Basilosaurus Stuck on Wait Until Hungry Again

Walking with Beasts is the 2001 spinoff of the Speculative Documentary series, Walking with Dinosaurs. Following the mass extinction that wiped out the dinosaurs 65 million years ago, Beasts focuses on life during the Cenozoic Era, as mammals evolve to fill in the new niches left behind by their Mesozoic counterparts.

Similar in WWD, vi episodes were made, each focusing on different time periods and ecosystems under a chronological criterium.

• New Dawn: (49 MYA, Germany) In the early on Eocene, near the commencement of the Mammal Age, behemothic flightless birds like Gastornis are portrayed as the dominant species, while small mammals similar Leptictidium, Propalaeotherium and Godinotia are potentially like shooting fish in a barrel prey for them.
• Whale Killer (36 MYA, Tethys Sea) A meaning specimen of the early toothed whale Basilosaurus is obligated to go to extreme methods to feed herself and her unborn calf.
• Country of Giants (25 MYA, Mongolia) A young Paraceratherium (a.k.a. Indricotherium) must endure the hardships of the Mongolian desert on its journeying to become the largest land mammal to roam the Earth.
• Next of Kin (iii.2 MYA, Ethiopia) An orphan fellow member of a tribe of the early human-ancestors Australopithecus must struggle to proceeds acceptance amid his group.
• Sabre Tooth (one MYA, Paraguay) A saber-toothed cat Smilodon named Half-Molar has his pride taken abroad from him by a brotherly pair of rival males.
• Mammoth Journey (30 KYA, Western Europe) A herd of Woolly Mammoths begin their almanac migration from the North Sea (a dry plain in this fourth dimension) to the Swiss Alps for the winter, and must brave the harsh elements and the hungry predators to get there, including early human being.

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This work provides examples of the following tropes:

• Adaptational Wimp: Terror birds like Phorusrhacos, despite beingness successful predators with a long history of dominance in South America, were portrayed every bit having lost their spot in the food concatenation to the newly arrived sabertooths and condemned to scavenging and opportunistic predation of young animals. Andrewsarchus, despite being a contender for largest mammalian land carnivore at the time of production and having a massive skull and pointed teeth, was portrayed equally a rather wimpy scavenger and opportunistic predator of smaller animals. Ironically, Andrewsarchus is nowadays believed to be a relative or ecological forerunner of the entelodonts, which were portrayed as outright nightmarish in "Country of Giants".
• All In that location in the Manual: The genus is actually Paraceratherium, but the narration prefers calling them "indricotheres", later a synonym, Indricotherium. The brontotheres are likewise identified merely as Embolotherium in supplementary material. The chalicotheres, on the other manus, avoid this — while based off Chalicotherium, the supplementary material says they are non, as this genus had not appeared nonetheless.
• Anachronism Stew:
  • "Country of Giants" includes a chalicothere based on, well, Chalicotherium — which appeared slightly after in real life. The accompanying cloth handwaves this every bit the chalicothere being a currently undiscovered close relative of the after species.
  • The bear-canis familiaris in the aforementioned episode is based on Cynodictis, which was already extinct. This is probably why it is also called a "bear dog" and not Cynodictis.
  • In the episode "Saber Molar", the terror bird Phorusrhacos is featured as a lesser rival predator to Smilodon. However, by the time the episode is set, all terror birds had already gone extinct (the case of the Miocene Phorusrhacos being present in the Pleistocene falls under Science Marches On, as it was one time thought younger terror bird species belonged under Phorusrhacos).
  • In "Next of Kin", set in Africa 3.2 million years ago, the Australopithecus are seen feeding on a zebra carcass. The genus Equus (which includes zebras) didn't enter Africa until 2.three million years ago. The closest affair at the time and place would be the hipparionine horse Eurygnathohippus, which was smaller, had three hooves in each foot instead of one, and, like Australopithecus, was non completely adapted to life in the open plain.
  • Apidium fossils are found in the Jebel Qatrani Germination, which is now understood to mostly be early Oligocene in age about 30 million years ago (half-dozen million years after this episode takes place). At the time the documentary was made, the formation was idea to date to the late Eocene, so this falls under Scientific discipline Marches On.
• An Aesop: Kenneth Branagh's commitment of the final line in the series is potent.

  Narrator: We accept since built museums to celebrate the past, and spent decades studying prehistoric lives. And if all this has taught u.s.a. anything, it is this: no species lasts forever.

