Nigel Marven is gonna show us the 7th most dangerous sea of all time during dinosaurs period.
7th:
Name: The Ordovician
When: 450 Million Years Ago
Hazards: Giant Orthocones, Sea Scorpions
*Astraspis (Identified as an armor-plated Fish)
*Megalograptus (Identified as a Sea Scorpion)
*Isotelus (Identified as a Trilobite)
*Cameraceras (Identified as an Orthocone)
*Graptolite (Unidentified)
In the Ordovician, the day is only 21 hours long and there is more carbon dioxide than in the twenty-first century, forcing Nigel to don a medical-looking backpack filled with air tanks with a special oxygen mixture. To attract a Sea scorpion, Nigel finds the corpse of a dead Armoe-plated fish washed up on the beach. Because there is no land life, there are no coastal scavengers to eat what the sea spits out.
Before long, Nigel wades into shallow water and the Armoe-plated fish attracts a large Sea scorpion. The Sea Scorpion devours the Armoe-plated fish, before attacking Nigel's foot, cutting it badly. Later on, Nigel attempts to go after a Orthocone, by removing the eye of a dead Trilobite and replacing it with a small video camera. He then uses the inflatable raft to venture out into the deeper waters, where he throws the trilobite/video camera combo overboard. A Orthocone is quickly attracted to it, and Nigel and the cameraman plunge overboard to film the elusive Orthocone.
On the dive, Nigel wears a chain mail suit, so that any marauding Sea scorpion cannot harm him. The Orthocone is more agile in the sea than Nigel, and as Orthocone attempts to swim away, Nigel grabs onto its shell. When the Orthocone starts to dive down into the depths, Nigel swims away to the surface. When Nigel pilots the boat back to shore, he finds a surprise: there are large numbers of Sea scorpion mating in the shallow waters. Nigel manages to make his way safely through the Sea scorpion, but a few clamber onto the inflatable boat and puncture it.
6th:
Name: The Triassic
Time: 230 Million Years Ago
Hazards: Nothosaurus, Cymbospondylus
*Peteinosaurus (Identified as a Pterosaur)
*Coelophysid (Identified as a Coelophysis)
*Nothosaurus (Identified as a Nothosaur)
*Tanystropheus
*Cymbospondylus
As Nigel walks along the tropical coastlines of Triassic Switzerland, he explains that the reptiles are taking over the surface of the earth from the skies (e.g. Peteinosaurus), to the land (e.g. Coelophysis). But of course, he is here to see the earliest sea reptiles. From the deck of the Ancient Mariner, Nigel and crew watch as a Nothosaurus comes up for air. When he sees one, Nigel dives into the seas, pursuing the elusive sea reptile. Before long, Nigel finds a pair of Nothosaurus. The Nothosaurus circle him, and Nigel has his prod ready to put off any Nothosaurus that comes too close. One of the Nothosaurus prepares to move in closer, and Nigel prods it with the electric prod. The Nothosaurus move off, and Nigel discovers another bizarre sea reptile: a Tanystropheus.
Nigel follows the Tanystropheus, and attempts to get a closer look at it by grabbing onto its tail, impeding its movement. However, the Tanystropheus loses its tail, similar to the modern day leopard gecko. Nigel can hold onto the tail only with difficulty, because it is thrashing around (intended as a predator deterrent). Suddenly the tail is snatched up and then eaten by a Cymbospondylus. The Cymbospondylus begins to circle Nigel with glee, and he explains that its slow movement is designed to deceive prey, and it can move very quickly when it is needed to. After he pokes it with the prod, the Cymbospondylus swims away, and Nigel returns to the relative safety of the Mariner.
