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  • 7/3/2025

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00:00Dinosaurs ruled the planet for over 150 million years.
00:15They occupied almost every corner of the globe
00:19and came in almost every shape and size imaginable.
00:24Some were truly extraordinary.
00:30We now know that T-Rex was a powerful swimmer.
00:36Velociraptors were cunning feathered hunters.
00:41And that some dinosaurs had the most bizarre behavior.
00:48But new discoveries are being made almost every day
00:52that tell us more about life on this planet 66 million years ago.
01:00This time on Prehistoric Planet, we reveal new animals
01:08and new insight into their quest to find a partner.
01:14The challenges faced by raising a family.
01:19And their titanic battles.
01:29Journey to a time when nature put on its greatest show.
01:33This is Prehistoric Planet 2.
01:39The coast of the vast inland sea that almost splits North America in half.
01:58Here in the south, as the tide falls, giants are drawn to the shoreline.
02:17These Alamosaurs are 100 feet long and weigh some 80 tons.
02:38They are the largest dinosaurs on the continent.
02:45They are the largest dinosaurs on the continent.
02:51So huge that no predator can tackle them.
02:55Some live to a great age.
03:06This male is around 70 years old.
03:10Many in the herd are likely to be his offspring.
03:27But his long life is now coming to an end.
03:31His immense body is beginning to fail him.
03:41He may not survive the night.
04:07Dawn.
04:20And these Troodontids have picked up a scent.
04:32They're quick to investigate anything new.
04:34Especially if it might be worth eating.
04:44But biting through a three inch thick hide is beyond their power.
04:51Very frustrating.
05:04revenge.
05:05Looking at that level of hope and
05:18push the way.
05:21Vogel, how are wema?
05:23Are we?
05:24You smilking the energy?
05:26problematic.
05:27The 두 man shop ready.
05:29Geoff, how are we now getting rid of they?
05:32And we must find out.
05:33T-Rex might be able to bully Troodontids, but a carcass as big as this soon attracts
06:01more formidable competition.
06:15Quetzalcoatlus, a giant pterosaur, one of the few creatures that will challenge an adult
06:28to Rallosaur.
06:43One strike from its six-foot-long beak could easily cost T-Rex an eye.
06:50Even so, it seems that he's not going to back down.
07:05But the arrival of a second Quetzalcoatlus changes the odds.
07:20After all, two beaks are deadlier than one.
07:35No!
07:36No!
07:37For T-Rex,
08:06this is now too dangerous.
08:14Some fights just aren't worth the risk.
08:20For now, the flying giants have won.
08:27They quickly eat all they can.
08:30But T-Rex will almost certainly be back to claim his share once his flying rivals leave.
08:43In the waters that surround North America, there are other giant predators.
09:00But they have no rivals.
09:09Mosasaurs.
09:11They may look like huge sharks, but they are, in fact, a kind of aquatic lizard.
09:29Size, speed, and powerful jaws mean that very few creatures in the ocean are safe from these hunters.
09:36In the Gulf of Mexico, this globidensmososaur is searching for one particular kind of prey.
09:49Tiger ammonites, sphenodiscus.
10:04Every year, huge shoals of females come up from deep water and travel towards the coast.
10:10They have all recently mated, and each is now carrying hundreds of fertilized eggs.
10:35The eggs must be laid in the shallows.
10:37And that is where the mosasaurs is waiting.
10:41Tiger ammonites are themselves hunters.
10:44Tiger ammonites are themselves hunters.
10:46The combination of a streamlined profile and a powerful siphon
10:51enables them to shoot through the water at great speed.
10:54But so can the mosasaur.
10:56Tiger ammonites are themselves hunters.
10:59Tiger ammonites are themselves hunters.
11:01Tiger ammonites are themselves hunters.
11:03The combination of a streamlined profile and a powerful siphon
11:06enables them to shoot through the water at great speed.
11:09Tiger ammonites have
11:37that easily crack the Ammonite's shell,
11:40releasing the air that keeps them buoyant.
11:44Without it, they sink helplessly to the seabed.
11:57Before the Ammonites can escape,
11:59the Mosasaur disables as many as it can.
12:07To be continued...
12:37Finally, time to tuck in.
12:57Globby dens may have killed dozens.
13:04But even this makes only a small impact.
13:07On the overall numbers of Ammonites.
13:13Most of the shoal have survived
13:15and continue on their journey to their spawning grounds.
13:38The rocky seabed here has many cracks and crevices.
