There's a shot of a Coelophysis group scavenging a Postosuchus carcass.
Towards the end of the triassic period, most giant raisuchians went extinct, which left dinosaurs behind with no competition. Early jurassic is when first giant predatory dinosaurs appeared. It's when dinosaurs started taking over the world.
Takeover
We're currently in what now is North America, to be specific, the Kayenta formation in Arizona, 185 millions of years ago, in the early jurassic period.
We get a few shots of the enviroment.
Near a big lake, there's a big, lush and humid forest. A few smaller rivers form 2 much larger ones. The 2 large ones flow into eachother and then into the lake.
Deep into the forest we go, too see a Dilophosaurus family. 2 adults and 2 children.
We watch the Dilophosaurus family do some everyday normal peacefull things. The parants watch over the children, the children play with eachotherand other normal, generic peacefull dinosaur things.
The Dilophosaurus is considered the first giant predatory dinosaur. On top of their head are 2 crest, that form the shape of the letter V. This is why the creature is called Dilophosaurus, as the name means double crested lizard.
We take a look at the big boi.
The largest member of the family, the father is 7 meters long, 2.5 meters tall and weights roughly 1100 kilograms. He's really big, even for a male Dilophosaurus. A record holder of his kind. Another thing that sets him apart from his mate is his brighter coloration and much larger, as well as more colourfull crests.
Then a look at his girl.
At 5.5 meters in lenght, a height of 2 metersand weight of roughly 700 kilograms, female Dilophosauruses are visibly smaller than the males, although in this case the size diffirence is even bigger, cause her mate is a really large individual.
They have smaller crest and are not as colourfull. Dilophosauruses mate for life.
And then a look at their bootiful children
The youngsters are hard to distinguish from eachother now. But the male is just slightly larger than his sister. They look like miniature versions of their mother, but with smaller crests. When the male will reach sexual maturity his crests will start growing and he'll get more colourfull.
The children walk up to their parents and start squeaking. The father looks at his mate and they get up, and head out.
Their offspring are hungry. Hovewer this time the hunt will look a little diffirent. Their children will be the ones taking out the prey.
We cut away to see a Sarahsaurus drinking from the lake.
The Dilo parents are hiding in a bush nearby. Their children are there too. The parents jump out of their hiding spot and attack the herbivore. The female cuts od his escape route. The male bites him in the back and drags him towards their previous hiding spot. The female bites the herbivore's leg and breaks it. The male slams the herbivore into the ground and the 2 babies walk out of their cover. The herbivore still tries to crawl away. The children Dilos hesitate for a moment, but one of them bites the herbivore's neck. The other one monches on his back and the herbivore stops moving. The parents are proud of their little angels. The family starts eating. And their being watched by a group of Coelophysises
Coelophysises were highly succesfully during the Triassic period and they survived all the way until the end of early jurassic. These Coelophysis are a diffirent species than their triassic counterparts. Coelophysis kayentakatae. They can be diffirentiated from their ancestors quite easily, because they grew crests on top of their heads.
They start approaching the family
A single stare from the mother is enough to make the Coelophysis group hesitate. They know that Dilophosauruses are the rulers of this place. They're hungry but they can wait until the Dilophosauruses are full and then eat the leftovers.
The Dilo family leaves and the Coelophysis group start eating the dead Sarahsaurus. A year passes and the Dilo babies are no longer babies, their juvenilles now.
Now that they're older, the young Dilophosauruses help their parents during hunts. They're also not afraid of being on their own. Their favourite thing to do is.. getting their parents really worried by walking off pretty far from their home on their own.
The 2 juvis are seen leaving their home, while their parents are sleeping. They head towards the river.
As they carelessly run around the forest this plays
The pair of youngsters found a way to entartain themselves: a turtle. A Kayentachelys to be specific.
The turtle tries to get into the water, but the male juvi grabs it by the tail. The Kayentachelys hides inside it's shell. The female juvenille picks him up and starts trashing the poor thing around. The male juvi tries to take the turtle from her. Which he does but he accidentally drops the turtle into the water and it manages to swim away. The juvi Dilos then spot a burrowin the ground. They take a peek inside. As we take a look at the cute furry thingies and their children this theme plays
A member of the cynodont family, the Kayentatherium. They're the ancestors of mammals. They lay eggs and after their children hatch, their mother will feed them from milk glands located on her stomach. The bond between the 2 parents is really strong. They mate for life.
The female juvi Dilo puts her head in the burrow and she looks in the eye of overgrown rat thing. Needless to say the papa overgrown rat thing gets pretty mad.
*Cynodont music stops*
These creatures might look cute, but they're good warriors. A dedicated Kayentatherium could fend of an adult Dilophosaurus. They have really big teeth and powerfull jaws. A bite from a Kayentatherium can leave behind a painfull, nasty wound.
The papa overgrown rat thing screams at the female juvi Dilo and she backs away. He walks out of the burrow to face the juvi Dilos. He looks at them both for a while before charging at the male, which is enough to scare both juvenilles away. The camera then shows a pretty big dragonfly that instantly gets snatched away by a Rhamphinion.
The Rhamphinion crushes the insects with its jaws.
This is a Rhamphinion. A close relative of the more popular Dimorphodon, roughly the same size. They feed on small animals, but this female isn't hunting to feed herself.
The pterosaur flies to her nest, where 4 hatchlings are waiting for her. As she gives the insect to one of her children the narrotor says:
During their first 2 weeks of their life, baby Rhamphinions can't really do anything else than calling out to their mother. Most of the hatchlings die before they can leave their nests. Their mother has to take care of them on her own.
