{"id":13090,"date":"2022-05-25T08:00:04","date_gmt":"2022-05-25T06:00:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sciencefocus.com\/?p=120114"},"modified":"2022-05-25T08:35:17","modified_gmt":"2022-05-25T06:35:17","slug":"prehistoric-planet-the-cutting-edge-science-behind-attenboroughs-dinosaur-documentary","status":"publish","type":"rss_feed","link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/rss_feed\/prehistoric-planet-the-cutting-edge-science-behind-attenboroughs-dinosaur-documentary\/","title":{"rendered":"Prehistoric Planet: The cutting-edge science behind Attenborough\u2019s dinosaur documentary"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>

By Sara Rigby\n \t\t<\/p>

Published: Wednesday, 25 May 2022 at 12:00 am<\/p>

\n\n

Prehistoric Planet<\/em>, the latest documentary from Sir David Attenborough<\/a>, is premiering on Apple TV+ this week. The five-part series looks at how dinosaurs and other prehistoric creatures lived in different habitats around the world in the late Cretaceous Period.<\/p>\n

We spoke to the series producer, Tim Walker, and the show\u2019s consultant palaeontologist, Dr Darren Naish<\/a>, about how they brought long-dead species back to life.<\/p>\n

Tell us a bit about the show.<\/strong><\/h4>\n

Tim Walker: <\/strong>Prehistoric Planet<\/em> is basically the definitive natural history wildlife film about dinosaurs<\/a> and the other ancient animals that lived alongside them right at the end of the dinosaur era.<\/p>\n

\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
We had an ambition which was to make a series that looks as though we took the best filmmakers from the BBC\u2019s Natural History Unit, stuck them in a time machine, and sent them back to film the prehistoric planet.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Now of course, to realise that ambition required us doing this incredible collaboration where we took the filmmakers from the Natural History Unit, we were headed up by Mike Gunton, who\u2019s the creative director of the BBC\u2019s NHU. Take his creative genius and marry it together with Jon Favreau, who has become a guru of CGI expertise, having done photo-real animals in The Jungle Book<\/em> and The Lion King<\/em>. That\u2019s how the marriage came together. Three and a half years later, we have now realised that ambition.<\/p>\n

\"""\"<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/div>
Swimming T. rex<\/em> and baby in episode 1 \u00a9 Apple TV+<\/span><\/figcaption><\/div>\n

The show opens with a swimming T. rex<\/em>. How do we know they would have been able to do that?<\/strong><\/h4>\n

Darren Naish:<\/strong> 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. And obviously we\u2019re portraying them as live animals.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a ton of information in the fossil record. We know a huge amount of things about what these animals were like and what they did. But there\u2019s an enormous number of things that they would have done that the fossil record often can\u2019t show us or it can only hint at.<\/p>\n

Would it have occasionally swam? Well, all living animals swim. There aren\u2019t any that don\u2019t. There\u2019s a list of animals that people say can\u2019t swim. Not true. They all can. The [modern] animals most similar to dinosaurs like T. rex<\/em> are things like ostriches and emus, and they\u2019re excellent swimmers. And of course, so are other giant animals today that live near coasts. Famously, elephants and even horses and camels, they\u2019re all excellent swimmers.<\/p>\n

T. rex<\/em> also has pneumatic bones. It\u2019s 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. And it had huge, thickly padded feet, which would have been really good at spreading its weight. It would have been good on unstable, soft surfaces. This wouldn\u2019t be an animal afraid to walk on the beaches and soft muds and such. So if you combine all of that, even without looking at direct fossil evidence, there\u2019s good reason for thinking T. rex<\/em> would be an excellent swimmer.<\/p>\n