13:47Ideal places for attaching the Ammonites' precious egg sacks.
13:52The females then abandon them.
14:02But safe in this coastal nursery,
14:07these eggs will produce the next generation.
14:12These coastal seas are full of life.
14:17Yet on land, and only a few hundred miles away, there is desolation.
14:31Here, powerful movements deep in the Earth's crust
14:34are beginning to raise the Rocky Mountains.
14:37The immense changes in the landscape have cut off this lake from nearby rivers.
14:43Its waters evaporate in the strong winds and intense summer sun.
14:53And the minerals that are dissolved in it are beginning to reach toxic levels.
15:03For most, this water is simply too poisonous to drink.
15:06For most, this water is simply too poisonous to drink.
15:09Even so, every year, this place is visited by all kinds of animals.
15:39Flocks of Stygianeta, a primitive relative of ducks, stop here on their travels.
15:47And they're not alone.
15:52Dinosaurs are here, too.
15:57Dinosaurs are here, too.
16:09Dinosaurs are here, too.
16:11Dinosaurs are here, too.
16:12Dinosaurs are here, too.
16:13Dinosaurs are here, too.
16:14A family of Pettinodon.
16:15They're feathered, but flightless.
16:18And they're led by their father.
16:31These dinosaurs and the Stygianeta are both drawn here by a strange seasonal bonanza.
16:56Flies.
17:01The larvae of these insects are able to filter out the lake's toxic salts and, as a consequence,
17:11they thrive in immense numbers.
17:15Now they're hatching into adults.
17:20In their millions.
17:21They are a rich and abundant source of protein for all the lake's visitors.
17:30Pectinodon are particularly intelligent dinosaurs.
17:41It doesn't take them long to work out the best way to collect flies.
17:58Pectinodon's eyes.
18:00Pectinodon's eyes.
18:02Pectinodon's eyes.
18:04PSch.
18:06Pectinododon's eyes.
18:06Pectinodon.
18:07号 homeland.
18:08Pectinodon.
18:09Pectinodon.
18:10Pectinodon.
18:11Pравствуйте.
18:12But their father has his eyes on a bigger prize.
18:31Pactinodon are not only intelligent, they're also very skillful hunters.
18:58Vestiginetta are unaware of his approach.
19:05I'm not sure how to do this.
19:12I'm not sure how to do this.
19:20I'll be right back.
19:23I'll be right back.
19:25I'll be right back.
19:27Success.
19:29I'll be right back.
19:32I'll be right back.
19:34I'll be right back.
19:38A rather more substantial meal for the family.
19:42And just as well.
19:45The flies will only be here for so long.
19:50And the dinosaur family will be forced to find food elsewhere.
20:03Further north, the Rocky Mountains are still slowly rising.
20:08And as they do, they create higher, cooler landscapes
20:12where vast pine forests flourish.
20:20As spring arrives, strange calls echo through the trees.
20:27The mating season has arrived for one of North America's most heavily armed dinosaurs.
20:36Triceratops.
20:43Every year, large numbers of these giants gather in clear rooms.
20:49The females have come to choose a mate.
20:56The six-ton males fight and display their strength.
21:02The six-ton males fight and display their strength.
21:09The six-ton males fight and display their strength.
21:15The six-ton males fight and display their strength.
21:22The six-ton males fight and display their strength.
21:28The seven-ton males fight and display their strength.
21:30The six-ton males fight and display their strength.
21:31This young male looks to be in prime condition.
21:35Showing off his spectacular metre-long horns.
21:42and his colorful head through.
21:51His horns appear perfect, not yet damaged by battle.
21:58To a female, however, the absence of any wear and tear
22:03might suggest a potentially critical weakness.
22:09A lack of experience.
22:12These gatherings are crucial events in the lives of Triceratops.
22:25They provide the best chance in the whole year
22:28for the adults to become parents.
22:33And young hopefuls are not the only ones here.
22:42A thirty-year-old male, weighing more than ten tons.
22:56If there's one thing that he has in spades, it's decades of wear and tear.
23:04He may be old, but he's still strong enough to challenge a young rival, however fit.
23:15However fit.
23:29The stakes are high.
23:30And neither is willing to back down.
23:34It's time to back down.
23:37Give him a shield.
23:38We'll take him a while.
23:41He's going to back down.
23:42The veteran has a four-ton weight advantage.
24:12And the skill to make it count.
24:19The youngster's horns are no longer perfect.