5th:
Name: The Devonian
Time: 360 Million Years Ago
Hazards: Dunkleosteus
*Bothriolepis (Identified as a Placoderm)
*Stethacanthus (Identified informally as an "Ironing Board Shark")
*Dunkleosteus
On a preliminary dive, another crew member of the Mariner (Mike) films a huge female Dunkleosteus, swimming around the shallow reefs near the Ancient Mariner. The crew springs into action, and Nigel goes fishing for Placoderm. Nigel places a bet with one of the other crew members that the Dunkleosteus will be able to slice through the Placoderm wrapped in the chain mail suit he used in the Ordovician. When the round shark cage is fully assembled, Nigel descends into it. The smell of the dead Placoderm begins to attract a young Stethacanthus.
Eventually, the monstrous Dunkleosteus is sighted, and the enraged fish repeatedly bashes the cage with it's thick head, and looks as though it's about to rip a hole in the cage... [edit] Episode Two: "Into the Jaws of Death" However, the enraged fish only slightly dents the cage. Eventually, Nigel throws the Bothriolepis out of the cage, and the Dunkleosteus slices through the chainmail and the Bothriolepis.
Spying a male Dunkleosteus, the female turns cannibal and kills him. She then regurgitates the indigestible parts of her meal (the armor plating and the chainmail). As Nigel departs for the surface, he explains that the placoderms as a whole have a grim future ahead of them. In another twenty million years, the entire Class of Placoderms will disappear, much to the other Devonian fish's relief.
4th:
Name: The Eocene
Time: 36 Million Years Ago
Hazards: Basilosaurus
*Arsinoitherium
*Dorudon
*Basilosaurus
While walking in the mangrove swamps of Giza, Nigel comes across some mysterious footprints and a mound of fresh dung. Following the footprints, Nigel comes across an Arsinotherium migrating overland. Nigel takes a calculated risk and offers the huge fruit-eater an apple, but apparently this upsets the Arsinotherium and it charges at Nigel. Only by making a break into the thicker forests does Nigel escape from the mammal.
Nigel watches from the forest as the Arsinotherium plunges into the water, and follows it. In the water, Nigel watches as a trio of Dorudon pass by, but there is no sign of the Basilosaurus. The Ancient Mariner sails offshore, where the crew try a tactic to attract whales that has been used with mixed success: record a Basilosaurus call and play it back via a huge speaker that is lowered from the boat. After playing it for a while, an enraged Basilosaurus rams into the boat before diving again. Wasting no time, Nigel suits up and dives. However, the whale could attack from any direction, so Nigel stays close to the hull of the Mariner, using the boat like a shield to ward off the Basilosaurus.
The Basilosaurus is evidently distressed by the calls, and attacks and disables the speaker (which is explained as a territorial response). As the Ancient Mariner sails off forward through time, Nigel explains that the tropical Eocene is a world on the brink of great climatic change. As the Oligocene dawns, Basilosaurus, Arsinotherium, and Dorudon will all vanish, victims of the climatic shifts that ended the Eocene, changing the warm sea into a cold ocean.
3rd:
Name: The Pliocene
Time: 4 Million Years Ago
Hazards: Megalodon
*Odobenocetops
*Megalodon
*Cetotherium (Identified as a Whale)
After several minutes of heated debate, the crew of the Mariner come to an agreement. Before diving in offshore waters with the adult Megalodon, Nigel will dive in the coastal waters, with the juveniles. Before very long, Nigel finds a small whale (an Odobenocetops) foraging for oysters in the mud, and it is being hunted by an adolescent Megalodon shark. Only by taking cover in the thick underwater foliage does Nigel manage to escape the huge shark. On the next dive (with the adults), Nigel uses the round shark cage that he previously used in the Devonian era against Dunkleosteus.
This time, Nigel hopes to fire a small video camera into the dorsal fin of the shark from the relative safety of the cage. However, Nigel panics, and never fires the camera. Later, he tries again, this time from the surface of the Mariner. The shark is drawn to the boat via liberal amounts of chum. The shark grabs the chum but Nigel is nowhere to be seen. [edit] Episode Three: "To Hell... And Back?" Nigel has been knocked off the boat by the shark and swims back, he managed to land a hit with the shark-camera.
