Original subtitles

Deinonychus these pint-sized killers

work as a team

deinonychus wouldn't weigh much more

than a human being and when they're

attacking things like sort of seitan it

would be a big advantage for them to be

able to act as a group they're actually

increasing their chance of getting a

meal

it's a strategy still used today

working together Lions will take on prey

as big as a four-ton elephant and they

only have teeth and claws

Deinonychus employs an array of weaponry

more powerful than any creature today

Soraa Poseidon's only defense is its

massive size but deinonychus have

learned that nearly any defense can be

breached with the right armaments

like a recurve Pangloss almost three

inches long designed to grip into the

bodies of prey like a mountain climber

spikes the ideal attack is to jump up

grab a hold of the prayer position to

pray and then strike so the arms are to

position your body to deliver

sitting below it strike very quickly and

it could if it was attacking a larger

animal use those arms to pull itself up

against it by doing so it could bring

its other main weapon into attack

it's football

the name deinonychus means terrible claw

it's a reference to the hinged bone on

its foot the cutting edge is sheep in

keratin the same substance that forms a

cat's claw but on a Deinonychus this

claw is four inches long like a built-in

switch this lethal weapon is sharpened

to a point and can flex almost 180

degrees to keep the knife razor sharp

Deinonychus holds it up off the ground

until the moment it's needed

in one lightning fast swipe this sickle

can rip deep into flesh delivering a

kickin blow with

50 pounds of cutting force

the key to the Deinonychus killing blow

is the highlight I like is the strongest

organ in the body by far and ends in a

huge claw like a box cutting knife so

that cutting curved knife into your

belly into the target would cause a

fatal wound with one

flexion

deinonychus instinctively knows to go

for this giant sweetness its neck

you've got the windpipe there you've got

the jugular vein which if opened up will

mean that that's or upside is dead meat

but death does not come quickly or

pleasantly for a pack of Deinonychus I

kill this big means of feast and their

skulls are specially designed for

competitive eating its jaws are narrow

and lightly built and its gums are

equipped with 70 sharp serrated teeth

they're like walking piranhas perfect

edifice rating a victim you look at the

teeth carefully they're ridiculously

small they are very very delicate

they're not killing weapons

a single adolescents orifice I treat an

animal more than ten times the size of

its killer can feed a pack of hungry

Deinonychus for weeks this kill was

worth the effort

and the risk

Texas

sixty-eight million years ago

here death comes not only from

well-armed gargantuan dinosaurs

sometimes it swoops down from the sky on

the wings of a flying reptile gets a

quad --less a cat's koalas could be

kinda seen as a cretaceous stealth

bomber air-to-ground weaponry at its

finest they weren't big fragile kites

who were big mean terrifying bass from

hell

Quetzalcoatl's is arguably the largest

most sophisticated animal ever to fly a

wingspan of almost 40 feet holds aloft a

body weigh 400 pounds that's the

wingspan of the Wright brothers first

flyer picture a living plane and that

gives you a sense of what Quetzalcoatlus

would look like in life and this is an

animal that probably accelerates number

two and a half G's just on takeoff just

beyond our congregation a Quetzalcoatlus

is ten times the weight of the largest

flying bird today yet this airborne

reptile doesn't rely on feathers its

wings are made of skin almost half of

that wing is supported by an extended

finger bone a finger eight feet long a

second bone lines the front of the wing

forming a leading edge similar to an

airport this aerodynamic design allows

for near perfect control on takeoff

but for this flying monster getting off

the ground is the hardest task

big Terrace were like Quetzal koalas

giraffe height on all fours and it's got

to get up into the air

how's it going to do that

calling the plains of Texas home makes

that job even more difficult

flat ground no Hills no cliffs no

special conditions nothing to help us at

all except its muscles it could still

take off from a standstill without any

running required the secret to how this

Goliath takes off can be seen in a

creature 1000 times smaller the vampire

bat they have to spring up into the air

they have to do essentially a super

push-up with their powerful four limbs

the strongest limbs they have get a pie

enough that they can get their wings to

flap and get off the ground a

Quetzalcoatlus

takes off in the same way using all four

limbs to suddenly leap up into the air

it's powerful arm muscles are composed

of 80% fast-twitch fiber 1/3 more than

humans this specialized muscle tissue is

capable of delivering rapid bursts of

energy energy needed to propel this

reptile a creature wane as much as a

grizzly bear from a dead stop to a

launch speed of 30 miles per hour all in

a fraction of a second

I think the singing a pterosaur like

Elsa koalas actually take off would have

to be one of the most impressive sights

in the animal kingdom to see something

that's 20 feet tall suddenly spring into

the air and fly away is outside the

bounds of human experience