• Pismire Assault: In the first episode, a colony of behemothic prehistoric ants happens upon a just hatched baby Gastornis, which they go along to strip to the bone.
• Ape Shall Never Kill Ape: Averted multiple times, like in other installments.
  • A Basilosaurus outright massacres the calves of a pod of Dorudon, a close (merely smaller) relative.
  • Two giant entelodonts (basically a cross betwixt boars and hippos, filling the niche of hyenas) bite each other on the head until one flees with horrific injuries that could kill it in the long run.
  • 2 invading Smilodon kill another Smilodon's cubs, a behaviour based on modern lions.
• Artistic License – Paleontology: Contrary to what "New Dawn" claims, big mammals already appeared past the time of Gastornis. That includes not only herbivores like the pantodonts, but also carnivores such as the mesonychids.
• Astronomic Zoom: The series ends on an aerial zoom-out shot from the Oxford Museum of Natural History, and so panning around the Earth.
• Aw, Look! They Really Do Dear Each Other: At the end of "Next of Kin", the Australopithecus get over their fear of the Dinofelis and band together to salvage Bluish, the omega of the grouping who had been ignored through the episode. Hercules and Greyness also fight adjacent, despite their early fight for leadership of the group.
• Beauty Equals Goodness: Deinotherium is a distant relative of elephants with tusks only in its lower jaws, the reverse of modern pachyderms. Then, it's viewed as "ugly" by some. Their species is portrayed as a sorta Jerkass villain who attacks frequently other creatures, in bright contrast with the fluffy (and more like to mod elephants) Woolly Mammoth, and also with the small early on tapir-looking Moeritherium which looks rather harmless. Both the Woolly and Moeritherium are notably more heroic and gentle than Deinotherium, never attacking or menacing everyone (it must be noted that said Deinotherium was a lonely male in oestrus, with the bad eyesight of modernistic rhinos, so information technology had a Pilus-Trigger Temper).
• Beware My Stinger Tail: Doedicurus, a glyptodont, is a giant armored beast related with modernistic armadillos merely with a spiked club at the end of its tail, very similar by coincidence to the unrelated dinosaur Ankylosaurus.
• Big Damn Heroes:
  • The Australopithecus gang banding together to salvage their resident Butt-Monkey, Blue.
  • A Smilodon cub is chased past a pair of Phorusrhacos at the starting time of the Saber Tooth episode, but then Half-Molar appears out of nowhere and scares the Terror Birds away just when they're most to eat the cub.
• "Blind Idiot" Translation:
  • The Castilian Castilian dub mirrors the English "brontothere", "indricothere", etc. without realizing that these are common names. Thus comes pseudo-scienstific names similar "Brontothia" and "Indricothia", instead of the actual translation (brontoterio and indricoterio). Basilosaurus is likewise inverse to "basilosaurio" despite never being chosen "basilosaur" in the original.
  • The Hungarian VHS dub misinterpreted the names in a similar fashion, even preserving the plural marker "-s" at the end of "chalicotheres" as if that were part of their name. The dub included other mistakes as well, like calling the indricothere dogie a cat at ane betoken, changing carbon-dioxide to carbon-monoxide in "New Dawn", mixing upward male and female when describing the Doedicurus' mating habits, and using the outdated term "kétlaki" in reference to amphibious animals (the word present predominantly ways "dioecious" and is mostly used in botany).
  • Subverted past the High german dub: Out of convenience, saber tooth cats are referred to by their outdated proper noun, saber tooth tigers, but the narrator mentions that this term is really wrong.
• Bowdlerise: Some versions of the "Next of Kin" cutting out the scene of two Australopithecus mating. As if that wasn't bad enough, the American DVD version keeps the scene, just completely pixelates it.
• Canis Major: Several wolf-similar or canis familiaris-like animals announced in the prove, some of them actually big as per the trope and others smaller.
  • Andrewsarchus, known merely from a skull in Real Life, is restored as a massive wolf-similar beast "as alpine equally a horse and weighing close to a ton"; it was believed at one bespeak to be a contender for largest mammalian carnivore of all time (its nails are more hoof-similar than claw-like; it belonged non to the order Carnivora, but to the extinct society Mesonychia). But information technology'southward actually represented as a scavenger and opportunistic predator that never takes part in a fight unlike a wolf. Two Andrewsarchus are easily kept at bay by a mother Embolotherium (a four-ton mammal related to rhinos, only whose "horn" is actually skin-covered os like a giraffe'southward ossicones, rather than entirely keratin like a rhinoceros'southward horn or horns) who is oblivious to her calf's death.
