Dysalotosaurus

Towards the end of the jurassic period, dinosaurs became the dominant life forms on Earth. They became really diverse. With groups like dromaeosaurs, stegosaurs, ankylosaurs, iguanodons and many others begining their reign. 150 millions of years ago, there were many similar ecosystems. With many dinosaurs such as Allosaurus or Torvosaurus being present on multiple continents. Or alternatively closely related species like Giraffatitan, Brachiosaurus and Lusotitan. Today, we'll take a look at the Life in the Lost Savanna, the Tendaguru formation.

2 - The AnkylosaurusYouTube

This song plays as 2 titans are about to clash.

The Earth shakes as the 2 Giraffatitans are about to fight. They're being watched by a herd of 20 other Giraffatitans. The 2 males use their powerfull necks to attack eachother. Just like giraffes they whack their opponent with their heads. None of them wants to give up, they both defeated other males, they don't want their efforts to go for waste. The battle lasts an entire hour, before one of them gives up.

We watch as the loser walks away. Before taking a look at the victor.

Only the strongest male gets the right to reproduce. And this one proved his worth.

The male does his thing with the Ladies and walks away.

The larger males are on their own, while the females live in herds for additional protection. Young males are also present in the herd, but they only stay until they reach sexual maturity. When that happens their hormones start raging and they become extremely agressive. In this state they are capable of murdering young or weaker members of the herd. That's why the females chase them away before that happens.

At a height of 12 meters, lenght up to 25 meters and a weight of 30 tonnes, Giraffatitans are the largest animals of this ecosystem. Being so large, they have to eat a lot. And because of this they're highly destructive to their enviroment.

We get a shot of a Giraffatitan eating from a tree.

Luckily, plants have their ways of fighting back. Chemical warfare. When they detect that they're being consumed they start releasing a toxin, while it's not powerfull enough to kill the Giraffatitans, it can cause them lots of pain.

The Giraffatitan leaves and starts walking towards other trees.

While not exactly intelligent, the Giraffatitans aren't dumb. They learned how to bypass this defence. They can smell the toxin. And when they feel the smell they leave. They can't just start eating the tree right next to the one they were feeding from, cause the plants can alert their nearby "companions", which will cause them to realise the toxin. So a Girafatitan that was feeding from the tree needs to walk away to trees that are a little bit further before they can eat again.

The Giraffatitan after inspecting another tree, starts monching on the branches again.

The trees stop releasing the toxin after a while. While this doesn't stop the herbivores from eating them, it can save some of the trees.

There's a nest right next to tree and it belongs to a Dysalotosaurus.

Dysalotosaurus, a small ornithopod. They live near these giants for protectection. No predator would dare to get anywhere near a herd of Giraffatitans. This particular female is taking care of her children. To avoid the nest getting stepped on by the sauropods, she built it right next to a tree.

The mama Dysalotosaurus leaves for a moment before coming back with a berry in her mouth which she feeds to one of her babies.

Unlike the sauropods which lay a bunch of eggs and leave them behind, Dysalotosauruses protect their nests and take care of their children for 6 months after they hatch. After that period of time passes, their offspring can survive on their own, but they stay with their parents untill they grow up.

Dad got the milk and now he's back.

The parents take turns while taking care of the children. One goes to take a drink and eat, while the other one stays with their children.

Back to the sauropods. We take a look at a tick infested individual.

You'd think that these sauropods are invincible, but there is a thing that can cause them harm. Parasites. This individual is infested with them.

We get a shot of a tick sucking out the blood of one of the Giraffatitans.

The worst thing about them is that they can spread diseases. However there is a creature that would be more than happy to give the sauropods a hand.

While dinosaurs rule the land, another group of reptiles rules the skies.

The pterosaur lands on the sauropod.

Rhamphorhynchus is a good friend of all animals. It feeds on various things, such as carrion, fish and other smaller animals. Such as ticks.

The rhamphorhynchus grabs the tick with its beak and eats it. A bunch of other Rhamphorhynchuses fly into the scene and they all start feasting on the parasites.

While the small flying friends take care of the parasites the Giraffatitan stays completely still, so that it doesn't scare them away. While betrayals during the cleaning process are rare, the Rhamphorhynchuses are aware of the fact that they can happen. So if they get disturbed they leave. Even though the Giraffatitan isn't going to eat them, you can never be too carefull.

