Sorry for taking so much longer to post here than intended.
First off, let me say that I am impressed by the number and variety of obscure Mesozoic genera you have listed here.
I am definitely curious as to how you plan to have all these different creatures interact, and so I absolutely think that you should post your envisioned synopses for the episodes.
I might also suggest adding brief descriptions of what the animals on this list are (e.g., “Diamantinasaurus: titanosaurian sauropod”, “Onchopristis: sawfish”, “Hollanda: ground-foraging predatory bird”), for the benefit of members who are unfamiliar with most of them, and would otherwise have to look them up one by one.
Just a few disclaimers concerning the validity of certain cast members:
- Nemicolopterus (from Episode 6) is probably a juvenile pterosaur, quite possibly a flapling (hatchling) of the tapejarid genus Sinopterus.
- In Episode 11 (Vancouver), Monoclonius would probably be better substituted with Centrosaurus, or any one or more of the numerous ceratopsian species that have been revealed in recent years (Coronosaurus, Albertaceratops, Spinops, Xenoceratops, Vagaceratops, etc.). Monoclonius is a genus based on incomplete remains that probably came from a subadult; it is very likely that it is the same as some other, better-known centrosaurine, but paleontologists aren’t sure which one.
- Bruhathkayosaurus (Episode 13) is sadly known from very poorly catalogued material (it may even have been misidentified petrified wood), and what’s worse, all known remains were lost in a monsoon
(More information here and here). Given the dubious nature of the taxon, you may not want to include it.
Though I can’t say for certain, given that I haven’t seen your synopses yet, I think you might have a few too many similar dinosaurs in some episodes (You have so many animals listed that I don’t think I can cover them all right now). For example, I would personally recommend against using both
Oviraptor and
Citipati in Episodes 15 and 16, as the two were very similar, and
Oviraptor is actually known from poorer fossil material than
Citipati (a shame, because I
hate the latter’s name
). If you wanted to have a diversity of oviraptorosaurs, here’s
here’s a comparative guide to oviraptorids consisting of portraits of species and individual specimens from which skull material is known, and
here is one list of all currently accepted oviraptorosaur genera and species (The site,
Thescelosaurus, is one of my most oft-referenced dinosaur Web resources, though it is by no means the only source one should use). The same goes for
Conchoraptor and “Ingenia”,
Tarbosaurus and
Zhuchengtyrannus, and
Nanshiungosaurus and
Therizinosaurus.
There’s a related problem in Episode 12. To me it seems like overkill to have
Aucasaurus,
Abelisaurus,
Aerosteon,
Austroraptor,
and Carnotaurus in the same episode; that’s a lot of large carnivores in one place. For that matter, while
Aucasaurus and
Abelisaurus are both known from the early Campanian-age Rio Colorado Formation,
Carnotaurus is from the Gorro Frigio Formation, which dates to the later Maastrichtian stage, and (As for
Aerosteon, some sources I find say that it dates from the Santonian, while at least one states that it is early Campanian).
On that note, I can’t help but notice that most of your episodes contain several genera that were not native to the location and/or time of the setting (Again, it would take a long time to point out all of them). It can be reasoned that we do not know the complete extent of any one Mesozoic animal’s range (in either time or space), and that some of their ranges might conceivably have overlapped even if there is no hard evidence of it. However, some of the genera in the episodes are rather widely separated in the fossil record, and it probably wouldn’t be accurate to feature them living in that time and place. For example, Episode 1’s
Herrerasaurus,
Eoraptor, and
Pisanosaurus are all from the
Ischigualasto Formation, which was about the same age as the
Santa Maria Formation, which yielded
Staurikosaurus. So it's plausible that all four of them could have encountered one another, but
Riojasaurus and
Fasolasauchus are both from the
Los Colorados Formation, which is several million years younger.
An even more problematic example may be Episodes 15 and 16: it seems that
Citipati,
Conchoraptor,
Hollanda,
Oviraptor,
Protoceratops,
Saurornithoides,
Shuuvuia, and
Velociraptor were all from the Campanian stage; so far as we know, they were not even around 66 million years ago. In fact, according to the aforementioned Thescelosaurus site,
Charonosaurus,
Kerberosaurus, and
Olorititan are the only dinosaurs listed for those episodes of which fossils are known from the end of the Maastrichtian. (If the site’s data is accurate,
Alectrosaurus,
Bagaceratops,
Gallimimus,
Gigantoraptor, “Ingenia” (possibly),
Nanshiungosaurus,
Nemegtosaurus,
Shantungosaurus,
Sinoceratops,
Tarbosaurus,
Tarchia,
Therizinosaurus, and
Zhuchengtyrannus all lived during the early Maastrichtian, at least, so it’s possible that at least some of them survived to the very end, but I can’t say that with any scientific certainty.)