  • Small-scale canine-similar carnivores (a miacid in "New Dawn" and a acquit-dog in "Land of Giants") appear as small creatures, preyed on or "bullied" past larger ones.
  • Hyaenodon is a loosely canine-like predator the size of a large modern tiger, but unlike its namesake hyena, it was not a member of the order Carnivora (rather, Hyaenodon was a member of the extinct order Creodonta, every bit was the smaller Oxyaena featured in the first episode). Unlike wolves, information technology'south sociotolerant rather than social, thus more than cat- than dog- or even hyena-like. In the show, a lone hyaenodont kills hands a specimen of the bigger herbivorous chalicothere, while another is seen pursuing an entelodont (a boar-like mammal). In contrast, they don't manage to kill a baby Indricothere in pack, also considering his vigilant mother weighs 12 tons and is at least 50 times their mass. The one who had killed the chalicothere is and then chased away past a group of three entelodonts which aimed to the fresh impale.
  • An bodily live-acted wolf shows up in "Mammoth Journeying": it's solitary, and one of the ii kinds of animal shown gathering to await for a trapped mammoth to dice and feed on its corpse. The other kind are members of our ain species. It's hinted that this is why some species of wolves started to band together with humans.
• Curb-Stomp Battle:
  • Megatherium, meet Smilodon. One slap later, Smilodon meets the Grim Reaper.
  • Basilosaurus playing catch with two live sharks.
  • A Hyaenodon catching a sitting chalicothere by surprise and killing information technology with one seize with teeth to the pharynx. Despite the chalicothere beingness armed with hand claws comparable to Megatherium and a similar lifestyle, it doesn't even accept the take chances of using them for self-defense.
  • A 2-ton wooly rhinoceros running down a passing neanderthal. Not that the neanderthal had the volition or was in a position to fight.
  • Modern humans bring down a ane-ton Megaloceros deer, and neanderthals bring down two 4-ton mammoths with trivial attempt and no casualties in both cases, cheers to their mastery of grouping strategy and technology.
• Dark Reprise:
  • A double one. When the neanderthals brainstorm their plan to drive the mammoths off a cliff, the music shifts from the usual "travel" theme used in the episode to a more suspenseful version with rather ominous tribal chanting and drums. The chants are like to, but slightly more than sinister than the ones during the humans' Megaloceros chase, leaving it sounding similar the unholy fusion of both tracks.
  • In "New Dawn", the constant jungle theme becomes louder and faster when the Gastornis attacks.
• Determinator:
  • Half-Tooth. He never gives upwards on existence the Height Cat, even afterward being ousted by the brothers.
  • Poor Blue never stops trying to be a role of the clan. His persistence also pays off.
• Death of a Kid: All only One time an Episode. The Gastornis chick gets eaten by behemothic ants, some Smilodon cubs are killed by other Smilodons, a good many Dorudon calves are eaten by Basilosaurus, a brontothere calf is shown dead, some baby bear dogs are killed in a inundation, and a infant Macrauchenia gets downed by a terror bird. In the book, the latter is replaced past a Hippidion calf. Also, while it doesn't happen in the plan or the book, there exists a promo image which shows a Hyaenodon dragging a expressionless indricothere calf.
• Devious Dolphins: At that place's an episode ("Whale Killer") centered on the Basilosaurus, a prehistoric killer whale with massive teeth. Diverse other predatory cetaceans are shown also.
• Dire Beast: Compared to Walking with Dinosaurs, many depicted prehistoric animals are clear relatives of modernistic animals, merely near often larger and more fearsome looking.
• Earn Your Happy Ending: The indricothere goes from mewling Momma's Male child to boyish Who'due south Laughing Now? haughtiness.
• Eats Babies: Young animals are very vulnerable, and convenient targets to predators. The giant ants and Basilosaurus succeed. The Hyaenodon, Phorusrhacos, and cave panthera leo endeavor to, just fail. Being a Mama Bear to prevent exactly that, is a cultivated talent among both mammals and birds.
• Ethereal Choir: Aside from the main theme, the only use of vocals in the soundtrack is in episodes 4 to accompany the Australopithecus, and episode half dozen to accompany the humans and Neanderthals. Both reflect humanity finally entering the world phase. This is especially effective if watching in the historical order (Monsters, Dinosaurs and Beasts), considering it takes fifteen episodes for them to appear.