After a while the pterosaurs eat most of not all of the ticks and they fly away. Then we take a look at a diffirent dinosaur

Kentrosaurus, a relative of the more popular stegosaurus. With spikes on its entire tail and on its shoulders this dinosaur is safe from most assaults. Only its small head isn't protected. This old male has a harem of 5 females. He has to keep his eyes open all the time. He has protect it from invaders.

Another male Kentrosaurus enters the scene and challenges the elder. The two Kentrosauruses stand sideways to eachother.

From their sides they appear to be much larger and much more intimidating than they actually are.

The camera zooms in on the shoulder spike of the elder Kentrosaurus.

While the shoulder spikes may seem as dangerous weapons, they're only here for display and defense, and they serve no purpose in offense.

We see that there are 2 babies in the harem, they stand right next to their mother.

If the newcomer wins, he will kill or chase away the young of the old male to get the females to mate with him.

The older male stands on his hind legs and stomps into the ground while roaring. The young male turns around whacks the older one in the face with his tail. This isn't enough to end the fight. The 2 males stand face to face Jurassic World: Evolution style, when the elder male stabs the younger one in the side with his thagomizer. The young male roars in pain and retreats.

With the newcomer defeated, the old male proved that he still has the spirit.

The young male isn't giving up. He's going to find himself a new harem soon. Or will he?

The sun hides behind the horizon and it gets dark. We hear a predator roar.

(1:33)

20 - TyrannosaurusYouTube

To take on these armoured herbivores, this young hunter uses a tactic that his mother taught him. The herbivores can't see well in the dark, unlike him. And he's going to use this to his advantage.

He stumbles upon the harem of the old male. All the members are asleep.

It's too risky to attack a group of Kentrosauruses. It's better to find an easier target. As he's about to give up he spots the trail of blood the young Kentrosaurus left behind.

The predator takes a sniff of the blood and starts following the trail. After a while the trail of the blood ends. The carnivore starts searching through the forest to try locating the injured herbivore. At this rate he's going to run out of time but then:

His nose catches the smell of his soon to be meal.

He follows the scent and spots the Kentrosaurus sleeping. He starts sneaking up to his prey, to make as little noise as possible. Slowly, the distance between the herbivore and the carnivore gets smaller and smaller. The predator finally gets within the striking distance.

We see as the sun rises from the horizon and the we witness the aftermath of the scene. The herbivore got quickly killed in his sleep. The carnivore is feasting on his kill.

Previously thought to be an early spinosaurid, Ostafrikasaurus is now thought to be a ceratosaurid. Not much is known about this dinosaur, only its teeth have been found. It could grow up to 7 meters in lenght.

The camera shows how much of the herbivore has already been eaten.

Predators never know when their next meal might be, so the always eat as much as they can. In this case, Ostafrikasaurus will eat until he just can't anymore.

But then another predator shows up.

Veterupristisaurus, one of the earliest Carcharodontosaurids. With a lenght of 8 and a half meters and weight of 3 tonnes, Veterupristisaurus is one of the largest predators you can encounter in the Tendaguru formation.

Ostafrikasaurus stops eating and leaves.

The Ostafrikasaurus leaves. It's already full. A battle would be pointless.

Ostafrikasaurus however stops and roars at Veterupristisaurus in frustration. Veterupristisaurus roars back at the ceratosaur to show his dominance. He then sniffs the carcass and starts eating.

There's plenty of food around and the predators don't need to compete for food, but some confrontations like this happen from time to time.

6 months pass, cause yes.

The female Giraffatitans are finally ready to lay their eggs. They dig a hole in the ground and then lay their eggs. They have to crouch while laying them so that the eggs can survive the fall. After they're done they cover the eggs with dirt and that's where their parenting ends.

This dude shows up, he saw where the female Sauropod layed eggs.

Elaphrosauruses eat mostly plants, but sometimes they eat other things like carrion, insects or eggs.

Elaphrosaurus located where 1 of the nests is and starts digging. Then he grabs an egg and eats it.

However the parents are still there and they're not exactly happy with the thought of their children dying after they just barely layed the eggs.

Mama Giraffatitan scares the Elaphrosaurus away and covers the nest in dirt, again. The camera then goes inside of one of the eggs and we see the embryo develop over the time of 2 months. Then the camera goes above the nest again to show as the Giraffatitans are about to hatch.

