Dinosaurs: Perfect Predators. Review.

Few days ago I have watched a DVD: “Dinosaurs: Perfect Predators”. What conclusions can be drawn from it?

Firstly, Beyond T-Rex: this program deals with the discovery of two of T-Rex’s biggest competitors: giganotosaurus and carcharodontosaurus, two closely related carnosaur cousins. As such, they were closely related to the allosaurus of the Jurassic time period, meaning that they were more primitive than the T-Rex, in some ways, mainly in regards to smarts. T-Rex itself had an IQ somewhere between the American alligator and the common house cat, and the carnosaurs were even less intelligent.

Furthermore, size for size, the carnosaurs had a weaker bite than the T-Rex’s but stronger – and larger - forearms with bigger claws to compensate this relatively weaker bite; if T-Rex and its cousins acted like modern crocodiles do, bit down hard and tore deep, gaping wounds, the carnosaurs acted more like the sharks’, inflicting shallower, but heavily bleeding wounds – hence the difference in their teeth. If the T-Rex’s teeth were ‘railroad spikes’, then the carnosaurs’ teeth were more like blades, more easily broken and which slashed rather than stabbed.

This was demonstrated in both Beyond T-Rex and Monsters Resurrected: Giant American Predator, which featured yet another carnosaur: acrocanthosaurus (acro). At 8 meters in length it was smaller than the carcharodontosaurus and giganotosaurus, but still larger than the T-Rex with much more developed forelimbs yet a slimmer, and relatively weaker, snout. That said, this weaker bite was compensated by its neck and backbone ridge that allowed acrocanthosaurus to clamp on, like a vise, onto its prey – giant sauropods like paluxysaurus, now apparently re-named into sauroposeidon. T-Rex could not do that for all of its awesomeness, if it bit down, it would bite right through, unlike the carnosaurs, which could not bite through bone.

On the other hand, at the end of the Cretaceous, when T-Rex walked the Earth, there were little to no sauropods in North America, so who knows how tyrannosaurus would have handled them overall.

Finally, there was Clash of the Dinosaurs: Perfect Predators, which focused on T-Rex, deinonychus and quetzalcoatlus. The latter, incidentally, is a pterosaur – a flying reptile, not a dinosaur. This feature showed clips of the predators hunting herbivores, including paluxysaurus/sauroposeidon, and it was done by deinonychus the raptor, (also featured in Monsters Resurrected: Giant American Predator), not tyrannosaurus.

In other words, here is how the cookie crumbled. The carnosaurs, featured in Beyond T-Rex and Monsters Resurrected: Giant American Predator had remained relatively basic, somewhat primitive creatures, only growing larger in size and specializing in feeding only on sauropods: when acrocanthosaurus, for example, had to deal with an armored dinosaur called sauropelta, it failed completely, and when the sauropods died out, so did the carnosaurs.

The tyrannosaurs and the raptors, on the other hand, were more specialized. Size for size, tyrannosaurs – especially T-Rex itself – were more stocky and robust than the carnosaurs, probably ambush hunters than long-distance chasers. Their forelimbs were smaller, especially in proportion to the rest of the body, but their heads and jaws were much larger and their bite – much stronger.

The raptors, on the other hand, had well-developed claws both on front and especially on the hind legs, but their teeth, though sharp, were small and probably relatively ineffective as killing tools, especially for smaller species such as velociraptors. (An utahraptor, easily 6 m long, was probably a somewhat different story.)  Thus they used their claws to deliver the killing blows, as Clash of the Dinosaurs: Perfect Predators demonstrated. So...

So, the DVD “Dinosaurs: Perfect Predators” demonstrated three ways that the evolution of dinosaur predators occurred. One was the basic design of the carnosaurs, similar to that of the original carnivorous dinosaurs, but blown to gigantic proportions. The second – that of the tyrannosaurs – was the increasing specialization of jaw power. And the third – that of the raptors – was the increased specialization of claws instead. Put otherwise, the carnosaurs were the biggest, the tyrannosaurs – the strongest, and the raptors – the fastest. Neat.

As for the DVD itself, it is well put together and the viewing quality is quite good. The images on the cover, admittedly, belong to none of the features mentioned inside, but that is beside the point. I rate this DVD 4.5 stars out of 5.