I noticed a few misspelled names (many probably the result of simple typos); here are all that I could find:
- “Hudeisaurus” > Hudiesaurus
- Rhamphorhynchus > “Rhamphorynchus”
- “Pelicanimimus” > Pelecanimimus (I remember how I used to misspell that one “Pelecanmimus”
)
- “Caukilocephalus” > Caulkicephalus
- “Europajara” > Europejara
- “Dakodon” >Dakotadon
- “Insicivosaurus” > Incisivosaurus
- “Dusngripterus” > Dsungaripterus
- “Atlascopsosaurus” > Atlascopcosaurus
- “Muttaburasaurus” > Muttaburrasaurus
- “Gaspirinasaura” > Gasparinisaura
- “Azdarcho” > Azhdarcho
- “Dromicieomimus” > Dromiceiomimus
- “Appalchiasaurus” > Appalachiosaurus
- “Beezlebufo” > Beelzebufo
- “Madstoia” > Madtsoia (the prehistoric animal equivalent of the word “fuchsia” if ever there was one, as far as I’m concerned;
I'd be impressed by anyone who could spell that damn name right without looking it up and studying it carefully :)
- “Hatzegopertyx” > Hatzegopteryx
- “Bradycme” > Bradycneme
- “Shangtungosaurus” > Shantungosaurus
I have a few suggestions for other creatures you could potentially add to your episodes to round out the ecosystems:
- Episode 1: If you decide to drop Riojasaurus and Fasolasuchus so as to have a period-accurate faunal assemblage, perhaps you could replace them with the prosauropod Unaysaurus, and the giant rauisuchian Saurosuchus. I would also suggest filling out the ecosystem with animals such as the rhynchosaur Hyperodapedon (a herbivorous reptile whose front teeth were modified into a vaguely owlish beak), the crocodile-like proterochampsid archosaur Chanaresuchus, the large amphibian Pelorocephalus, and the cynodont Exaeretodon.
- Episode 2: The big-headed, weaselishly-proportioned herbivorous cynodont Oligokyphus.
- Episode 3: The bizarre ceratosaur Limusaurus.
- Episode 6: The bristly heterodontosaurid Tianyulong (though this may be unnecessary if you imagine Heterodontosaurus as being similar); the log-necked, long-billed pterosaur Moganopterus; and the real Beipiaosaurus: the “Sumo Porcupine Goose of Doom” (take that, yellow bellies! ).
- Episode 7: More crocodylomorphs!
: Namely, the giant, flat-skulled, pelicanesque-headed Stomatosuchus, and the small, duck-faced Anatosuchus. Also, to give your giant piscivores a wider menu, might I recommend adding the freshwater coelacanth Mawsonia gigas, the lungfish Neoceratodus tuberculatus, the bichir Bawtius, and the little hybodont shark Lonchidion?
- Episode 11 (Vancouver): The tiny dromaeosaurid Hesperonychus. And although you have alvarezsaurids in two other episodes, in case you decided to drop one of them, I don’t think anyone has used Albertonykus in a dinosaur documentary before.
There’s one other opinion that I’d like to share: I seriously think that you should consider making more episodes set in the Triassic period. Of all the stages in the Mesozoic, it's the one that gets the least attention; I've never seen a dinosaur series that spent more than one episode on it, and I have a hard time naming
any dinosaur movie featuring species from the Triassic. I'm guessing it's because there were relatively few dinosaurs in that period, and they had not yet attained the great diversity of forms they are famous for. To me, it’s that the Triassic is such an ignored period, because it is a treasure trove of extraordinary creatures:
- Lotosaurus, a herbivorous(!) rauisuchian (shocking since most known rauisuchians, like Postosuchus and Fasolasauchus, were carnivores) with a short, beaky head and a sail or ridge down its back (Middle Triassic China).
- Closely related to the above, the sail-backed Dimetrodon expy Arizonasaurus (Moenkepi Formation, western U.S., 240 MYA).
- Silesaurus a lanky quadrupedal herbivore that looked something like a cross between a basal ornithischian and a sauropodomorph, though it was probably not a true dinosaur, but a dinosauriform (it lived in Poland, 230 MYA, but apparently had a close relative from Brazil, Sacisaurus, that you could reasonably use in Episode 1).
