Beneath the wings of giants is a land that thunders
to the tread of restless herds,
and echoes with the cries of killers, large and small.
As a hunter, Little Das is a little wet behind the ears.
But he's determined to prove himself.
His targets: a pair of prehistoric runaways, Buck and Blaze.
They must find their herd, or die.
Now, a gathering storm of fire and stone falls from the sky.
And a wall of searing heat threatens all in its path.
In a forgotten land called North America,
Little Das' hunt begins.
DINO PLANET
LA CACERÍA DE DAS
MONTANA, NORTEAMÉRICA HACE 75 MILLONES DE AÑOS
75 million years ago, the Rocky Mountains were a chain of young volcanic peaks
that cut through the face of North America like a great scar of stone.
Deep in the Elkhorn Range of Montana,
lunch is served in the rich volcanic soil.
Berries and greens provide the Orodromeus with organic octane.
In the fast and furious world of dinosaurs,
these are the roadrunners.
While life is good in the upland community,
the local residents carry on their own version of neighborhood watch.
While the herd tanks up, one adult serves as a lookout.
Quetzalcoatlus are the last of the flying reptiles.
These animals, largest in the family of pterosaurs,
are also the only survivors
in a group driven to extinction by warm-blooded birds.
But today, they rule the air.
Measuring 21 feet, the wingspan of Quetzalcoatlus
is as wide as a World War 2 fighter plane.
Quetzalcoatlus is a notorious flesh eater.
But down on the deck, the herd is calm and collected.
Quetzalcoatlus fancy fish over red meat every time.
Today, the fleet heads for the Inland Sea, some 50 miles away,
to harvest fish from the shallows.
The show is over.
With the lone sentry stuck in alert mode,
the herd is more concerned with second helpings
than communal security.
The picnic area they've chosen is exposed
and flanked by a thick line of tree cover.
If Orodromeus are rodarunners,
Troodons are the coyotes, and yes, they are wily, too.
When evolution passed out the stealth gene,
the Troodons lucked out.
By the time you see one, it's usually too late to run.
Endowed with the largest brain on Dinosaur Planet,
the Troodon's nervous system is attached
to a set of big, forward-looking eyes.
But for all the stealth, they're not invisible.
Orodromeus kick into overdrive, 0 to 40 in about 10 seconds.
All the Troodons get to eat so far is a mouthful of dust.
The herd scrambles, and so would the Troodons,
but their scramble is just a little bit slower.
There's no sense in breaking delicate toebones on a reckless race.
Better a loser now, than a sore loser later.
The ground underfoot comes to life.
Jets of white hot steam bring the hunt to a sudden end.
Troodons are the first victims of the dark force
that rules a volcanic kingdom.
Its heart is filled with a shallow sea of magma.
As the molten rock makes contact with underground springs,
harmless water blasts out from the earth
as searing bursts of deadly vapor.
50 miles away on the lowland plains,
the continuity of life and death, predator and prey, is undisturbed.
Adolescent Maiasaurs, like Buck and Blaze,
would grow to the size of dumptrucks.
Playmates born in the same season,
they've become late-Cretaceous juvenile delinquents.
Buck is a young male; Blaze, an immature female.
The game they've chosen is called
"Walk Away From The Herd And Let Everyone Know About It".
By teen standards, it's already a roaring success.
When you're this big,
why not make some little fun with foraging?
Why follow the herd?
There's one good reason:
he's a Daspletosaurus, a.k.a. Little Das.
Juvenile himself, Little Das is here on a big job.
Buck and Blaze have isolated themselves from the safety of the herd.
Little Das' mission is to widen the gap.
Little Das is only one member of a deadly Triple Play.
Das' two older sisters now take up the chase.
But Das stays close to the hunt.
Running parallel to the chase, Little Das will help his sisters
keep young Buck and Blaze on a predetermined course.
Now, the final player.
It's the mother of the pack.
Paralyzed by fear, Blaze delays their escape by one precious second,
and Buck is left behind to pay the price.
Until the 1970s, large carnivores
like T-Rex were depicted as lumbering behemoths.
With the emerging link between dinosaurs and birds,
T-Rex was re-cast as a swift, cunning killer
that traveled in packs.
It's even been suggested that they used teamwork to hunt.
To test the speed idea,
two scientists built a biomechanical computer model of T-Rex.
To run 45 mph,
as some paleontologists suggest,
T-Rex would have needed 80% of its muscle mass concentrated in its legs.
Physically impossible. The researchers concluded
that T-Rex moved more like an elephant than a roadrunner,
closer to 10 mph.
No problem; slow as they were, their prey were probably even slower.
What about hunting in packs?
Some scientists argue that
mass graveyards of dinosaur predators,
found in places like Canada and Argentina,
support the case for group living.
But, the burials only show they died at the same place.
It doesn't mean they lived, let alone hunted together.
Like some large carnivores today,
tyrannosaurs may have been solitary hunters.
The jury is still out.
Two young Maiasaurs, Buck and Blaze,
run straight into a kill zone.
Only Blaze manages to escape the jaws of Little Das' mother.
Little Das lives for the chase.