In a few days, they find the camera floating in the sea, and when they load it into the on-board television, they watch the Megalodon in question attack a whale the same size as it. When the crew of the Ancient Mariner head backwards in time, Nigel says that as the Ice Age begins, the whales that Megalodon preyed on migrated to colder waters, where Megalodon could not follow. Megalodon is doomed to extinction, by hunger.
2nd:
Name: The Jurassic
Time: 155 Million Years Ago
Hazards: Liopleurodon
*Leedsichthys
*Metriorhynchus
*Hybodus
*Liopleurodon
Set around England, which was then largely underwater. This is the second most dangerous sea. Hazards include Liopleurodon, the largest carnivorous animal of all time. Nigel spies a school of migrating Leedsichthys. One weaker one is lagging behind the school, and a native Metriorhynchus and a foreign Hybodus shark launch a joint attack.
Using radar, Nigel discovers that a huge Liopleurodon is heading toward the dying individual. Nigel equips his and the cameraman's diving suit with a chemical system that will spray a cloud of deterrent at the huge pliosaur should they get too close. The crew use huge waterproof lights when they descend to the corpse of the Leedsichthys, because it is night. A pair of Liopleurodon are feasting on the carcass, and Nigel starts to move closer toward them. When one turns its head towards him, Nigel panics and ejects the chemical, which works on the huge predator.
1st:
Name: The Cretaceous/Hell's Aquarium
Time: 75 Million Years Ago
Hazards: Xiphactinus, Elasmosaurus, Sharks, Giant Mosasaurs
*Hesperornis (Identified as a swimming penguin-like bird)
*Squalicorax (Identified as a Shark)
*Xiphactinus
*Halisaurus (Identified as a Mosasaur)
*Tyrannosaurus
*Pteranodon
* Elasmosaurus (Identified as a Plesiosaur)
*Archelon
*Tylosaurus (Identified as a Giant Mosasaur; much larger than Halisaurus)
Nigel is now entering his final sea mission in "Hell's Aquarium" as he calls it. On the land there's T. Rex, but even the most famous land predator of time all can't compare to what's in the water. After viewing a colony of Hesperornis on the coastline, Nigel and another member of the Mariner pause for a second to view a huge underwater bloodbath.
As far as Nigel (using a periscope) can figure out, an elderly Hesperornis was killed, and the resulting carnage has attracted many sea animals, such as Squalicorax, Xiphactinus and Halisaurus. Nigel explains that this sea is far too dangerous to go diving in; huge carnivores like Xiphactinus and Tylosaurus are far too dangerous. Instead, the crew of the Ancient Mariner have rigged an ROV to dive for them, while they watch from the safety of the boat. Sending it down, the crew finds a small pod of Elasmosaurus riding their wake like 21st century dolphins. They might seem graceful, but a huge pod of long-necked, jagged-toothed meat eaters, hungry or not, isn't a good sign, so it's time to keep going before it gets ugly.
In the morning, after managing to domesticate a Pteranodon, Nigel discovers that they have hit a dead Archelon, which was mauled by some other predator before being hit by the boat. Having done the same thing with present-day leatherback turtles, Nigel forgoes his personal safety to track down an Archelon and ride it. He and the cameraman ride off in the small inflatable raft that they had used previously in the Ordovician.
Before long, Nigel finds his quarry, and dives, grabbing onto the huge turtle's shell before noticing the imminent danger: a Xiphactinus circling the Archelon. Nigel quickly makes his escape back up to the raft, but disaster strikes. A family pod of Tylosaurus attack the raft, completely overturning it, plunging the crew into the sea. Fortunately for Nigel, the Tylosaurus seem more interested in the boat than the humans, and they quickly escape back to the Mariner. During the credits, the radar onboard picks up a colossal mob of adult Elasmosaurus moving in from all sides, preparing to attack the ship....
L² Scored: 7/10
L² Comment:
What can i say? I was breathless. Really learn a lot of dinosaurs... marine dino is so much more interesting than those on ground, dont u think so?
Released Year: 2010
