Animal Armageddon
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| Animal Armageddon | |
|---|---|
| Genre | Documentary |
| Narrated by | Michael Carroll |
| Theme music composer | Alan Ett |
| Country of origin | United States |
| Original language | Transclusion error: {{En}} is only for use in File namespace. Use {{langx|en}} or {{in lang|en}} instead. |
| No. of seasons | 1 |
| No. of episodes | 8 |
| Production | |
| Executive producer | Jason McKinley |
| Running time | 45 minutes |
| Production company | Digital Ranch Productions |
| Original release | |
| Network | Animal Planet |
| Release | February 12 – September 24, 2009 |
Animal Armageddon is an American paleontology-based documentary television miniseries that originally aired from February 12, 2009 to September 24, 2009 on Animal Planet. All the prehistorical scenes are created 100% in Lightwave.[citation needed] It is produced by Digital Ranch Produtions and all the computer graphics are designed and created by Radical3D.
Featured animals
The following is a list of animal species that the program features. (Note: A means that that particular animal survived that particular mass extinction, E means that that particular animal went extinct during that particular mass extinction, and Evolved Into... means that animal survived the extinction as a more advanced species.)
Death Rays
Hell on Earth
Doomsday
|
Panic in the Sky
The Great Dying
Strangled
Fire and Ice
|
The Next Extinction
|
Locations
Death Rays
Hell on Earth |
Doomsday
Panic in the Sky
|
The Great DyingStrangled
|
Fire and IceThe Next Extinction |
Episodes
| Original airdate | Ep# | Title | Event | Time frame | Kiloannum (ka) ago | Summary |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| February 12, 2009 | 1 | "Death Rays" | Ordovician-Silurian extinction event | Ordovician | 450,000–447,000 | A deadly gamma-ray burst evidently triggers the first known mass extinction in the history of Earth. Describes how the marine communities (there was barely multicellular life on land at this time) cope under the hypothetical gamma ray burst that affected the Earth by altering the atmospheric composition and stability. |
| February 19, 2009 | 2 | "Hell on Earth" | Late Devonian extinction | Devonian | 377,000–367,000 | A superplume volcanic explosion blots out the sun, driving life to the brink of extinction. It causes many eruptions in the world, a leak of gasses and the consequent greenhouse effect. |
| February 26, 2009 | 3 | "Doomsday"[11][12] | Cretaceous–Tertiary extinction event | Cretaceous | 65,000 | An asteroid the size of Mount Everest is about to end the age of the dinosaurs, followed by powerful earthquakes, megatsunamis, and a lethal rain of flaming rocky debris during the first 24 hours. When the a fragment of the asteroid impacts Earth, it causes a herd of Edmontosaurus to stampede. At the beach, a megatsunami kills another herd of Edmontosaurus. The dead bodies are later fed on by several Phobosuchus. Later, the actual asteroid crashes into the Gulf of Mexico. This causes giant megatsunamis to engulf various coastlines. In Texas, a Tyrannosaurus rex is engulfed by a flashing bright light. In the sky, the entire asteroid is blown into millions of tiny pieces, which rain down on Earth. A Purgatorius seeks shelter in a cave while a herd of Triceratops stampedes from the massive wall of fire engulfing everything. Eventually, the impact of the asteroid sets the stage for the events depicted in the next episode, Panic in the Sky. |
| March 5, 2009 | 4 | "Panic in the Sky" | Cretaceous–Tertiary extinction event | Cretaceous | 65,000 | Wildfires, acid rain, global darkness, and snow storms spell death for the dinosaurs during their final year. After the first 24 hours of the asteroid impact, wildfires consume much of the United States surrounding the Gulf of Mexico. Later, weather patterns bring sulphur and acid rain, killing off many animals. In Cretaceous China, a Tarbosaurus suffers and later dies of the acid. In Mongolia, an impact winter causes a pack of Velociraptors to suffer. A whole herd of Protoceratops dies of frostbite as a result. Later, the Purgatorius from the previous episode emerges to eat insects. |
| September 3, 2009 | 5 | "The Great Dying" | Permian–Triassic extinction event | Permian | 250,000–249,200