But sometimes, a little thing called 'attention span'...
...gets lost in transit.
A monkey wrench thrown into a well-oiled killing machine.
And Little Das is the monkey in question.
Buck and Blaze have learned the lesson the hard way.
Especially Buck.
Both juveniles are safe for now,
courtesy of the young predator's boundless enthusiasm.
Little Das has let his mother and sisters down.
Tired and hungry, the family now faces a long and restless night.
As a foraging species, Maiasaurs are outstanding in their field.
That's exactly where Daspletosaurs like to find them: outstanding in a field,
unaware they're being sized up for another hit.
Little Das' mother had no trouble tracking the herd through the night.
Of all the predators, Daspletosaurs have the keenest sense of smell.
Little Das can't wait to get rolling.
This time, no mistakes.
The wounded male is a target of opportunity.
Das is totally stealth for the chase.
Sooner or later, Buck will collapse,
and the herd will leave him behind.
As far as Little Das is concerned, this hunt is as good as done.
All we need to do is... find mom.
And the sisters.
Hunting for your own family is a major pain.
How could they run off like that?
Das stumbles upon a family of another kind.
Einiosaurus are vegetarians with attitude.
The very sight of Little Das sends these two-ton browsers packing.
Is this a power trip or what?
Huge adults fleeing for their lives?
But the herd is not really running from Das.
The animals know that young Daspletosaurs
serve as scouts for adult hunters.
Little Das has managed to run off every head of edible prey in the lowlands.
And talk about bad timing.
Hidden nearby, the pack was just about to spring on the Maiasaurs.
It's not a happy reunion.
MONTANA, NORTEAMÉRICA HACE 75 MILLONES DE AÑOS
The noxious breath of an angry giant billows from the Elkhorn Range.
Beneath the surface, tendrils of molten rock
turn ground water into sulfurous steam.
Sporadic bursts of searing vapor blast through the earth's crust.
The creatures here are unable to break
this new and disturbing code.
The watering hole is a favorite for predators and prey alike.
At daybreak, a herd of Orodromeus make a pitstop.
For these high-performance running machines, frequent hydration is a must.
It's a trio of thirsty Troodons.
Troodons rely on sharp vision and speed to capture their prey.
Now, the vague but familiar scent of Orodromeus hangs in the air.
But unlike Little Das and the Daspletosaurs,
the Troodons' sense of smell is not the greatest.
Volcanic fumes leech up through the spring water.
A bouquet come straight from hell.
It's a lethal mix of low-temperature gases
that include sulfur dioxide and flesh-burning chlorine.
Quatzelcoatlus return from a day's hunt,
their bellies filled with fish from the Inland Sea.
The great fleet goes where no Troodon has ever gone before,
but would like to.
The jumbo fliers glide path is the final approach
to a combination parking lot and nursery
across the valley from the small volcano.
Parking space here is limited.
Every square inch is jealously guarded.
For centuries, the high ledge has served as a nesting place
for countless generations of Quetzalcoatlus.
Sheer cliffs create a drop zone of 500 feet.
Take-offs and landings are a breeze,
and youngsters are safe from Troodons.
Still, no creature is safe from the fuming volcano,
the new apex predator of the Elkhorn Range.
The blasts drive the flying reptiles from the rookery
and scatter them off the tectonic minefield of the Elkhorn Range.
The falling giants are omens of the gathering storm.
The smaller volcano dies, its subterranean pool of magma
drained by a larger, more voracious peak.
Gorging on the molten rock and lethal gas of its neighbour
is a geothermal monster,
the greatest volcano ever to strike the western hemisphere.
Soon, even the creatures of the lowlands,
some 50 miles away, will feel its heat.
Brought together by the single-handed attack of Little Das,
the Einiosaurs and the Maiasaurs become fellow travelers.
Crippled and vulnerable, Buck is on the watch.
The wound on his hind leg has turned septic,
and the herd will soon pass him by.
Just keeping pace with the lumbering Einiosaurus is a challenge.
But Blaze remains at his side.
There's nothing sentimental about her attachment to Buck.
It's just the instinct to bond with her own peers.
Little Das has run a wide circle around the herd.
The young predator has achieved the element of surprise.
But follow-through is crucial.
Scorn by his family,
Little Das' future as a member of the pack is now at stake.
Like many dinosaurs,
Einiosaurus is named for a trademark feature:
its forward-curving horn.
The same is true for Triceratops, three-horned face,
Pachyrhinosaurus, thick-nosed lizard,
and Centrosaurus, sharp-pointed lizard.
So, what was all this strange headgear used for?
Defense against predators,
or so paleontologists once thought.
Yet that hypothesis is full of holes.
First, Einiosaurus and its kin had only rudimentary horns and frill as youngsters,
the very time they were most vulnerable.
Second, each species of horned dinosaur has
a unique setup of horns and frills.
If their main purpose was defense,
surely evolution would have standardized the design.
Third, many of these make for poor defense.
The nosehorn of Einiosaurus hooks forward and down,
and in some places, the frill is no thicker than a few millimeters.
Our best evidence for understanding this bizarre headgear comes from
living animals with similarly odd features.
