all of these like specific details from the fossil record that give us at least some information on behaviours and specific bits of biology which we incorporated as much as possible. The same problems occurred 66 million years ago for any living creature as they do today. There can be 6,000 miles difference between two sets of animals faced with very similar conditions, and they perform very similar behaviours to act as a solution.Īnd that can translate across time as well. If you look at the different challenges that the natural world imposes on any creature, it's the same across the globe. TW: One of the things that we're very eager for people to see is that dinosaurs were perfectly adapted to their niches. How much of that is deduced from the fossil record, and how much is inferred from living animals? The show focuses on the behaviour of them as living animals.
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In pictures: Sir David Attenborough's new series A Perfect Planet.The chance discovery that uncovered a mammoth graveyard in Swindon and inspired the new Attenborough show.Dinosaurs: The Final Day | A closer look at the fossil site uncovered in Attenborough's new show.Read more about Sir David Attenborough's documentaries: But what you're seeing in Prehistoric Planet is the most up-to-date, most technically rigorous view of this animal's life appearance. There's no way you can ever say we've made the final decision on what these animals were like. We went with the views that are scientifically best supported and you are seeing a phenomenally up-to-date view. We considered all of these things at great length. Did it have those sheathing its teeth? How big were its eyes? Did it have entirely scaly skin? Did it have some sort of filamentous fuzz on its body? They're lips like lizards' and snakes' lips. What do we actually think about the look of the face? How extensive were the soft tissues? Did this dinosaur have 'lips'? Air quotes around lips, because they're not lips like mammal lips. There's more discussion and more fighting about the appearance of Tyrannosaurus rex than virtually any other fossil animal. And one of my jobs was to ensure that our reconstructions are up to the minute, as best as possible. This project is unique in that I was involved from the start, throughout every step of the process. I publish several technical papers a year. rex?ĭN: As an academic palaeontologist, I'm contributing to the scientific research on dinosaurs. rex in particular is a species that people have very strong opinions on what it should look like. So if you combine all of that, even without looking at direct fossil evidence, there's good reason for thinking T. This wouldn't be an animal afraid to walk on the beaches and soft muds and such. It would have been good on unstable, soft surfaces.
And it had huge, thickly padded feet, which would have been really good at spreading its weight. It's got an air-filled skeleton, which means that it would have been especially buoyant, it would have been good at floating if it wanted to. Famously, elephants and even horses and camels, they're all excellent swimmers. And of course, so are other giant animals today that live near coasts. rex are things like ostriches and emus, and they're excellent swimmers.
The animals most similar to dinosaurs like T.
There's a list of animals that people say can't swim. Would it have occasionally swam? Well, all living animals swim. But there's an enormous number of things that they would have done that the fossil record often can't show us or it can only hint at. We know a huge amount of things about what these animals were like and what they did. There's a ton of information in the fossil record. And obviously we're portraying them as live animals. How do we know they would have been able to do that?ĭarren Naish: The main aim with the series is to reveal an absolutely modern, up-to-date view of dinosaurs and the other animals of their time. rex and baby in episode 1 © Apple TV+ The show opens with a swimming T.
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