Walking With Dinosaurs Remastered

Giants of Patagonia

Last Time on Walking with Dinosaurs: We watched as the theropods and sauropods duked it out for supremacy, now we watch as their South American relatives tie up the loose ends.

Chapter 6: Giants of Patagonia

Time: 104 Million Years ago

Place: Southern South America

A summer evening over what will one day be Argentina. These floodplain plains are populated by various creatures of different shapes and sizes. And roaming these lands is one of the most efficient carnivores of all time, this huge animal is a Tyrannotitan, despite its name it is not related to the famous T. rex, it is instead a member of the carcharodontosaurids, huge carnivores with shark-like teeth. Tyrannotitan itself is nearly as big as Tyrannosaurus, but the main difference comes from the prey they hunt, Tyrannosaurus mainly hunted heavily armored prey like ceratopsians and ankylosaurs, Tyrannotitan primarily hunts sauropods like titanosaurs.As night falls and the big killers sleep, smaller predators take the scene. This is a Genyodectes, only about 6 feet tall and 20 long, this little guy is actually related to ceratosaurus, and like it's older cousin, it avoids conflict with its larger competition by hunting smaller prey. And it also reduces it more by hunting at night, most larger predators like Tyrannotitan are diurnal, operating mostly during the day and sleeping at night, though they may hunt at night sometimes. Genyodectes on the other hand operates almost exclusively at night, allowing it to capitalize on some of the smaller creatures of this time, the mammals.

Mammals like this one have been around for as long as the dinosaurs have, but as of now, they are brutally outcompeted by their reptilian overlords. And so have been restricted to being small, burrowing, nocturnal hunters, a far cry from the tigers and bears they will eventually give rise to. And this little creature is himself prey. The Genyodectes swiftly grabs the little mammal in her jaws, crushing it before swallowing it whole.

The Next Morning

As the Genyodectes beds down for the day, her slumber is interrupted by a loud crash in the distance. The little ceratosaur wakes up and looks around, but only finds trees, and after a second she starts to doze back off. Only for another tree to fall, this time directly next to her. The Genyodectes panicks for a few seconds, and immediately the cause for the crashes is revealed. A herd of Patagotitan is bulldozing their way through the forest, these giants can reach over 100 feet long and weigh 53 tons. This gigantic size comes with a benefit, they can barge down trees that are in the way.

Unlike the earlier Diplodocus, Patagotitan are designed to feed from trees, their more upright stances and longer legs allow them to reach into the treetops without needing to rear up first. However, they do retain the Diplodocus' peg-like teeth, perfect for stripping conifer needles off of branches. However the Patagotitan's breakfast has interrupted the Genyodectes' bed time, and she quite loudly makes her frustrations heard, screeching and squawking as loud as she can.Her complaints fall on deaf ears as the giant sauropod half heartedly turns his head in her direction, then goes back to feeding as if she were never there. Unfortunately the Genyodectes will have to find somewhere else to sleep today.

Nearby, the tyrannotitan stirs, a low growl escapes her mouth as her eye opens. The huge theropod lifts her head, opens her giant jaws... and yawns. The titanic tyrant looks around for a bit before standing up and stretching, joints popping as she stretches to her full height. She then completes the routine by scratching her flank against a nearby tree. The carnivore's next order of business is getting a drink of water, made easy by her picking a spot next to a spring.

Now with her thirst quenched, the Tyrannotitan's next move is to find breakfast. The Patagotitans ravaging the forest are tempting targets, but even one by itself is far too big for her to take down alone. But her keen sense of smell picks up a smaller, easier meal. Similar to most other large theropods, Tyrannotitan possess an extremely strong sense of smell, akin to that of 10 polar bears combined, this enables them to track prey over huge distances, leading them to food.Lead by her nose, the Tyrannotitan wanders across the plains, and soon she finds the source of that smell. A herd of Chibutisaurus, these sauropods are relatively small, only about 60 feet long, but they still dwarf the 40 foot long Tyrannotitan, nonetheless, they are far easier targets than the Patagotitans. This particular herd has a leader that is in the process of rejecting a rival male. And similarly to sauroposeidon, Chibutisaurus fight very aggressively. As if to make up for their below average size, they are even more aggressive than their larger cousins, biting at each other and using their claws to scratch at each other. All the Tyrannotitan needs to do is wait for a loser to emerge.