- The impossibly long-necked Tanystropheus (Besano Formation, Italy, ~232 MYA)
- The placodonts, a group of shellfish-eating marine reptiles that included the tubby, buck-toothed Placodus (Europe and China, ~240 MYA); the turtle-like, bizarrely square-faced Henodus (Germany, ~235 MYA); and Placochelys, another turtle-like placodont with a narrow beak and a shell covered in scutes.
- Gerrothorax, an extremely flat, three-foot long amphibian that spent its entire life in the water, with feathery gills, a strange semicircular skull, and jaws that could rapidly open to literally vacuum fish and other aquatic prey into its gullet (Late Triassic Europe and Greenland, 210 MYA).
- Hupehsuchus, a toothless, armor-plated, three-foot-long marine reptile that looked something like a finless basal ichthyosaur, with broad flipper-like limbs that apparently contained more than the usual five digits (Early/Middle Triassic, Daye Formation, China).
- From the Zorzino Limestone of Italy (210 MYA): Drepanosaurus, a reptile like a burly chameleon with a massive hooked talon on each forefoot and a grasping claw on its tail, and its smaller relative Megalancosaurus, which had even more chameleon-like grasping forefeet, a birdlike head, and also a hook on the end of its tail; Saurichthys, a toothy, beaky-jawed, three-foot-long predatory fish that, judging by a fossil of regurgitated gastric pellet attributed (albeit not certainly) to this species, may have occasionally eaten small pterosaurs; the gharial-like phytosaur Mystriosuchus; and Psephoderma, a beaky, flat-bodied, long-tailed placodont with a large carapace on its back and a smaller one over its hips (making it look peculiarly like a reptilian horseshoe crab).
- Odontochelys, a toothed turtle with a plastron (bottom shell) but no carapace (China, 220 MYA).
- Caviramus filisuriensis (formerly Raeticodactylus), a spectacular-looking pterosaur with a specialized jaw that may have enabled it to crudely chew its food (Switzerland, 210 MYA and later).
- Mastodonsaurus, a predatory amphibian that could supposedly reach 13–20 feet in length, with a pair of fangs in its lower jaw that protruded through holes in its snout when its mouth was shut (Anisian–early Carnian stage, Europe and Russia).
- The awesomely named Thalattoarchon saurophagisó“Lizard-Eating Ruler of the Seas”óa 28-foot long basal ichthyosaur (western U.S., 244 MYA).
- Nicrosaurus, a phytosaur with a snout shaped something like an upside-down cleaver (Nova Scotia, Europe).
- The sphenosuchians, tiny, slender terrestrial crocodylomorphs, some of which may have been at least partially bipedal (worldwide, 225 MYA and later).
- Hypsognathus, a herbivorous lizard-like procolophonid that looked as if it was wearing sideburns made of spikes (Newark Supergroup, eastern U.S. and Canada, 210–201 MYA?)
- From the Middle Triassic Madygen Formation of Kyrgyzstan: the titanopterans, giant insects related to grasshoppers with wingspans of up to a foot and who shared their relatives' ability to produce sound through stridulation the "delta-winged" gliding reptile Sharovipteryx; and Longisquama, a tiny reptile that sported a series of tall vanelike structures running down its back.
- From the Late Triassic Chinle Formation of the western United States (225–220 MYA): Vancleavea, a bizarre aquatic reptile resembling a cross between a moray eel and Ray Harryhausen’s “Rhedosaurus” from the film The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms; Doswellia, a seven-foot-long, armor-plated predatory archosauriform that, to me at least, looked something like a stretched-out reptilian dachshund; the giantópossibly up to 40’ longócrocodile-like phytosaur Smilosuchus; the tiny bipedal dinosauromorph Dromomeron; the wide-bodied aetosaur Typothorax and its spiky-shouldered relative Desmatosuchus; the herbivorous archosaur Revueltosaurus; the ten-foot-long metoposaur amphibian Koskinodon; the freshwater coelacanth Chinlea; and the eel-like freshwater shark Xenacanthus. (This is also where Effigia was discovered.)
I think that’s all the feedback I have time to give right now. (It took me about two days to compose all of this, and it's still far from what I would consider a complete appraisal.
) I hope at least some of it is helpful.
P.S. Just a cautionary tip: when searching for information on obscure Triassic reptiles,
avoid the site ReptileEvolution.com, and any other sources by the independent researcher David Peters (including the
Longisquama skeletal reconstructions on Wikipedia). Short explanation: the site is not a trustworthy source of accurate scientific information (this judgment comes from experienced, qualified scientific researchers, not from me). See
here for the full explanation.
