Walking with Dinosaurs - Episode 4: Giant of the Skies

Description

Walking with Dinosaurs is a six-part documentary television mini-series that was produced by the BBC, narrated by Kenneth Branagh, and first aired in the UK in 1999. The series was subsequently aired in North America on the Discovery Channel in 2000, with Branagh's voice replaced with that of Avery Brooks. It is the first entry of the Walking with... series and used computer-generated imagery and animatronics to recreate the life of the Mesozoic, showing dinosaurs in a way that previously had only been seen in feature films. The programme's aim was to simulate the style of a nature documentary and therefore does not include "talking head" interviews. The series used paleontologists such as Peter Dodson, Peter Larson and James Farlow as advisors (their influence in the filming process can be seen in the documentary The Making of Walking with Dinosaurs).

The Guinness Book of World Records reported that the series was the most expensive documentary series per minute ever made.

Episode Four: "Giant of the Skies"

127, 000, 000 BC - Early Cretaceous - Brazil, North America, England, Spain

The story begins with a male Ornithocheirus dead on a beach. It then goes back six months to Brazil, where the Ornithocheirus flies off for Cantabria among a colony of Tapejara. He flies past a migrating column of Iguanodon and a Polacanthus. He reaches the southern tip of North America, where he is forced to shelter from a storm. To pass the time, he grooms himself, ridding his body of Saurophthirus. Then he sets off across the Atlantic, which was then only 300 kilometers wide and, after a whole day on the wing, reaches the westernmost of the European islands. He does not rest here, as a pack of Utahraptor are hunting Iguanodon. He flies to the outskirts of a forest, but is driven away by Iberomesornis. He reaches Cantabria, but was delayed by the storm and cannot reach the center of the many grounded male Ornithocheirus. Consequently, he does not mate and dies from exhaustion.

    * Iberomesornis
    * European Iguanodon
    * North American Iguanodon (now known as Dakotadon)
    * Ornithocheirus
    * Polacanthus
    * Saurophthirus
    * Tapejara
    * Utahraptor
    * Plesiopleurodon
    * Unidentified Pterosaur
    * Wasp

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