• Expy: Like Walking with Dinosaurs, the principal attractive of the bear witness is portraying extinct animals as only that, living animals in a faux-wild animals documentary, rather than as prehistoric monsters. Even so, because the animals of Beasts take closer living relatives, it is more mutual for them to mirror modern animals entirely.
  • A time when this is not based on evolutionary relationship but convergence evolution is the Ambulocetus in "New Dawn", which is identical to a Nile crocodile, other than swimming up and downwardly like the mammal it is.
  • "Whale Killer": Despite beingness a very archaic whale with an uniquely elongated body, the behavior of Basilosaurus is practically that of, well, a Killer Whale. The only notable deviation is the animals being solitary. Dorudon are just as primitive, just are portrayed equally basically pilot whales in a unlike pare.
  • "State of Giants": The primary focus of the episode, the human relationship of an indricothere dogie to his mother, is based on mod-day rhinoceros behavior.
  • "Next of Kin": Deinotherium carry like African elephants, Dinofelis behaves similar a leopard (although information technology was larger and heavier), Australopithecus takes its showcased behaviors from chimpanzees, modern humans, or both.
  • "Saber Molar": The behavior of Smilodon populator is copied to a T from modern lions, despite this being at odds with the bodily evidence.
• Feathered Fiend: Phorusrhacos and Gastornis are both portrayed every bit gigantic, flightless, predatory birds. While Phorusrhacos is an Adaptational Wimp, hunting small mammals and scavenging, and fleeing away at the sight of a Smilodon, Gastornis is portrayed equally a territorial Mama Comport and elevation predator (in defiance of afterward discoveries establishing that it was a plant eater in Real Life).
• Foreshadowing: The Neanderthal is starting time seen collecting large dry sticks and branches earlier getting attacked by the Rhino. These are later used to attack the mammoths with fire to drive them over the cliff.
• From Nobody to Nightmare: Humanity. Unlike primates appear in the early episodes as easy prey to other animals; their principal talents like intelligence, sociality and 3-D navigation are just enough to keep them from going extinct. When the first hominid appears in "Next of Kin", Australopithecus, information technology is still in constant fear of large cats similar Dinofelis only also relentlessly bullied by the giant of the African savanna, Deinotherium... until it manages to utilize those special talents to drive abroad an attacking Dinofelis. 2 episodes later, in "Mammoth Journey", humans take gone from mutual prey to a terrifying predator from fauna eyes, capable of using technology to ignore the weather and create weapons to kill from a distance, bringing downwardly much larger animals through elaborate strategies, and decision-making burn down.
• Full-Boar Action: The entelodonts are referred to as "Hogs from Hell", even though strictly speaking they aren't pigs. They appear in the episode fighting each other or scaring away predators from their kills.
• Hemisphere Bias: The last episode ends with a pull-out from the Britain (due to the last scene being a pull-out from the Oxford University Museum of Natural History).
• Historical Villain Upgrade: Gastornis in specific is portrayed every bit an apex predator, and big carnivorous birds are claimed to be the tiptop predators around the globe, when in fact they had to compete with mesonychids and were far less cosmopolitan a tendency than the show claims.
• Honorable Elephant: Proboscideans are most oftentimes portrayed equally minding their own concern and taking intendance of their own. The exception is the Deinotherium of "Next of Kin", which are portrayed equally brutish bullies while still displaying behaviors of modern day elephants only, due to Protagonist-Centered Morality.
• Humans Are Special: Zigzagged. The human antecedent Australopithecus is in the focus of an entire episode (and hightlights many of its unique milestones abilities, which also employ to modern humans), simply in the episode where modern humans (cro-magnons) actually appear, they are not treated any differently than whatsoever other animal, as can be seen when the narrator remarks on a pair of cave lions feeding on a straggler, at first implied to be a mammoth, only immediately later is seen to be a man. The final line of the series also says "no species lasts forever".
• Inferred Holocaust: In-universe. Many episodes end with a remark virtually how the climate shifted later and the species portrayed disappeared with no modern descendants. While this is averted in "Adjacent of Kin", which ends on a positive note and Australopithecus existence lauded as a forefather to Humanity, the sequel series Walking With Cavemen tells explicitely that a climatic change at the beginning of the Pleistocene collection to extinction Ancylotherium, Deinotherium, Dinofelis and the Australopithecus descendants that stuck to a vegetarian only diet (Paranthropus) instead of increasing their meat consumption (Homo habilis).
• Jerkass:
  • Entelodonts are portrayed as the bullies of the oligocene, attacking other animals for piddling reason. At one point they are referred to equally "hogs from hell".
