Take a journey back to a lost world and go Walking with Dinosaurs. Feel the awesome power of Tyrannosaurus rex and witness the awesome size of Brachiosaurus.
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199 Million years ago, Jurassic Period, South Africa.
This hidden grotto in the Jurassic is the home to a 5 meter dinosaur. She's a Massospondylus, an early relative to a family of giants. She has been waiting 5 months for her clutch of eggs. Now the time has come. The first egg starts rustling.
The first baby emerges from his egg. The mother looks down at her newly hatched baby. The Massospondylus mother leaves her baby for a little while to get some ferns. This is the first meal that her young will have. With predators around, life for this new parent won't be easy.
This is the Jurassic period, 199 million years ago. Dinosaurs have become more common, and they'll get bigger in another 20 million years. The extinction of the Triassic pseudosuchians has opened the door to the relatives of the small carnivorous dinosaurs in the Triassic. This story follows a sauropodomorph, a female Massospondylus, and her family. These early sauropodomorphs will give rise to some of the biggest animals to walk the earth.
But in the Early Jurassic period, these dinosaurs can be a reliable food source for the predators around here. The babies are currently learning how to walk. Their mother will continue to look after them until they're about 5 years old. Learning to walk will be an important thing for them in a world of predators. In fact, one of theirs predators is around the nearby stream.
This is Megapnosaurus, a relative to the earlier Coelophysis. These dinosaurs are usually nocturnal animals, hunting crickets and small mammals in the dark. Right now, this male Megapnosaurus is looking for a place to rest after a night of hunting lizards. This place near the stream seems like a good one. The dinosaur lays down under a tree.
Suddenly, a rival approaches. Just like their relatives, Megapnosaurus don't exactly fancy another's company. The male Megapnosaurus sees the rival approaching. This rival wants to take advantage of the crickets. But the male doesn't want to share.
This leads to a confrontation, but before it can start something else approaches, scaring them off. It is a large bipedal dinosaur with twin crests protruding from its head.
Megapnosaurus is not the dominant predator here. That honor goes to a different creature. Meet Dracovenator, a medium-sized, moderately build carnivore, the top predator of South Africa at this time. He stands tall enough to look you in the eye. He's a vicious carnivore that mostly attacks early sauropodomorphs. But he's not hungry right now.