The mother flies away to look for more food. She flies over the river and catches a fish with her jaws.
Fish, insects, carrion and other small animals are their main sources of food.
The mother brings the fish to the nest and cause it's quite big she can feed all her children with it. She rips small chunks of flesh out of the fish and feeds her offspring. Now back to the juvi Dilos. They encountered a Sarahsaurus group now.
On their own, Sarahsauruses aren't much of a threat. This however, changes completely when they're in a group. When they're in a group they get much more agressive than usual. They won't hesitate to kill any carnivores they can gang up on. Like juvenille Dilophosauruses for an example. The speed of the said juvenilles is enough for them to get out of trouble.
The herbivores chase them, but give up after a while.
Enough adventures for today. It's time to get back home.
The juvi Dilos head back home. They get home and they go to sleep.
Nightime is when other creatures thrive.
The papa overgrown rat thing walks out of the burrow.
Kayentatheriums are nocturnal. Another noteworthy thing about their life style is that they're good swimmers.
Papa overgrown rat thing goes into the river to kill fish.
They use their limbs to propel themselves in the water. Their main food source are fish.
The papa overgrown rat thing is seen killing and eating some fish, he then grabs some with him and returns to his burrow and gives mama overgrown rat thing all his fish. He then takes a look at his offspring that are sleeping. The next day we hear some angry herbivores.
A heterodontosaur. The Heterodontosaurids from the Kayenta formation aren't known really well, but they're probably a subspecies of Heterodontosaurus. These herbivores are unique compared to the others. They have teeth, that the males outside of eating plants, use for combat. These 2 males are competing for a harem.
The males try to intimidate eachother by raising their tails and presenting their tail feathers to their opponent, sorta like a peacock. One of the males gets intimated and walks away.
The harem's current leader managed to drive the other male away.
The leader heterodontosaur true to impress his ladies but they all get scared away by the 2 adult Dilos, which are followed by their children.
The mating season for multiple animals has begun. To drive any males that are looking for a mate away, the mates travel to the very edge of their territory to pracę a sign behind.
The mama Dilo takes a crap and then the papa Dilo also takes a crap right next to her crap.
It's a sign that could be translated as "this female is taken, try your luck somewhere else or you'll have to deal with me first".
Then Dilo family leaves to leave the sign behind on the other ends of their territory and a whole day passes before they're done.
We then follow a pair of Coelophysises that are chasing a scutellosaurus.
The herbivore slips and falls to the ground. The Coelophysis catch him and they can't do much cause the herbivore is armoured.
An armoured herbivore, the Scutellosaurus. One of the first Thyreophorans. This small dinosaur is an ancestor of dinosaurs such as Ankylosaurus or Stegosaurus. Being only a meter long, this herbivore runs away from most threats, but his armor adds additional protection. While larger carnivores like Dilophosaurus have jaws strong enough to effortlessly bite through the armor, smaller carnivores like Coelophysis have a hard time getting around this herbivore's defence.
Finally one of the Coelos bites the herbivore in the neck, but the herbivore kicks him in the face a couple of times before the carnivore lets go. The other Coelophysis tries to do something but the herbivore whacks him in the face using his long tail, the herbivore then makes a run for it and gets away.
2 years pass and we see the Dilophosaurus family for the last time. Their children are no longer children now and their son walks away while the other members of the family are sleeping.
Sooner or later, the father would chase his son away so that he could start his own life, therefore his son decided to leave the family sooner. Now his new goal in life is to start a family of his own.
The son Dilo walks away and we follow him. A group of Rhamphinions catch the Dilo's attention and he followed them, he finds a Sarahsaurus carcass that they're scavenging. He scared them off and haves a meal. He continues his journey.
Another reason he chose to leave is that it's the mating season and that he has a chance to find a mate.
A month of his journey passes and we see him scavenging another carcass. (which btw belongs to a kayentasuchus, who was originally supposed to have a bigger role here). After eating it he walks up to tree.
The mating season is about to end. If he wants to find a mate he has to do it now.
He walks up to the tree and noticed a pile of crap near it. He sniffs it.
These are the territorial markings of a female Dilophosaurus. A young female that doesn't have a mate yet. It's his only chance.
He looks around the forest and is about to give up when he spots her. But another male is trying to impress her with the mating dance. He runs towards the soon to be pair and distracts the other male Dilo by roaring at him. The other male accepts his challenge and roars back at him.
The 2 males try to impress the female by presenting their crests. But the female can't decide which one's more attractive. This is a very rare occurance, the 2 males will have to fight.
At first they're hesitant to actually attack eachother and they try to intimidate eachother but both of them don't want to loose this oppurtunity. So there's like a battle sequebce that I'm to lazy to write but sadly our male Dilo loses.
He walks away heavily injured.
He lost the fight and won't get a mate, but that's not his biggest worry.
We see him walk a little before he sits down. We see that there's a group of Coelophysises watching him. The Dilophosaurus lies on the ground. One of the Coelos walks up to him, but the Dilo raises his head and scares him away. He lies back down. We watch as his chest stops moving. And then the Coelophysis group starts scavenging his dead body.
Our protagonist met his end, but the age od dinosaurs continues. Even though Dilophosaurus was huge, soon dinosaurs that dwarfed it would appear. Dinosaurs would become the biggest animals that ever walked the Earth. I'm the next episode we'll take a look at the Life in the lost savanna and follow the lives of some really huge dinosaurs.
We get a shot of a sauropod herd.
Sneaky ping at the end: @Savage Almond