  • The Deinotherium are the just proboscideans to avert the Honorable Elephant trope relentlessly, taking an apparent sadistic glee in bullying the Australopithecus out of a waterhole or (in the case of the bull in musth) considering they (literally) experience like it.
  • The Smilodon brothers that drive Half-Molar out of his pack. Despite behaving exactly like lions do in real life, and One-half-Tooth most likely having washed the verbal same thing to another male at 1 indicate (which we tin can chalk to Protagonist-Centered Morality).
• Killer Rabbit:
  • It turns out, the elephant-sized sloth Megatherium can impale a Smilodon with a swipe of its claws. Then again, it is the size of an elephant, has armour-plated skin, stands 3 metres high, and has huge claws.
  • Hominids aren't suited for combat biologically, but they make for it with brains.
• Mama Bear: The brontothere and indricothere are both extremely protective of their calves, fighting off gigantic predators such as the Andrewsarchus and the Hyaenodon.
• Mammoths Mean Ice Age: The Ice Historic period segment, "Mammoth Journey", is as the proper noun implies focused around the yearly migration of a herd of wooly mammoths heading from the plains of the then-dry out North Ocean to the Alps and then back over the course of a year. Other creatures — Cro-Magnon and Neanderthal humans, cave lions, woolly rhinos, Megaloceros — appear, but the mammoth herd'south migration remains the main focus and framing device, with the other creatures actualization equally animals the mammoths encounter or (in the instance of the humans and lion) predators menacing them.
• Match Cut: The brilliant cut from a Homo sapiens carving a mammoth sculpture from woods, to it appearing eons later in an exhibit at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History.
• Mega Neko: Smilodon and Dinofelis, ii enormous prehistoric cats. Cavern lions, despite being larger than mod lions (and as a result, the largest cats portrayed in the series) are not given enough fourth dimension or prominence to count.
• Made of Iron: A Neanderthal takes on a wooly rhino's full charge. He breaks some ribs, only is still on both anxiety after. Co-ordinate to the supplementary documentary, Neanderthals ordinarily had numerous injuries similar to rodeo clowns, and were built far hardier than their homo sapiens cousins.
• Misplaced Wild animals:
  • The Indian, marine Ambulocetus appears in a freshwater lake of Deutschland, where it would be in direct contest with crocodiles. This is Handwaved as the animate being swimming upriver from the ocean.
  • Andrewsarchus and Embolotherium, only known from Mongolia, are moved to the Pakistani coast to continue the episode'southward maritime theme. In the example of Andrewsarchus this is at at least handwaved with the explanation of the prolonged drought forcing them to look for food outside their usual habitat.
  • Invoked by the narrator when a cave king of beasts first appears in "Mammoth Journeying", which is set in Ice Age Europe, and and then explained that lions were not limited to the Tropics in this fourth dimension (the aforementioned episode mentions cave hyenas, but does non elaborate on). The protagonic mammoths themselves descend from African ancestors who migrated northward and adapted to the cold.
• Mix-and-Friction match Critters:
  • The bizarre Leptictidium of the European Eocene has the size of a large rabbit but the teeth and snout of an elephant shrew, and moves by hopping like a kangaroo.
  • Ambulocetus: Despite existence an early whale, information technology resembles the unholy hybrid of a crocodile and an otter, and has the size of a sea lion.
  • Moeritherium: A goofy-looking elephant compressed to tapir size. It behaves much like a hippopotamus, only without typical hippo aggressivity.
  • Indricotherium: A hornless "rhino" brought to titanosaur dimensions, feeding on the treetops and using its long neck to fight for dominance similar a giraffe.
  • Chalicotherium has a horse-like face up, arched back and artillery like a gorilla, and long curved claws like a basis sloth. The color of the face loosely resembles a panda.
  • Averted with the acquit-domestic dog, which is one of the smaller, fully domestic dog-like species and not one of the larger species which did combine comport and dog-like features.
  • The entelodonts loosely resemble pigs but take massive opening jaws they employ to fight, similar hippopotamuses, and walk on comparatively alpine, thin legs like a bovid (they were closer in relationship to hippos and whales on the evolutionary tree).
  • Australopithecus: Basically a hairy child with a chimpanzee's head.
  • Macrauchenia: May pass for a camel if information technology didn't have a tapir-similar head with a functional torso. Dissimilar well-nigh reconstructions, the show takes inspiration from large African antelopes instead of giving it an uniform sandy coloration.