24:42The old bull's fighting prowess certainly seems to have impressed this female.
25:00For the loser, the mating season is over.
25:19However, his newly won battle scars might be just enough to attract a female next time
25:29the herds gather here to mate.
25:35For plant-eating dinosaurs like Triceratops, the vast forests that cover much of North
25:43America offer plenty to eat all year round.
25:48But for those that live in the cold far north of the Americas, food is much harder to come
25:55by.
25:57Here, within the Arctic Circle, for three months of the year, the sun barely rises.
26:09When its warmth finally returns after the long winter, feathered ornithomimus are quick to
26:17take advantage.
26:27These fleet-footed travellers are among the fastest runners of all dinosaurs.
26:34Capable of covering vast distances in search of fresh vegetation.
26:45They're so fast that they're very difficult for predators to catch.
26:57After a tough winter, this female Nanooksor needs to make a kill soon.
27:08A smaller relative of T-Rex, but more agile and, critically, faster.
27:18There is nowhere to hide, so a surprise attack is impossible.
27:30Then she resorts to creating panic.
27:53She needs to pick out a single target, and stick with it.
28:13The ornithomimus burst through speed.
28:16Just give them the edge.
28:21Each failed hunt uses up more precious energy, bringing her ever closer to starvation.
28:40It may be spring, but this far north, freezing winds can quickly cause temperatures to fall.
28:50when you not imagine when you crack into the forest.
28:54They are quickly from the plains, putting those antichrist.
28:57Then there are πολ stretchers with thoseinate hlerons,
28:59which are three privates, such as national alumni,
29:12اصar-son and urban islands, and flowering.
29:15Flurries of snow and a rocky outcrop
29:18could give the Nanooksor a second chance.
29:29Now she's hard at the spot.
29:36Every inch forward brings her closer to success.
29:45It's a very easy way to get up.
29:48It's not easy to move through the spot.
29:51I don't know.
29:54I can't find anything else to do.
29:57That's pretty easy to do.
29:59I don't know.
30:01I can't find anything else.
30:03I can't find anything else.
30:05I can't find anything else.
30:08But I am not.
30:10I can't find anything else.
30:13She selects her target.
30:43This prize is not only for her.
31:13She is a mother.
31:29Fresh meat for her youngsters, perhaps the first for many weeks.
31:35If her babies are to thrive, she will have to repeat today's success over and over again.
31:53Until her young are old enough to join her in the hunt and eventually fend for themselves.
32:05Here, in this remote and perhaps most challenging frontier of the North American continent, 66 million years ago.
32:22This is one of the most dramatic skulls from our prehistoric planet.
32:49It belonged to a plant-eating dinosaur called Triceratops.
32:56This dinosaur is instantly recognizable from the massive frill at the back of its head.
33:07But 140 years after the first fossil was found, scientists are still asking, what was the frill for?
33:20These are enormous structures, so it's an enormous investment in bone and in tissue and also in the muscular effort to hold these structures up.
33:30All of this investment must mean that these features are very important to the animal's way of life.
33:35But how?
33:36Evidence of injury on Triceratops fossils suggests that the frills were important in defense and combat.
33:51We can see lesions on the skull, which are areas where the skull has been damaged and healed.
33:58We can also see where a predator has taken a chunk out of a frill.
34:03That might indicate that we're looking at some sort of defensive structure.
34:11But the story doesn't end there.
34:17Another possibility is that the frill was used to attract prospective mates.
34:22We see this in living animals where structures like horns show off how healthy they are and who's a good prospect for producing lots of young.
34:37For a moose, having large antlers makes the male more attractive, vital when it reaches sexual maturity.
34:46Could the same apply to their Triceratops's frill?
34:52If it was only for defense, then we would expect to see them develop to the same degree in juveniles as in adults, but we don't.
35:02We see them being much smaller in the juveniles and not really developing into the very, very large structures of the adults until much later.
35:10This isn't the only evidence that they were used in sexual display.
35:17The surfaces of the frills are very heavily grooved.
35:21These grooves probably carried nerves and blood vessels that would have supplied the skin growing over those frills.
35:28This may have been very brightly colored, a big surface area for the animal to show off to potential mates.
35:34Scientists now believe that the Triceratops' best known feature was truly multipurpose.
35:50Very useful for attack and defense.
35:54But also ideal for attracting a mate.
36:09It would have been an awe-inspiring sight to friend or foe.
36:14Triceratops' best known feature.
36:23Triceratops' very similar.