Animal Planet Special

[Jim]

A bit off topic, but consistent with some threads in other fora, the Animal Planet will air a show New Year's Day at 8:00pm EST (repeat at 10:00pm EST) on evolution... over the next 20 million years!

...a world where humans are extinct and bizarre creatures dominate the landscape. From 8-ton land squids to mammal-wrangling spiders...

http://animal.discovery.com/schedule/episode.jsp?episode=0&cpi=87629

[calliarcale]

It was a very intriguing show. Special effects were on par with "Walking With Dinosaurs", "Allosaur!" and "Walking With Prehistoric Beasts". Very nice, and definitely thought-provoking. My husband and I did chuckle a bit about how the little space probe sent by some far distant future human colony world in 5 million years from now manages to stay in orbit for another 195 million years to link up with the probe from 100 million years and then the probe from 200 million years. Its orbit looked a tad low to have been stable over all that time. /phpBB/images/smiles/icon_wink.gif

But that was the only bad *astronomy* I saw. I did get a little annoyed when they implied that birds descended from pterodactyls, which isn't true. Paleontologists are split into two camps: those who feel birds evolved alongside dinosaurs, and those who feel birds evolved from dromeosaurids (raptors like Velociraptor -- there are a lot of similarities between raptors and Archeopteryx). And the megasquid seemed a bit big and lumbering to manage as an apex predator, especially since they suggest it lives entirely off of the itty-bitty squibbons.

But those are minor quibbles. In all, I did find it a very entertaining program, and certainly a thought-provoking one. Flightless subterranean birds! Hive-culture spiders with a caste system who raise mammals! Gannets that have evolved into cetaceans! Giant wolverines! Wolf-like sharks! Definitely an interesting program.

[Dickenmeyer]

"After Man" is a book by Dougal Dixon on more or less the same topic, Earth 50 million years after humans kill themselves off. An interesting read and struck me as having more plausible scenarios, though the AP show had it's
moments and the animation was excellent. I did get irritated by the narration's constant use of phrases such as "Scientists predict so and so" and the over-the-top advertising of telepathic sharks and airplane sized bats when the show depicted much less grandiose critters.

[Colt]

It sounds like a program that I should have watched. /phpBB/images/smiles/icon_frown.gif Unfortunatly I was busy at the time. Anymore info on the intelligent(?) spiders? Thanks. -Colt

[g99]

They theorized that the spiders would string up giant webs on canyon walls to catch and gather seeds flying with the wind. Thye then would stockpile them in caves by the hundreds. These seeds would atracts some kind of rat like mammal (they say the last mammal on earth). The rats stay and hide among the piles and feed and breed. The spiders will then use these "rodents" as food. So essentially they are farming rodents for food.

To me the most unbelievable animal was the giant squid at the end. I highly doubt that it would be able to hold itself up. Also the "Smart Squid" (they really liked squids on this show, they show them many times [a swamp squids, several giant ocean squids, and land squids] Squid envy? /phpBB/images/smiles/icon_smile.gif ) Seems too ungainly in the trees to be of any use.

Finally why would the "Smart squids" have such large brains if they lived in the trees the whole time. It is throized that our ancestors did not get large brains untill we started to walk upright.

It seems alot more plausible to me to have the Pack hunting sharks to become the smart species. It takes some brains to hunt in packs and coordinate. It is just as plausible to see the sdharks coming onto land and becoming intelegent as a bonless, shelless squid.

[Jim]

Well, I'm glad everyone liked it!

I don't think the show was saying that birds descended from pterodactyls. They said that birds came from dinosaurs (one theory) and showed a picture of a flying something, which may have given that impression. But I think the something was the new creature, not a pterodactyl.

I noticed one piece of bad astronomy. Well, sort of. They talked about the ice caps melting and the seas rising and earth becoming a "water world" with 75% of its surface covered by water.

Uh, aren't we 70% covered by water now? Does another 5% make us a "water world?" If we dropped to 65%, would we be "desert world?"

Some of the evolutionary developments looked bit far fetched at first glance. But, when you consider what has been and is, who knows?

Maybe somewhere there's a world which just had a similar special on their future, and the dominant intelligent squids are laughing about the possibility of homind mammals becoming "smart." "Ain't never gonna happen, Glyphylt. All those bones would just get in the way." "Yeah, they could never bend their arms enough to hold a tool." "And only two of them? Ha!"

(fixed stuff)
_________________
<font color=000099>Never attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by ignorance or stupidity.</font>
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<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Jim on 2003-01-09 08:36 ]</font>

[Crow T Robot]

While I'm sure that any specualtion what what animals will look like in 50-200 millions years is complete folly, you have to respect a person who will go on record as saying intelligent squids will roam the forests of the future.

[GrapesOfWrath]

On 2003-01-16 14:31, Crow T Robot wrote:
While I'm sure that any specualtion what what animals will look like in 50-200 millions years is complete folly, you have to respect a person who will go on record as saying intelligent squids will roam the forests of the future.

Then you oughta really respect it when I say that forests will be roaming in the future. I'm thinking star-traveling trees... o, wait, that's been done.