If you listen closely, you can already hear the soon to be hatchlings communicating. They do it so that they all hatch at the same time, because the moment they'll leave the egg, they'll be recognised as an easy snack by predators. They'll won't have any defence, except for numbers.

15. Escape Of The Podlets (Original)YouTube

DaBabies hatch and they wait for their sistahrs and brothars to hatch before one do them decides to Let's Go. Predators may be stronker, but they have family! Too bad for them, cause the Ostafrikasaurus that we saw earlier now has family too! A wife and children! The adults eat MULTIPLE PODLETS, while the children just kill one for themselves to eat. And the podlets? They are go. They run like they mean it, deep into the forest they go! They hide under some ferns, while the Ostafrikasaurus family follows them.

The pattern of the podlets helps them blend in with their surroundings. The only way the predators can find them now is by smelling them out. Luckily for them the wind isn't much of help for the predators and they leave.

After the predators leave the podlets start monching on ferns.

Starting out their lives the size of a rabbit, Giraffatitans grew quickly, teachings adulthood at the age of 20. But for these small fellas, that's a lot of time. Before that happens they'll go through a lot.

We go back to the Dysalotosaurus family. Their children can now take care of themselves but they are still chilling with their parents.

The Giraffatitans left this place in search of more food, while these guys stayed behind. They no longer have the protection of being alongside the giants. But that doesn't mean they're easy prey. They can run away from most threats easily.

We see the Dysalotosauruses casually running through a forest.

But they're not running away from anything. They're just playing.

While sprinting through the forest they stumple upon the podlets. The podlets get spooped and they try to hide. The young Dysalotos decide to Play hide and seek.

At this age, the podlets assume that everything bigger than them is a threat. Dysalotosauruses however are not. That doesn't make the podlets any less afraid of them.

One of the subadult Dysalotos drags one of the podlets out of its cover. The podlet quickly finds another and gets dragged out of it too. Soon however the Dysalotos get bored and leave. And 10 years pass cause yes.

Now much larger, at the lenght of 10 meters and a weight of 6 tonnes, the Giraffatitans are slowly becoming titans, but there's only out of all the eggs that hatched there's 10 of them left. They can still fall prey for larger predators, but they're big enough to fight back now. Now their instinct tells them to leave the forest and find their herd. 1 of them a male, takes lead of the group. And so they leave the forest and enter a completely new to them world. They spot a herd of long necked herbivores and they get near them to see what they are.

At first they confused them for members of their own kind, now the juvenille Giraffatitans are aware of their mistake. They're going to have to look some more to find their herd.

We take a look at the diffirent sauropods tho.

Dicraeosaurus is more closely related to the popular diplodocus than the Giraffatitans. The 2 species of sauropods don't need to compete for food cause they have diffirent diets. Being shorter, Dicraeosauruses eat plants that are lower, while Giraffatitans use their long necks to eat plants on top of the taller trees.

As the smol Giraffatitans are about to leave they hear their herd, which convieniently shows up like right now. And we get some cool shots of the herd set to the best music ever.

9 - Time Of The TitansYouTube

It appears that they don't have to look anymore.

The lead female walks up to them and then allows them to become a part of the herd.

Now under the protection of the herd, they don't have to worry about any more dangers.

Another period of time passes and the previously juvenille sauropods now reach sexual maturity. We see as 2 adult females chase a young male away.

As you already know, this is the age where males say their goodbyes to the herd.

We see the lonely male doing some generic stuff like eating.

The now lonely male isn't afraid of being out there alone. He has reached the age in which he's just too big to be on the menu.

Then the male goes to get a drink from a river. There's a Veterupristisaurus drinking too and when it spots the Giraffatitan it backs away. And then another period of time passes cause I want to end this already.

Like all males this one will try to participate in the mating season. And it looks he has luck on his side

He wins the clash and gets to do the thing with the ladies. After he's done he leaves. 6 months pass and we see the females lay eggs and the narrator says:

And thus the neverending circle of life continues.

22 - End CreditsYouTube

The sauropods were the largest creatures to ever walk the Earth, and they continued their reign all the way until the end of cretaceus period. But in the next episode we'll take a look on another group of dinosaurs, spinosaurs, specifically The heavy claw.

We see a Baryonyx roar.