When Dinosaurs Roamed America - Dino Docs - Paleontology Documentaries - Celluloid Dinosaurs

Contents > Synopsis > Interview: Jim Kirkland/Douglas Wolfe > Gallery of Stills > Resources

Credits

INTERVIEW Jim Kirkland and Douglas Wolfe

Dinosaurs

Triassic Period – 220 Million Years Ago – New York, Connecticut River Valley

Coelophysis
Desmatosuchus
Rutiodon

Jurassic Period - 200 Million Years Ago – New York, Connecticut River Valley

Canchisaurus
Dilophosaurus
Syntarsus

Upper Jurassic – 150 Million Years Ago - Utah

Allosaurus
Apatosaurus
Camarasaurus
Ceratosaurus
Dryosaurus
Stegosaurus
** Two never-before-seen species, from the Upper Jurassic Period as well as newly discovered flora and fauna from the “Cretaceous Gap,” a 30 million-year period in North American history, will be revealed at a press announcement in June.

Mid – Late Cretaceous - 110 - 90 Million Years Ago – New Mexico

Dromaeosaur
Zuniceratops

Mid – Late Cretaceous – 65 Million Years Ago – Montana

Anatotitan
Didelphodon
Quetzalcoatlus
Triceratops
Tyrannosaurus rex

Cast (in credits order)

Paleontologists
(consulting)
(alphabetically)
Karen Chin
Philip J. Currie
Thomas R. Holtz, Jr.
James Kirkland
Paul E. Olsen
David Weishampel
Doug Wolfe

When Dinosaurs Roamed America -

A Conversation with Jim Kirkland and Douglas Wolfe

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Zuniceratops (c)2001 Discovery Channel [18.8KB]

This Zuniceratops can't keep his mouth shut about his debut on a TV show.
Q: If your starting point is a bone, how do you conceive the behavior, movement, size, color, sound and habitat of dinosaurs?

A: First, we identify our bone. What dinosaur or family of dinosaurs does it belong to? For this group what is the skeletal anatomy like? For many dinosaurs we can do this to a degree with isolated teeth.

Second, based on skeletal anatomy, we ask how was the animal muscled and what range of motion was it capable of?

Third, we ask what are its teeth like? Was it a plant-eater or meat-eater?

Fourth, we determine what is known from other sites preserving these types of dinosaurs or their tracks. Is there evidence of behavior from any of these sites? Did dinosaurs herd, nest in colonies or at isolated sites, or have consistent patterns of injuries consistent with some recurring behaviors?

Fifth, we look for display features. Modern animals with display features tend to have a great deal of diversity based on differences in ornamentation, but little in the rest of their skeletons. Good modern examples of this are deer and antelope. Good dinosaurian examples are hadrosaurids and ceratopsians.

Sixth, we compare the dinosaur to modern animals that have similar features. How do modern animals use them?

Seventh, we ask, considering patterns in modern ecosystems; what role would this animal play? For example, all modern ecosystems have a top predator and only Tyrannosaurus Rex was in a position to fill that role in the Latest Cretaceous of North America.

Eighth, we speculate on the color of the animal. We will never know for sure, but we do know what the skin coverings were -- scales or feathers. We also know that dinosaurs had color vision from their ancestors – crocodilians and amphibians – as well as from their descendants – birds. Modern animals with color vision use it in their behaviors. So we look at modern animals living in similar niches and observe how they are colored and/or use color behaviorally and try and make logical assumptions on the color patterns that would make sense for a particular dinosaur.

Ninth, we consider the sounds they might have made. Once again we look at modern animals with similar ears (reptiles and birds). We also ask if there are any features about the oral areas of the dinosaur that suggest special sound producing structures. Certainly this is the case with the duck-billed dinosaurs and might also be true for some horned and long-necked dinosaurs.

Tenth, we look at the associated sediments, associated fossil plants and animals, and paleogeographic setting to interpret the environment the dinosaur lived in. The present is the key to the past and we assume that similar ecological constraints were in place in similar habitats. The biggest difference is in modern and ancient floras. For the Triassic and Jurassic there were no flowering plants and there are no modern flowering plants like those in the modern world. Additionally, even in the Cretaceous there were no grasses. Today, grasses are the dominant ground cover. We assume, in the past, that role was taken up by largely extinct groups of ferns and mosses.

Q: What kinds of evidence support will the viewer see when it comes to anatomy?

A: This is, in some ways, the easy part – as most of the time all a scientist has is the skeletons and this is the framework for the guts of the beast. Muscles and brains are easy; they are tightly tied to the bones. The digestive systems are tougher. Understanding of them is based on what birds and crocodiles still share and then we build upon that with deductive reasoning. Gizzard stones are known in several dinosaur groups, so we can assume they had bird-like gizzards. Big plant eaters have big rib cages so, like modern mammalian plant eaters, we know herbivore dinosaurs had more extensive guts than meat-eaters because plants are harder to digest. Dinosaurs hold their heads well above their hearts so they must have had a fully developed four chambered heart to separate the lung-heart system from the body-heart system. Also the well-developed air-sack system associated with the skull and vertebral column in sauropods and advanced theropods suggest that birds might have inherited their highly specialized lungs directly from dinosaurs.

Q: What new information will be presented in this special (in general terms)?

A: The public will see the entire Zuni Fauna for the very first time. This is a whole world of new dinosaurs never before known. It was a time when sea levels were near their all time highest level and sites with even the potential to preserve animals from that time are very rare. This new fauna is really showing, for the first time, the roots of North America's Late Cretaceous dinosaurs and emphasizes the strong geographical connection that western North America had with Asia in its antiquity.

Also, Discovery Channel is not hedging its bets on the view that bird-like dinosaurs have feathers. New discoveries in China have proven that to the satisfaction of nearly all dinosaur paleontologists. Now we have to get the public up to speed with this exciting new concept.

Q: Has the process of give and take with the animators led you to some new notion about the look and behavior of dinosaurs?

A: Clearly, animating the animals gives us real constraints on how they moved. If the walking action of an animated dinosaur does not match known footprints, clearly the walk cycle needs adjusting. There is certainly a lot of potential for collaboration between paleontology and animators for gaining new insights on how dinosaurs moved. By animating the creatures moving through walk and run cycles, we can test if they actually match the trackway (dinosaur footprints) data.

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