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Walking with Beasts

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Walking with Beasts is a six-part television documentary about extinct Cenozoic mammals and birds produced by the BBC in the United Kingdom. It was released in Britain in 2001. In North America it has been retitled Walking with Prehistoric Beasts. Like its predecessor, Walking with Dinosaurs, it recreates extinct animals using Computer-generated imagery and animatronics. Also like its predecessor, it was re-edited and re-narrated as a second "season" of Prehistoric Planet for the Discovery Kids lineup.

Some of the concepts it helps illustrate are the evolution of the whale, the evolution of the horse, and the evolution of man.

Walking with Beasts is part of a series of documentaries that also include:


Episodes

"New Dawn"

Film ___location: Java

49 Million Years Ago - Early Eocene — Germany

The first episode depicts the warm tropical world of the early Eocene which was 16 million years after the extinction of the dinosaurs. In this world, birds, including the six foot carnivorous Gastornis, rule the world, while mammals are still very small. The setting is near the Messel Pit in Germany. Due to volcanic activity, sudden bulk escapes of carbon dioxide trapped underneath lakes are a hazard.
The episode centers around a Leptictidium family foraging for food. The Leptictidium is a small leaping shrew-like mammal. While the family is foraging, a female Gastornis successfully hunts down a Propalaeotherium and defends her territory from another Gastornis. Unfortunately, while the Gastornis is out hunting, a horde of giant predatory ants ambush its egg. When the night arrives, we see a band of lemur-like Godinotias, socializing in the dark.
The episode also shows the Ambulocetus, or "Walking Whale", lying in ambush for its prey, both on land and underneath the water. Although it looks like a mammalian crocodile, the episode explains that from the Ambulocetus, all the whales would eventually evolve.
The episode ends with an earth tremor unleashing trapped carbon dioxide out from underneath the lake, suffocating the surrounding life.

"Whale Killer"

36 Million Years Ago - Late Eocene — Pakistan and Egypt

The second episode is set in late Eocene, when the polar caps froze over and drastically changed the Earth's ocean currents and climate.
The first part of the second episode's concerns a pregnant Basilosaurus, a large carnivorous whale, that is forced by an ocean famine to search for food in the shallow mangroves in Egypt. Unable to catch the early monkey Apidium, which is able to leap from tree to tree, the Basilosaurus attempts to ambush a stranded Moeritherium, an early ancestor of the elephant. However, the Moeritherium escapes and the Basilosaurus is forced back into the Tethys Ocean. There it is able to successfully hunt several smaller whales known as Dorudons. The mother Basilosaurus is then able to give birth.
The episode then moves to the plains of Pakistan, where the changing climate has caused a long drought. Out on the plains, herds of brontotheres and the carnivorous ungulate Andrewsarchus struggle to survive. The episode explains that the Andrewsarchus, the largest mammalian predator of all time, appears to be a "wolf in sheep's clothing".
The episode ends with the observation that by the end of the Eocene, the changing world had caused one in five animals to become extinct.

"Land of the Giants"

25 Million Years Ago - Late Oligocene — Mongolia

The third episode takes place during the late Oligocene, in Mongolia, where there were seasonals rains followed by a long drought. It tells the story of a mother Indricotherium, a massive hornless rhinoceros that was the largest land mammal to have ever lived. The episode first shows the mother Indricotherium giving birth, and then tending to the male calf as it matures. While giving birth, the mother defends the helpless calf from several Hyaenodons, or large creodont predators. The mother raises her calf for three years, but eventually chases the calf away after she mates with another male Indiricotherium. The episode then chronicles the young Indricotherium's travails until it reaches adulthood, including encounters with Cynodictis, referred to as a "bear-dog", and large aggressive Entelodons, which are ancestors to the modern-day pig.