• Monster Is a Mommy:
  • The pregnancy of the protagonic Basilosaurus is used to draw sympathy to it. Having to feed yourself is sometimes just not skillful enough.
  • The Gastornis has its unborn chick devoured by ants. Worse knowing now that the bird was really an herbivore.
• Myth Arc: Like to Dinosaurs, the evolution and success of mammals and the world becoming what it is today is a focus, as the climate changes and the continents continue to movement. Near notably, primates characteristic in all but two episodes to track the history of humankind.
• Narrative-Driven Nature Documentary: Building upon the success of Walking with Dinosaurs, Beasts had a much tighter narrative focus in each of episodes and clearly defined characters than its predecessor, such as a Smilodon fatalis called Half-Tooth. Despite this, information technology still very much acts out as a nature documentary, even going so far as to be Darker and Edgier than Dinosaurs.
• Noisy Nature: Gastornis and the Entelodonts are peculiarly prone to this; Gastornis in particular announcing its attacks with loud screeches.
• Not-Standard Character Design:
  • The young indricothere's mother has one ear permanently lower than the other.
  • Male Smilodon are larger than females and have manes. One-half-Tooth too lost his left fang in a fight years before.
  • Among the Australopithecus, Blueish can be told apart from the other two children because he is slightly older, taller and thinner, simply he is still much smaller than the adults. Of the two developed males, Gray has grey hair and a blind center.
  • The old, male wooly mammoth is massive compared to the females, and has gigantic, asymmetric tusks that bend to the point of well-nigh driving circles.
• Panda-ing to the Audience: The Chalicotherium's faces recall that of a giand panda in colors, and the narrator explicitly says "they walk like gorillas and eat like pandas, but their closest relatives are actually horses". The latter is really an imprecision, because despite their equus caballus-like head, chalicotheres were non more related with equines than to tapirs and rhinoceroses.
• Perspective Flip: I episode may show a predator as heroic if information technology is the protagonist, and so some other prove a close relative with a very similar behavior as a villain considering the prey is the protagonist. See Protagonist-Centered Morality.
• Plot Threads: A subplot of the development of humans runs through the show, with New Dawn and Whale Killer showing the primates of their time, while Side by side of Kin focuses on a step in human development, and Mammoth Journeying features two hominid species (one of which beingness us) and ends by focusing on one.
• Prehistoric Monster: At the end of the day, all the animals portrayed are just that, animals. However, due to Protagonist-Centered Morality, many qualify in one mode or another, such equally Gastornis, Ambulocetus, Basilosaurus, Hyaenodon, the entelodonts, Phorusrhacos, Megatherium, Dinofelis and Deinotherium.
• Protagonist-Centered Morality: Each episode is centered on ane animal. Nature being as bleak as it is, this often results in the audience cheering for what would be a monster from the point of view of their casualty and rivals.
  • The Basilosaurus borders on Villain Protagonist, acting as a Super-Persistent Predator to the Moeritherium and slaughtering the youngest generation of a pod of closely related Dorudon, but information technology is all for the survival of her unborn child. The birth of the calf is a happy ending.
  • "Land of Giants" follows the POV of a young indricothere from its nascence to the bespeak it is large enough to not fright predators anymore. The mother mating once again, driving it away so having another dogie all see as tragedies. Nevermind that information technology would be counterproductive for the female parent to stick with this calf afterward it was big enough to fend for itself and that the younger sibling can't be faulted for existence born.
  • Compare the Deinotherium in "Side by side of Kin" and the mammoths in "Mammoth Journeying". Both are based on the beliefs of modern elephants. Nonetheless, while Deinotherium come across as bullies (charging at an Australopithecus couple considering they were on their path to drinkable from a waterhole, and a male person in musth randomly attacks the Australopithecus group and virtually kills one of their young), the mammoths are a showcase of the Honorable Elephant trope, displaying affection and caring for their injured, delayed and newborn relatives. The "charging at random animals blocking their path" still appear, but it is brief and directed to larger animals similar bison and cavern lions. In the latter case, those lions were feeding on a human, and then they weren't very likely to exist seen as victims.
  • Likewise, compare the Dinofelis in "Next of Kin" and the Smilodon in "Saber Tooth". Both are sabertooth cats that hunt animals to survive, simply the commencement comes across as menacing for predating on the human-like Australopithecus earlier getting his "comeuppance" when the grouping drives it away with a pelting of rocks. Smilodon, on the other hand, is a total badass for hunting and fighting other animals.
