Ok, maybe the name isn't as catchy as Jurassic Fight Club but that's what it's all about; ancient critters ripping the guts out of other ancient critters and how we know they did it. I'll have a review of the first episode, featuring Majungasaurus, up next week, but in the meantime the History Channel has released a slew of videos and other materials to look over prior to the premiere (including a game that I'm sure will remind a few of you of Primal Rage).
The show itself features a number of experts but the main host is "Dinosaur George" Blasing, and while I'm not on board with all of his ideas the episode I watched was much better than I was anticipating. Here are a few preview videos of what to expect in the inaugural season of the show;
There are plenty more snippets and behind-the-scenes clips to watch, and I do wish that I could watch the whole series as each episode came out (I'll just have to wait for the DVDs). I'm sure the show will stir a lot of discussion and in some cases some consternation, but it is a return to a documentary format that I had feared had gone extinct.
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Rules of Prehistoric Nom Club:
1. You do not talk about Prehistoric Nom Club.
2. You DO NOT talk about Prehistoric Nom Club.
3. When someone's dead, the feeding frenzy is over.
4. There is no limit to the number of dinosaurs in a feeding frenzy.
5. One feeding frenzy at a time - you don't want to eat too much.
6. There will be nothing other than your own scaly or feathery covering protecting you from being eaten.
7. Take your time in eating.
8. If this is your first time at Prehistoric Nom Club, you have to participate.
Yeah, I wish that the dromaeosaurs had good feathers. Also the Majungasaurus legs and metatarsi are WAY too gracile! (Okay, when they started to do the effects the big Majungasaurus monograph was not yet published, so they didn't have it to work from. But it is a shame that they didn't do more coordination with some of the consultants on this.)
Also, looking at the Dinopedia images on the JFC website, I note that all the theropods have their hands in the impossible palms-downward position.
I hate the spectre of Jurassic Park's raptor models oh so much...
Programs like this just make the existence of the Creation Museum that much more painful to bear. They all ate plants before The Fall, right?
Dude, Primal Rage kicks ass. I still have it on my SNES, but I wish they'd release the superior Genesis version on the Virtual Console. Or, dare I say it, the PSX port. The mind boggles.
Interesting footnote: My T.rex book has papers in it which both validate and invalidate Nanotyrannus as a valid taxon.
Naked Dromaeosaurids
Looks like a chick to me.
BTW, have you considered male pattern baldness in velociraptors?
Tenontosaurus killed 5 or 6 Deinonychus's? Really? I thought the specimen was preserved in flood deposits.
I think it could be a good show,obviously for entertainment'sake...And speakin' about the so called "naked" Raptors,well,there's no definitive proof that ALL of them were completely feathered,so why say "there's no reason to show naked Raptors anymore"??
Plus,scaly Raptors are more badass to watch on screen than some over-sized turkey with teeth,aesthetically speakin'...Aren't they?
Alessio; I used to have my doubts, too, but as Mark Norell once told me saying that dromeosaurs had feathers is about the same as saying Australopithecus had hair. If we look at the phylogenetic trees dromeosaurs and some of their closest relatives were at least fuzzy, and there was a short communication in Science last year indicating how Velociraptor had quill knobs indicative of secondary feathers. Even juvenile Tyrannosaurus may have been fuzzy, although this is much more speculative than feathered dromeosaurs.
That dromeosaurs had feathers is not controversial. Feathers have not been found on all of them, no, but the identification of osteological characters (like quill knobs) may allow us to confirm the presence of secondary feathers on some dinosaurs (although their absence does not mean they weren't feathered). Taphonomy is a major factor here, many deposits just not preserving dinosaurs in enough detail to allow for articulated skeletons bearing feathers, but who knows what we might find in the future? As it stands now, though, there's no reason to keep showing naked raptors, that is unless you explain how they were plucked.
Maybe the "feathering" changed from species to species,maybe depending on the size of these animals (the bigger they were,the least they were feathered),where they lived (it was a cold or hot climate?),how they could have used feathers (display?)...As you said,who knows what we might find in the future? And,for the same reason,we don't have sufficient proof to say,100% guarantee,that ALL the Dromeosauridae were equally feathered,the fossil record is too small to say something TRULY certain on the matter.
For what we may know,Dromeosaurus could have been feathered as a turkey and Deinonychus could have been completely "naked" ;)
I'll wait and see how the show looks before I made a judgement... but for now, video #2 irks me. As Mr. "Dinosaur" George said that sound comes from the lungs as they connected to the esophagus.... Wrong-O. The lungs connect to the trachea.
While I withhold judgement on the show, a gross biology error like that just looks bad to start off with.