Mesozoic Mind

Hello and welcome back to Mesozoic Mind. I've decided I'm going back to doing what I do best: obscure documentaries few have heard of. In this case, we once again return to the early 2000's with another Discovery Channel doc, titled  Mega Predators *.  * Just note I'm not sure if its 2001 (which I've seen given elsewhere) or 2004, which I've seen elsewhere, hence why no date is given here. If anyone could clarify which is which, that would be great. This documentary produced by one Rubin-Tarrat Productions focuses on predators of the Cenozoic and what made them deadly hunters. In many ways,  Mega Predators  feels like a predecessor to the much-reviled awesombro Discovery series  Monsters Resurrected . The focus on carnivores and how they hunt and kill prey. The random scenes of them in the present killing people. The hyperbolic treatment of them as monstrous killers and how they would hurt us: you will find them all there in Mega Predators , hell even a few spec...

Hello again. Here's something to tide you over until the next review, now in-progress. Ashfall From Dean Lomax's book Locked in Time ; illustrations by Bob Nicholls An animated film, inspired by the palaeontological site in Nebraska. It would tell the story of a crash of the ancient rhino Teleoceras as they weather out the ash clouds due to their leader being too stubborn to try and escape in any way even as the other animals start to die out as thr volcanic ash suffocates all that inhates it. Don't worry, it would have a bittersweet ending with most of the lead herd members getting their own moments of closure and solace in their last ones. This movie would all be without dialogue save brief narration. Beasts from Bones A documentary about mythical creatures that may have been inspired or influenced by ancient people discovering remains of extinct lifeforms. Examples would include (but not be limited to): Indigenous tribes of the interior plains creating myths of water mo...

The atlas is one of the many ways dinosaur books have been organised, going from continent to continent and highlighting the genera and fossil find of each of them. To my knowledge, it became common in the 80's and 90's during the height of the Dinosaur Renaissance and into the 21st century, as new discoveries were being made and revaluated in the southern hemisphere and Asia that expanded views in palaeontological beyond just North America and Europe (although funding for research is still confined to those two, because imperialism), and into the 2000's. Today we will look at one such example, 2007's  The Kingfisher First Dinosaur Picture Atlas , written by nature writer David Burnie, who usually writes about extant life, most prominently for the  Eyewitness  series, and published by Kingfisher, a pretty big purveyor of books like these. The book's art meanwhile is by Anthony Lewis , who has done more in a series of similar childrens' atlases for Kingfisher. I ...