250 million years ago foresees the Siberian Traps exploding into an active volcano. The eruption of the Siberian Traps causes land ecosystems to be put under serious stress due to severe climate change caused by basalt flow volcanic eruptions in Siberia, thus modifying the chemical composition of the atmosphere. The Siberian Traps explode into a huge active volcano. The resulting pryoclastic surge engulfs a whole herd of Lystrosaurus. Elsewhere, another herd of Lystrosaurus in South Africa is suffering from massive heat waves and acid rain. Back in SIberia, entire animals die from smoke inhalation. An Inostrancevia struggles to find food. Luckily, he manages to grab a Dycinodon to eat. As the Permian extinction ends, the Lystrosaurus survive, while Inostrancevia and Dicynodonts die and never see the light of day again. | |
| September 10, 2009 | 6 | "Strangled" [13] | Triassic-Jurassic extinction event | Triassic | 200,000 | Scorching lava, suffocating heat and toxic gases violently causes a mass extinction 200 million years ago, allowing the dinosaurs to take the dominant role. |
| September 17, 2009 | 7 | "Fire and Ice" | Quaternary extinction event | Pleistocene | 74–10 | This episode explores the eruption of Lake Toba 74,000 years ago, killing animals like Elasmotherium and the Sumatran Leopard, and other animals in prehistoric Sumatra. In India, the giant ash plume causes ash to fall in prehistoric India. The result is millions of more prehistoric animals like Stegodon and Cave Lions. In prehistoric Vietnam, the ash plume suffocates millions of animals like Gigantopithecus and Pumas. The end results in a massive blanket of ash blanketing Sumatra, Java, Vietnam, and India, killing animals in all four areas |
| September 24, 2009 | 8 | "The Next Extinction" | Future[14] | Not too distant future | Future | This episode explains what mass extinction humans will be experiencing in the future. |
Inaccuracies
As in any paleobiology dramatization, there are several mistakes, ignored in order to have a simple, direct explanation for each episode:
- Pangea in the Permian is pictured as an idyllic, Eden-like place to live. Geological evidence shows that there was a progressive drying of the bulk mass of the supercontinent, at such a level that by the eve of the Great Dying (251.4 million years BP) the climate was strongly seasonal and monsoonal, and marine communities were already under stress due to the reduction of the shallow seas caused by the assembling of Pangea earlier in the Permian.
- The Great Dying episode focuses on land communities, which lost about 70% of their species. But the Permo-Triassic extinction hit the marine ecosystems harder, so probably a dramatization focused on marine animals would have been a better example of what happened.
- A Gamma-ray burst is presented as THE explanation for the End-Ordovician extinction, despite this theory being relatively new, untested and difficult to prove. It is more likely, according to paleontologists, that this event was caused by the climate and sea temperature changes brought about by the positioning of South America and Africa over the South Pole (because of continental drift), which led to the onset of an ice cap that covered these continents extensively.
- Lystrosaurus was depicted living in the Permian era. This, however, violates common sense. Lystrosaurus lived in the Triassic instead of the Permian, although fossils have been found in Permian rocks.
- The Gorgonopsian depicted in The Great Dying was shown looking like a large lion-like creature with a few tufts of hair growing out of his shoulders. This is wrong, as it was built like a synapsid and not a totally mammal-built animal.
- Thrinaxodon did not live in the Permian as depicted in The Great Dying. But its likely ancestor Procynosuchus did.
Notes
- ^ Isotelus was identified as Trilobite on the show.
- ^ Purgatorius, Edmontosaurus, Triceratops, Tyrannosaurus Rex, and Troodon were briefly seen in "Strangled".
- ^ Edmontosaurus was identified as a Hadrosaur in the show.
- ^ Tarbosaurus was not featured on the website.
- ^ Lystrosaurus, Gorgonops, Proterosuchus, and Dicynodon were briefly seen in "Strangled".
- ^ Homo Sapiens was shown in live action.
- ^ The Cave Lion was identified as Panthera Leo Spelaea on the show.
- ^ The Woolly Mammoth was identified simply as Mammoth on the show.
- ^ The Cockroach and Rat are bigger than the modern day animals.
- ^ The elephant is the ancestor of the Woolly Mammoth and Stegodon on the show.
- ^ Many of the animals in "Doomsday were also in "Panic in the Sky", as well as the other way around.
- ^ Almost all the animals of "Doomsday" and "Panic in the Sky are also in "The Next Extinction".
- ^ "Strangled is the only episode that does not say what would happen if that same catastrophe happened today.
- ^ The fate of the animals in "The Next Extinction" is unknown.