  • To a bottom extent, we could even compare the Australopithecus in "Next of Kin" to the humans (both species) in "Mammoth Journeying". Both are hominids that are simply trying to survive and sometimes go attacked or preyed on past other animals. Only while the Australopithecus fighting dorsum against the Dinofelis and driving it off is depicted as a positive moment, the humans are depicted equally rather frightening creatures when they chase the Megaloceros, and to a greater extent the mammoth herd.
  • At the individual level, the audience is intended to cheer for Half Tooth for making a comeback and retaking his pride from the brothers, especially after they kill One-half Tooth's cubs to induce heat in the females. This is typical beliefs for lions and information technology is portrayed as typical for Smilodon. As a result, it is extremely likely that Half Tooth did the exact same thing to his predecessor and whatever cubs it may accept.
• Rhino Rampage: The woolly rhinoceros attacks a Neanderthal for piffling reason. Although non bodily rhinos, the brontotheres also invoke this, with the female parent brontothere charging at the Andrewsarchus defending her already dead calf. The rhino relative Indricotherium displays some rhino-similar behavior, simply it fights like a giraffe due to having a longer cervix and no horns.
• Scavengers Are Scum: Played straight mainly with the entelodonts. They are portrayed with enormously broad open mouths, always-growling mental attitude, and are even called the Hogs from Hell at one signal. They mainly announced bullying other animals or fighting each other in their episode, but to be off-white, they are besides shown suffering from starvation and equally a prey for the predatory Hyaenodons and bullied by the young indricothere — even though these things take passed less-noticed. True predators similar Smilodon tend to receive a more neutral, sometimes even heroic, portrayal, like what happens in the classic true documentaries showing lions and hyenas to make things clear.
  • Andrewsarchus and Phorusrhacos were both depicted equally scavengers and unable to take on animals of their own size (see Adaptational Wimp), in addition to interim equally secondary "villains" of their episodes.
• Sea Monster: Basilosaurus, a predatory whale the size of modern filter-feeding whales, is viewed as such past some, merely similar all the other characters of the program is actually a real animal trying to survive in a hard environs with deficient available food. The even more powerful cetacean Lyviatan melvillei is non portrayed just because was described simply in The New '10s by science, after the bear witness.
• Seldom-Seen Species: Most creatures, except for the Woolly Mammoth, the saber-toothed Smilodon, and the Ice Age humans, were quite uncommon in TV programs before the show.
  • New Dawn: Leptictidium, Gastornis, Ambulocetus, Propalaeotherium, Godinotia, Titanomyrma
  • Whale Killer: Basilosaurus, Andrewsarchus, Embolotherium, Dorudon, Moeritherium, Apidium, Physogaleus
  • Land of Giants: Paraceratherium, Hyaenodon, Chalicotherium, Entelodon, Cynodictis
  • Adjacent of Kin: Australopithecus, Dinofelis, Ancylotherium, Deinotherium
  • Saber Molar: Macrauchenia, Phorusrhacos, Doedicurus, Megatherium
  • Mammoth Journey: Woolly Rhino, Giant Deer, European Lion
• Sexy Discretion Shot: The scene of the mating Australopithecus fifty-fifty had to exist censored with a huge blur for the American release (but strangely did't cut it entirely, like in Australia), because information technology looked exactly similar the way humans do it. Even in the uncensored version there is some Scenery Censor, as the mating happens in high grass.
  • Otherwise averted practically Once an Episode, where we explicitly come across copulating Godinotia, Basilosaurus (which mate face to face, and take very large penises), Indricotherium, Smilodon and wooly mammoths.
• Silly Simian: Small primates Godinotia and Apidium may count equally subversions. Despite being more comical than other animals, they have very small roles that don't influence the plot and serve mostly as easy kills for other animals.
• Sluggish Sloths: Played With in the episode "Saber Tooth". The Megatherium, an elephant sized fauna and the largest known species of sloth, moves about as rapidly every bit any large mammalian plant eater at walking speed; not that information technology really matters, as their sheer size makes them practically invulnerable to predation. However, when a Megatherium challenges the Smilodon pride over a carcass, one of the pair of male Smilodons leading the pride attempts to scare it off. The Megatherium answers by hitting the male person difficult and fast plenty that the Smilodon was unable to bound out of the way in time, and as a result was killed instantly. The balance of the Smilodon wisely decide to back off and yield their kill later.
• Spared by the Adaptation: The second Smilodon brother is fatally wounded in the original episode, but in the corresponding chapter of the volume, he merely runs away.