"Next of Kin"

3.2 Million Years Ago - Pliocene — Ethiopia

The fourth episode takes place in the Great Rift Valley in eastern Africa. The climate has changed, and now great grasslands have replaced trees. The episode focuses around a tribe of small hominids known as Australopithecus, one of the first apes able to walk upright and a close ancestor to man. The Astralopithecus has evolved to walk upright so as to better maneuver the plains as well as the climb the trees. However, it notes that although the Australopithecus looks human, it still only has the mind the size of a chimpanzee's.
Some of the topics explored in the episode are the close social bonds among the tribe, how they use grooming as a means of communication, and how they work together to forage for food and to defend one another from attacks from such animals as a male Deinotherium and the predator Dinofelis. It touches upon how competing tribes of Australopithecus war among one another, although most of fighting is for show. It also explains the hierarchy in the tribe among the males (who are much larger than the females) and tells a story of how the dominating male is eventually overcome by another male, who wins the right to feed first at a carrion and to mate with the females.
  • Ancylotherium: one of the last existing chalicotheres, unlike its relatives it did not walk on its knuckles
  • Australopithecus: an early hominid that was able to walk upright and close relative to man
  • Deinotherium: a massive proto-elephant, three times the size of a normal elephant, that had downward curving tusks attached to the lower jaw
  • Dinofelis: a large and powerful relative of the saber-toothed cat, bigger than modern day lions
  • Several species of modern African animals also appear in this episode (live-acted)

"Sabre-tooth"

1 Million Years Ago - Early Pleistocene — Paraguay

The fifth episode shows the strange fauna of the isolated continent of South America and explores the effects of the Great American Interchange, which had happened 1.5 million years earlier. Since South America had drifted apart from Antartica 30 million years ago, many unique mammals had evolved, including the Doedicurus: an armoured glyptodont that had a cannon-size spikes on a bony tail; the Macrauchenia, a long-limbed litoptern, somewhat resembling a humpless camel with a short trunk; and Megatherium, a very large ground sloth. Before the continents of South America and North America collided, an 8 foot tall predatory "Terror Bird", Phorusrhacos, had reigned as top predator. However, the great cats, migrating from the north, soon displaced them.
The episode focuses on a male Smilodon, a sabre-toothed cat, named Half Tooth, whose leadership of a pride is threatened by two rival males. The two rival males ultimately chase off Half Tooth, kill his cubs, and take over his pride. Next, the episode shows the female Smilodon cats hunting down a Macrauchenia and taking care of their young. In the background, "Terror Birds" still hunt, but give way to the Smilodon. However, the Megatherium charges the pride of Smilodon, in order to eat some of the carrion. In the process, the Megatherium kills one of the rival males, enabling Half Tooth to return to reclaim his territory.

"Mammoth Journey"

30,000 Years Ago - Late Pleistocene — dry bed of the North Sea and the Swiss Alps

The sixth episode takes place during the last Ice Age. It starts in the peak of the summer. The North Sea has become a grassy plain because the ice at the polar caps has caused the sea levels to drop significantly. Grazing on the plain are herds of mammoth, Saiga antelope, and European bison. A clan of Homo sapiens is also there spending the summer. The central focus of the episode is the migration of the herd of mammoth as they travel 400 kilometers from the North Sea to the Swiss Alps for the winter and then back again in the spring.
As the mammoth herd migrates south, the episode shows two large deer, the Megaloceros, fighting for rights to a harem of females, and some humans successfully hunting one of the Megaloceros. A mother mammoth and her baby are separated from the herd, but survive a stalking European cave lion. Eventually the herd of mammoth reach the Swiss Alps and the mother mammoth and baby rejoin the herd.
The episode also depicts the clans of Neanderthals, who had especially evolved to survive in the cold climate. One is charged by a woolly rhinoceros, but escapes, in part because of his stocky constitution. The climax of the episode is when the clan of Neanderthals attack the herd of mammoth as they turn back to the north. The Neanderthals are gifted hunters who are able to chase a couple mammoth off a cliff by using fire and weapons.

In Other Media

BBC released a computer game called Operation Salvage based on this series. It involved travelling back in time to save the beasts from villians who were trying to capture them.

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