We identify dinosaurs by their strange features,
and the dinosaurs likely did as well.
Thanks to its distinct horns and frill,
an Einiosaurus would never be mistaken for one of his horned cousins.
Virtually all of these trades are used
first and foremost to identify members of the same species,
and to compete for mates.
Like so much of life, it all comes down to sex.
When it comes to a kill,
predators fail 9 times out of 10.
Out in the lowlands, Little Das gets a second chance to redeem himself.
And he's not about to blow it.
His target is Buck, the wounded Maiasaur.
Everyone else is just in the way.
When Blaze breaks past the herd, she runs straight into... the A-team,
waiting to hit Buck.
Getting a clean shot of their prey won't be easy.
Little Das has delivered an Einiosaurus sandwich,
and noone's willing to take the first bite.
Buck makes a run for it, but Little Das stays focused.
The Einiosaurus' blockade has given Buck a small lead.
The chase has taken its toll on the young Maiasaura.
And now, his young nemesis, Little Das, has locked on his new position.
Predator and prey resume their roles.
In this drama, there is no good or bad.
But now, a plot twist could turn this prehistoric pageant into a tragedy.
The great mountain is possessed by a seething ocean of magma
and dissolved gas.
Titanic pressures begin to test the mountain walls from within.
The creatures of the Elkhorn Range
now live beneath a time bomb
filled with melted rock.
Buck suffers from dehydration and pain, but he's no quitter.
His instinct to rejoin the herd keeps the young Maiasaura on his feet.
Blaze has moved further and further away from her wounded playmate.
The prey is more dead than alive.
Killing Buck will take just a minimal effort.
The Daspletosaurs have waited it out,
and now the time feels right to close in.
A small Quetzalcoatlus reeks from toxic fumes.
It's time to cut to the chase.
15 000 square miles of sky
consumed by a monstrous veil of ash.
Created by the release of gas from molten rock,
the cloud is alive with pin-sized fragments of volcanic glass.
It's time to close the gap on Buck.
But visibility is falling by the second.
The pack must now rely on their ears.
And so must Buck.
The return calls mean only one thing:
Buck must reach the herd, or die.
Little Das and his family navigate the fog of volcanic ash in the search for their prey.
Buck must find his herd, or die.
A blanket of ash has begun to lift.
Half-delirious from shock, Buck makes for the herd.
Das and his family, weary from the long trek,
suddenly face a major investment of predatory energy.
Rivers of lava, pushed up from the magma chamber,
now bleed from the side vents of the mountain.
Explosions rip from the cone, sending a hail of marble-sized debris miles into the sky.
These air-filled volcanic fragments
are called cinders.
And the creatures of the highlands are the first to feel their sting.
A new pulse from the cinder cone launches
a bombardment of boulder-sized lava fragments, and a barrage of lava bombs.
The hunting prowess of the Troodon is humbled
by the all-consuming wrath of an angry earth.
Weakened by the actions of magma and acidic gas,
the entire east face of the mountain collapses
in the biggest eruption in the western hemisphere.
A great wave of superheated ash, rock and gas roars across the uplands.
A pyroclastic flow, temperatures within its mass exceed 800 degrees Fahrenheit.
Some 50 miles away, the lowland dinosaurs process the oncoming flow as a threat.
Moving at close to the speed of sound,
a wall of burning debris is about to erase the line between predator and prey.
The ash plume from the Elkhorn disaster
stands 300 miles from Montana to the Inland Sea of North America.
7 MILLONES DE AÑOS DESPUÉS
7 million years later, few signs of the massive eruption remain.
The Maiasaura has evolved into a new species known as Edmontosaurus.
Adults measure 40 feet, double the length of their ancestors.
Evolution has made some alterations,
but the restless nature of Buck and Blaze
lives on in the herd's juveniles.
Daspletosaurus has evolved into Tyrannosaurus Rex,
a killer that can rip away 500 pounds of flesh with a single bite.
Of course, they have to catch something first.
A drama as primal and sharp
as the prehistoric sky continues on the lowlands of Montana.
The players are new, and a little wet behind the ears.
And sometimes, they stumble and make some pretty big mistakes.
But I tell you, the plot is fantastic.
In a remote corner of northwestern Montana,
scientists unearth a baffling mystery:
the charred bones of dinosaurs.
Based on the undisturbed state of the bones,
it was concluded that the animals died on the spot.
But what killed them? The investigation that followed
was a classic case of dinosaur detective work.
The bones were found among more than 200 petrified trees,
all buried under as much as 6 feet of cinder and ash.
In turn, the trees lay within a field of ash covering 9 600 square miles.
One of the largest fields of volcanic debris in the world.
Sometime in the late Cretaceous, about 75 million years ago,
the forest was destroyed by a powerful volcanic eruption.
The trees were leveled by the sheer force of the blast,
then buried under the fallout of ash, along with the dinosaurs.
We witnesssed the same kind of devastation
in 1980, when Mount St. Helens erupted.
Yet the Elkhorn eruption ranks as one of the most powerful ever recorded.
By comparison,
Mount St. Helens' was a mere firecracker.