• Subverted Trope: In the previous series, Walking with Dinosaurs, an brute lineage's long-term success would exist paralleled by their representative doing well in the episode, such as the Coelophysis'southward success in New Dawn and the mammal's success in Death of a Dynasty. New Dawn flips this on its head; the three animals that get killed past the gas wave- Ambulocetus, Godinotia, and Propaleotherium, are all part of families that lived to the modernistic day. The two genera that escape it- Leptictidium and Gastornis, do not.
• Super-Persistent Predator: Basilosaurus chases a Moeritherium to a inlet and circles around it while the tide rises enough; the Moeritherium escapes simply because the Basilosaurus miscalculates and attacks as well early. Later, the Basilosaurus keeps stalking and attacking the same pod of Dorudon over again until no calves are left.
• Techno Sorcerer: Mankind. Australopithecus search for roots with sticks and make a Dinofelis leave by throwing rocks at it; Hercules also uses the same stick in his fight against Grey for authorization of the group. Man make and utilize tents, anti-musquito grit, wearing apparel, javelins, spears, torches, and fifty-fifty art.
• Took a Level in Badass:
  • Recall the scared, foresaken juvenile indricothere who vanished? When he returns, he's adolescent and bullies the major bullies of the surface area (entelodonts) from a watering hole. He even engages in some Camera Abuse only for the sake of it.
  • The Australopithecus band at the end of "Next of Kin".
• The Usurper: The Indricotherium'southward younger brother in "Land of Giants", the rival Australopithecus group in "Side by side of Kin", and the brothers in "Saber Tooth". The sabertooth kind every bit a whole (originally North American) to the South American terror birds.
• What Measure Is a Non-Human?:
  • Next Of Kin focuses on the human ancestors Australopithecus, showing them in a protagonist function.
  • Averted in 'Mammoth Journeying', where the humans (neanderthals and modern humans) are treated like any other predator, and the mammoths are the clear protagonists.
    • Just to be clear how much this is averted, in "Mammoth Journeying" a mammoth bull casually finds two cavern lions feeding on a dead man. We don't even see how he died, only the mammoth scaring the lions away considering they are on his path. The narrator also matter-of-factly reveals — just after their successful hunt of the mammoths — that neanderthals volition die out within the next few thousand years, in the same tone given to any other species on the evidence that went extinct.
• Who'due south Laughing Now?:
  • Entelodonts bully every beast in their mode, but get a taste of their ain medicide when an adolescent male indricothere shows them who the real beast is.
  • Gastornis is the terror of land mammals in "New Dawn", none of which is larger than a true cat, but its only chick is then eaten alive by giant ants. The imagery is repeated with Phorusrhacos chasing a Smilodon cub at the beginning of "Saber Molar", simply then the cub's father intervenes. Mammal carnivores have grown a lot since the Eocene.
  • After much misery, the Australopithecus band together and shower an attacking Dinofelis with rocks until it is forced to run abroad.
  • The Leptictidium family survives the release of volcanic gas from the lake. They smell and hop pass the once unsafe Ambulocetus, who did not.
• The Worf Issue:
  • In Country of Giants, a mob of entelodonts have this on a lone Hyaenodon, simply a lone entelodont is then chased past a hyaenodon and some other is scared away by the indricothere calf. Meanwhile in the book, it'southward a pair of Hyaenodon that drive off a single entelodont.
  • "Whale Killer" starts with two sharks attacking a school of fish while the narrator says that sharks were gratis of competition after the sea reptiles of the Mesozoic disappeared. Cue Basilosaurus playing with them like ragdolls and eating them while ignoring the fish.
• Would Hurt a Child: Aside from those creatures that eat immature animals, the Smilodon brothers impale all of Half-Tooth'south young. It'southward based on the real behaviour of lions.
• You Talk Besides Much!: In "Sabre Tooth", later on the Smilodon cooperatively kill the Macrauchenia, Kenneth Branagh, the narrator, states that Smilodon'southward 8-inch-long saber fangs "are extraordinarily precise and accurate tools for killing. The teeth simultaneously sever the blood supply and strangle the windpipe. One bite, and the prey is dead. Merely these are the original double-edged swords. The lethal 20-centimeter sabers are actually quite delicate. They cannot bite into bone, and so Smilodon can only swallow the fleshier parts of a carcass...". He should take just said, "Ane bite, and the prey is dead. However, the lethal xx-centimeter sabers are actually quite delicate...".
• Zerg Rush: Most gruesomely, giant ants against the Gastornis chick.

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Source: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Series/WalkingWithBeasts

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