The biggest, baddest bird to ever stalk the planet. With a massive 18-inch beak, Terror Bird bashed its victims' brains in and swallowed giant rodents in one gulp. Four million years ago it dominated a continent, battling wolves and saber tooth cats.
With six-foot jaws and a nasty disposition, the Mosasaur dined on giant sharks and Plesiosaurs. An extra set of teeth on the roof of its mouth guaranteed that when it sunk its teeth into something, the only way for it to go was down its gullet.
Spinosaurus was the largest dinosaur carnivore in history but was long known only from the photographs of a single partial skeleton lost to the world in a World War Two air raid. That, of course, makes paleontologists all the more curious and determined and additional fossil fragments have gradually been found. This program reviews what they have uncovered and what they suspect.
Paleontologists ponder how acrocanthosaurus a carnosaur a bit smaller than Tyrannosaurus Rex could hunt a sauropod several times its size when T-Rex hunted smaller prey. The answer lies in a detailed look at the predator's anatomy, their prey and and a fossil track of an attack on a sauropod.
After the age of dinosaurs Australia was dominated by reptiles rather than the marsupials it is known for. The biggest of them all was a monitor lizard larger than a crocodile called Magalania. This program reviews the anatomical features that make Megalania and its chief competitor, the marsupial lion, apex predators.
For 10 million years amphicyon ruled north america as top predator. With the strenght of a bear, conbined witht the speed, tenacity, and brain power of a dog, The bear-dog crushes all miocene mammal competetors.
Paleontologists seek evidence to determine which of the three competing theories - kill, chill or ill - best account for the disappearance of all the large animals at the end of the last ice age.
The world millions of years ago: The dinosaurs were extinct, now new, fascinating giants are populating the earth. A twelve-meter-long giant boa and the ancient rhinoceros, which weighs several tons. Scientists from all over the world are compiling the latest findings about the prehistoric giants. Using modern CGI technology, they bring the extinct colossi in the documentary to new life. Will they manage to solve the final puzzles surrounding the mysterious giants? Central question: Why did the giant animals become extinct? The anaconda and today's rhinoceros are the closest living relatives that provide scientists with information about the behavior of the prehistoric giants. Fossil remains, the examination of important excavation sites and the latest digital technology provide a fascinatingly comprehensive picture of the life and death of the prehistoric giants. (Text: ZDF)
In ancient times: the dinosaurs are extinct. They are followed by two more spectacular prehistoric giants: the 20-meter shark Megalodon and the elephant-sized sloth Megatherium. Using modern CGI technology, international scientists draw a picture of the life and death of the prehistoric giants in the documentary. Their basis: current fossil discoveries, the latest findings and the family relationship to the great white shark and today's sloth. Central questions: What factors were decisive for the extinction of the giants? What role did competition for food, the appearance of the first humans and changing climate play? Do today's giants of the animal world face similar challenges? The journey to the “giants of prehistoric times” provides answers and unlocks their final secrets.