[Ba Witda]

Well, I did really enjoy the show, since I'm into this sort of thing, but there were some glaring errors. The lumbering squid has already been mentioned. The giant turtle likewise wouldn't be able to support its weight. One major problem I had was the way they didn't take into account where species lived naturally. Take, for instance, the giant wolverine. I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure wolverines are a North American animal. It's possible they could migrate to France, but they didn't say how that could happen, and it irked me. They did that with several animals, as I recall. Also, with that whole water world concept... Now, stop me if I'm wrong, but with greater humidity, don't you get more stability in temperatures? Wouldn't that make for fewer storms of lesser intensity?

[calliarcale]

I agree about the wolverine thing. They should have had it evolved from badgers, mink, ermine, or weasels, all of which are closely related to wolverines and which do live in Europe. (The mink would be an interesting choice; they are not native to Europe, but have established a very healthy population in England following a deliberate release from a mink ranch by animal rights protesters.) Badgers would seem the most logical choice, given their bulk and wide spread across Europe.

[Donnie B.]

Well, I suppose the wolverines could have descended from escapees from a human zoo, once the humans were gone. That opens up a whole world of interesting possibilities for subtle human impacts on the post-human Earth.

After all, global ship and air travel have already caused massive disruption of some ecosystems through introduction of alien species. And think about the devastating Caulerpa taxifola algae infestation of the Mediterranean, all due to carelessness at a commercial aquarium.

Humanity - the gift that keeps on giving.

[g99]

I want to know what happened to the roaches? You always hear about how roaches will survive forever, where were the roaches?

/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_smile.gif

[David Hall]

Well, see, that's what they didn't tell you. Roaches evolved first, and developed an highly advanced society. Then they started a huge genetic manipulation and species transfer program to create giant land squid and wolverines in France, while keeping themselves hidden safely behind the walls, so to speak.

Why? Who can tell what a roach thinks? I said they were intelligent, not logical. /phpBB/images/smiles/icon_razz.gif

[frenat]

What I didn't like about the show was the assumption that it had become too inhospitable for humans (even early in the show) and that they all left. I think the climate would have to be a lot worse than they showed for us to abandon our home planet while other life still exists here. I quit watching soon after that as I got bored.

[ToSeek]

On 2003-01-21 16:31, frenat wrote:
What I didn't like about the show was the assumption that it had become too inhospitable for humans (even early in the show) and that they all left. I think the climate would have to be a lot worse than they showed for us to abandon our home planet while other life still exists here. I quit watching soon after that as I got bored.


If humans stuck around, they'd have too much of an impact on the ecosystem - you'd have to mention them repeatedly. So I think it's better this way.

[Nahb]

If any PC gamers are interested in this, they should check out "Impossible Creatures".

http://www.microsoft.com/games/impossiblecreatures/

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Nahb on 2003-01-22 14:06 ]</font>

[g99]

yah i played it (the demo). Not bad. Kind of boring. Many more games of the genra are better (try Age of Mythology). But the concept is really cool and fun. I have to agree with that.

[mb1k]

On 2003-01-16 14:31, Crow T Robot wrote:
While I'm sure that any specualtion what what animals will look like in 50-200 millions years is complete folly, you have to respect a person who will go on record as saying intelligent squids will roam the forests of the future.


Respect, more like scared of them <G>.

Joe

[kurtisw]

On 2003-01-04 23:19, Dickenmeyer wrote:
I did get irritated by the narration's constant use of phrases such as "Scientists predict so and so" ...


That bugged me, too. I'd like to meet a scientist who predicts that 200 Myr from now an intelligent squid will live in the rainforest.



I think the show would have been a heck of a lot more educational if they had done something like following the evolution of a certain creature over time, rather than just plopping down some creature that some first-grader invented and named and claiming that scientists predict it. An opportunity to teach about evolution in action gone to waste.

[g99]

On 2003-01-26 14:50, kurtisw wrote:

On 2003-01-04 23:19, Dickenmeyer wrote:
I did get irritated by the narration's constant use of phrases such as "Scientists predict so and so" ...


That bugged me, too. I'd like to meet a scientist who predicts that 200 Myr from now an intelligent squid will live in the rainforest.



I think the show would have been a heck of a lot more educational if they had done something like following the evolution of a certain creature over time, rather than just plopping down some creature that some first-grader invented and named and claiming that scientists predict it. An opportunity to teach about evolution in action gone to waste.


I definitely agree. Devote something like a half hour to a certain animal and how it will evolve over the next 200 my. Much more interesting.

[Jim]

On 2003-01-21 16:31, frenat wrote:
What I didn't like about the show was the assumption that it had become too inhospitable for humans (even early in the show) and that they all left. ...


But, consider the alternatives (Think: Plot device.):

1) Man becomes extinct.
2) Man evolves into something different.
3) Man stays pretty much the same.
4) Man leaves.

The first is a real bummer! The second could get pretty scary (maybe those "squid" would be us!). The third would be really boring (not just for us, but the environment... we wouldn't allow squid to invade the forest... we'd kill 'em off). So, we left.

[darkhunter]

Would make a great book--the backhistory to the Anomal Planet special....