Giant of the Skies is the fourth episode in the Walking with Dinosaurs series.
This episode was scientifically advised by Dr David Unwin of Bristol/Berlin University, and by another British Palaeontologist, Dr David Norman of Cambridge University. Dr David Norman is a world renouned expert and authority on Early Cretaceous Dinosaurs, none more so than Iguanodon, which he has studied meticulously for decades. There is a vast wealth of fossil evidence for this episodes time, particularly from Europe and South America.
The filming locations were in New Zealand and Tasmania.
Plot[]
127, 000, 000 BC - Early Cretaceous - Brazil, North America, England, Spain.
The story begins with a male Tropeognathus (identified as 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 Dakotadon (North American 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 parasites. 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. In the credits, stating the Pterosaurs and Dinosaurs continuing to rule in the world even no other animals have are left to for shadowing them. But, however they make it to the ultimate test as they have to even survived the coldest season of the land as in the next episode to feature how Dinosaurs to overcome the winter in the darkness of prehistoric land that one day that place were be Antarctica.
Dinosaurs[]
- Ornithocheirus (pterosaur)
- Tapejara (pterosaur)
- Plesiopleurodon (pliosaur)
- Iguanodon
- Utahraptor
- Gastonia
- Unidentified pterosaur #1 - the early morning coastal pterosaurs.
- Unidentified pterosaur #2 - the flock in the canyon.
- Unidentified pterosaur #3 - the victim of the Male Ornithocheirus fish theft.
- Saurophthirus (flea)
Filming Locations[]
Most of the episode was shot in New Zealand, with the exception of one scene shot in Tasmania.
- The opening scene in Brazil (Borborema) was filmed at the Pancake Rocks (Punakaiki), New Zealand.
- The scene where the Dakotadon and polacanthines walk along the beaches of prehistoric Florida in southern Appalachia was filmed at Bruce Bay, New Zealand.
- The scene where the Dakotadon feed on vegetation was filmed on the southern parts of the Poeura River, Harihari, New Zealand.
- The scene shot in Tasmania is the scene with the Utahraptors attacking the Iguanodon, as well as where the Iberomesornis are featured, in Cornubia. It was filmed at The Labyrinth and Pine Valley in Cradle Mountain-Lake St. Clair National Park.
- Aerial shots were shot along the West Coast of the South Island, New Zealand.
- The final scene, which takes place in Cantabria, was filmed at Harihari Coastal Walkway, Harihari, New Zealand.
See Also[]
Giant of the Skies Media