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

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Synopsis

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

Filmmakers

Other crew

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Distributors

Runtimes:
2 Hour Time Slot

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When Dinosaurs Roamed America -
Synopsis

(D.I.G. Disclaimer. This comes straight from the Discovery Channel. We don't agree with certain ideas here: for example, we've never heard of a dinosaur called a "Raptor" and no one knows for sure the sizes of male and female T. rex. However, we haven't seen the program when this is being published, and we're sure the consulting paleontologists haven't read this or they'd be having fits.)

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

Two hundred and twenty million years ago an evening on Earth would have looked like a scene out of science fiction. A catastrophe of unknown origin and unparalleled proportions had struck the planet 25 million years earlier. Called the Permian extinction, it wiped out 97 percent of all living things. Still, the climate was warm and seasonal. The landscape was lush, exotic and green. It was the Triassic Period.

The Triassic is considered the heyday of the reptiles. To exploit the vacuum left by the Permian Extinction, reptiles evolved into a variety of species, including ever-increasing numbers of Archaesaurs, a group that includes dinosaurs, ptrerosaurs and crocodilians. Archaesaurs ruled the land and sea and, for the first time, reptiles took flight. Archaesaurs of the time included Desmastosuchus, a docile plant eater, with a body covered in armor. The spikes on its shoulders were a foot and half long. At 20 feet, Rutiodon was one of the largest predators around and one of the fastest – in water. On land it moved in slow motion. Like more primitive reptiles, it was a sprawler. Its legs projected outward from its body, which inhibited its speed. The Triassic period also saw the introduction of the fast-moving, two-legged, meat eater – Coelophysis.

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

Once again, the Earth was under siege. Although scientists are undecided as to what exact type of cataclysmic event occurred, the fossil records show it was quick and devastating. Nearly half of all major groups of reptiles vanished into extinction. The old order was slipping away. Soon the dinosaurs would inherit the earth. Here the Triassic period ends and the Jurassic begins. The land belonged to the dinosaur. This time they were even bigger and better.

In what is now New Jersey, 200 million years ago, creatures such as Syntarsus, Anchisaurus and Dilophosaurus ruled the land. Syntarsus, measuring ten feet from head to tail, was a carnivore. It had powerful legs and short arms with three fingers, each of which had a curved claw. Anchisaurus’s head was too small for its body and it had a brain the size of a prune. It was only eight feet long, but before the Jurassic was out, its descendants were the largest dinosaurs ever. A primitive dinosaur, Dilophosaurus, towered over its prey. It was closely related to Syntarsus, but twice as big. It had sharp, backward curving teeth with a double crest on its head, which only enhanced its awesome appearance.

Upper Jurassic – 150 Million Years Ago - Utah

It was the dry season in Utah. As far as the eye could see, the land was a blizzard of shifting sand and swirling dust. Trails of sparse vegetation coursed through the plains where streams once flowed. During the Upper Jurassic the streams had gone dry, and the ponds had turned to salt. Here, the local inhabitants eeked out a meager existence.

During this period in Earth’s history, awesome beasts such as Camarasaurus, the small, swift herbivore Dryosaurus and the predator Ceratoraurus ruled the land. The 60-foot long Camarasaurus ate the boughs of evergreens. Their strong teeth and powerful jaws worked like hedge clippers as they snipped off branches. The largest dinosaur of its kind in the world, Stegosaurus reached the length of a bus and the weight of an elephant. Its flak jacket of bony discs on its throat and a tail that bristled with four three foot-long spikes made it a walking arsenal designed to repel the most aggressive attackers. At 30 feet in length, Ceratosaurus was the neighborhood bully. This one-ton, powerful predator walked on two legs, had a strong, s-shaped neck, a short horn on its snout and one above and in front of each eye. Armed with fierce looking horns, it was a dinosaur’s worst nightmare.

The late Jurassic also boasted such awesome creatures as the Apatosaurus. This giant was the length of a tennis court. Its tail alone was 30 feet long and ended in a whiplash. A healthy adult weighed over 25 tons. It had no enemies because its size protected it from any would-be predators. The Jurassic was also the time of the largest and most powerful flesh eater of its day – Allosaurus. This vicious beast was a kind of cross between a big bird and a crocodile, standing on two legs, growing to full size in just six to eight years. In the twilight years of the Jurassic, Allosaurus vanished into extinction.

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

During the Cretaceous, sea levels began to rise, slowly flooding the interior of North America. In time, the Arctic Ocean joined the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico, creating a shallow inland sea that split the continent in two. On its shores a new kind of forest took root. For the first time broad-leafed trees like magnolias and poplars appeared along with a new crop of dinosaurs that had never before been seen.

The Cretaceous saw some of the most unusual and spectacular-looking creatures of all time. Creatures such as Zuniceratops ruled the swamp-like land. With his unique horns and frills, Zuniceratops was small – only 10-12 feet in length. In 15 million years his descendants – Triceratops – would be three times his size. The small, swift Raptor (Velociraptor?) had a special sharp claw on its foot for attacking other dinosaurs and could have just looked a ten-year-old child in the eye if it stood up straight.

For the dinosaurs that survive the changes of the middle Cretaceous period, what lay ahead was 20 million years of North American dinosaur evolution. In the distant future the kin of Zuniceratops would become one of the most famous dinosaurs in North America – Triceratops.

** Two never-before seen species, from the middle Cretaceous period as well as newly discovered flora and fauna from the “Cretaceous Gap,” a 35 million-year period in North American history, will be revealed at a press announcement in June 2001.

Mid – Late Cretaceous – 65 Million Years Ago – Montana

During the twilight of the Cretaceous, evolution was in overdrive. After a hundred and fifty million years, the sophistication and diversity of the dinosaurs was breathtaking, but these creatures were the last of their kind. During the late Cretaceous, every species of dinosaur grew larger than they had ever been before.

Triceratops was one of the largest animals on the northern plains. Weighing in at more than seven tons, this creature was more frightening than dangerous. Its head was huge with massive horns the length of broom handles and frills up to seven feet wide. Equipped with good eyesight, acute hearing and a keen sense of smell, Anototitan was constantly on alert. Forty feet long, he had the longest and broadest bill of any hadrosaurid. Quetzalcoatlus was the largest animal that ever flew. With a wingspan of 35-40 feet, it was the width of a fighter plane and equally aerodynamic. Quetzalcoatlus had no feathers, but may have been furred like other pterosaurs. Its bones were hollow and thinner than a postcard. Didelphodon had a pouch and was one of the largest mammals of its day. It was an ominivore and made its living on small reptiles, insects, fruit and carrion.

The Cretaceous also saw the rise of the most feared predator of all time – the Tyrannosaurus Rex. At 45-50 feet from tip to tail and a jaw powerful enough to crush a car, it was a force to be reckoned with. A young T. Rex was one of the fastest animals on land and although an adult was not as fast as a juvenile was it was far more powerful. An adult male stood 12 feet tall and weighed more than an elephant. The female was even bigger – an incredible 15 feet tall.

At the end of the Cretaceous, somewhere in the Gulf of Mexico an asteroid 10-12 miles in diameter struck the Earth, then vaporized on impact, leaving a crater more than 15 miles deep and 150 miles wide and hurling a cloud of superheated rock and ash into the atmosphere. Within hours it circled the globe, shrouding the earth in a veil of dust. Temperatures dropped and acid rain began to fall as sulfur burned by the heat of impact was washed out of the atmosphere. When the sun shone again, only a few hardy survivors remained – turtles, small reptiles, crocodilians, mammals and small flying dinosaurs called birds.

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