for a giant like gets a Qantas flight

control is everything this flying

reptile has one of the most advanced

autopilot systems natural history akin

to a bio supercomputer imagine just for

a moment that you're an animal with the

wingspan of a small sail plane and you

are turning yourself 90 degrees that's

not an easy maneuver for human pilots

for example rely on instruments in their

cockpit in order to do things like that

because the calls has to have those

issues built-in a Quetzalcoatlus wing is

covered with millions of tiny hairlike

sensors

these microscopically small bio memory

devices collect information then send

signals to the brain their wing wasn't

just an aerodynamic organ it was also a

gigantic sensory organ capturing all

kinds of aerodynamically relevant

information about things like air speed

tension in particular parts of the wing

this data travels from the wing to the

brain then in a split second a ketse

Qualis makes minut adjustments to its

wing shape and body position proof of

this advanced biotechnology is found in

the flock use the area of the brain

devoted to flight control it's 3 times

larger than in any bird today

there's a huge amount of math going on

in the brain as it's making these

subconscious calculations and what's key

is that's happening all the time it can

never stop because these animals are in

the air and if there's any break in that

process that the results are potentially

catastrophic nothing this large would

achieve powered flight until the 20th

century 65 million years later and

Quetzalcoatlus still may hold the record

for flight duration how to stay aloft

for a week probably could have gone for

25 26 thousand miles in a single trip

Quetzal quarters is one of the most

unusual and terrifying carnivores to

inhabit the earth but unlike predators

such as t-rex and Deinonychus this

flying meat-eater isn't searching for

the big kill

it scours the earth from above tracking

the small the young the defenseless

dinosaur hatchlings

keeping this predator airborne altitudes

as high as 10,000 feet

requires a 40-foot wingspan an accurate

guidance

and near perfect ice what we see is an

enlarged eyeball enlarged eye socket and

the processing centers of the brain

optic looks were also very much expanded

its four inch retina is packed with over

a billion light receptors

and registers as much as four times the

detail of the human eye a ketse Qualis

can also see a spectrum of light

invisible to humans

ultraviolet the urine of their prey

absorbs UV rays and then reflects them

back

this creates a lighted trail leading

straight to their court

these animals had very highly developed

these stabilization mechanism allowing

to keep their target fixed and in focus

within the crosshairs if you will as

they were moving for space the secret to

gaze stabilization is hidden in the

inner ear three interconnected tubes or

what are called semicircular canals

fluid fills each canal and small hairs

detect the tiniest movie

as a ketse Qualis head moves during

flight signals are sent directly to the

eye muscles the eyeballs are just

keeping an image fixed and perfectly in

focus

from 1,000 feet in the air that gets

equalities can pick out a t-rex nest and

even count the number of jets

I think that a big Terrace were on the

ground would have been a spooky because

they would be moving around on all fours

they probably have those sort of precise

movements like birds if they'd be huge

ketse koalas lives by its own rules

most meat-eaters keep their distance

from the hatchlings of an apex predator

but not this reptile the probably work

many animals the Cretaceous that would

dare to try to grab a baby Tyrannosaurus

Rex ketse koalas could probably manage

it these big castles like it's flawless

we're probably eating baby dinosaurs

right and left and then when they want

to boom

they push down they spring into the air

and they flap away for Quetzalcoatl is

the key to snapping up baby dinosaurs is

a quick getaway

but Escape is no problem for a reptile

that can pull two and a half G's on

takeoff reaching 30 miles per hour in

less than a second if you're a kiss of

quality live in a land full

Tyrannosaurus and the latest Cretaceous

you need to take off in a hurry

sometimes Quetzalcoatlus is unlike any

other dinosaur in the Cretaceous speed

agility and sophisticated way all

allow it to survive for millions of

years in a brutal environment

but this is a world inhabited by the

most advanced predators Nature has ever

produced even prehistoric killers like

Deinonychus in Tyrannosaurus Rex know

that no matter how many tools they have

at the ready

attacking plant eaters is risky business

might be your last

a mystique surrounds the mighty karna

first of the Cretaceous they rule a

dangerous world but being a super

predator like Tyrannosaurus Rex is no

easy job

just surviving to adulthood is a major

feat one that takes a decade or more of

killing and eating some of the meanest

creatures that walk

latest role in the ecosystem is top

predator most of the time you are almost

starving a carnivore knows that no prey

animal goes down easily herbivores fight

like their lives depend on

these are animals that have defenses

ankylosaurus is a slow lumbering plant

eater

it's low slung body is covered in bony

plates and its tail packs a punch and

cowasaurus itself has this huge mass of

bone on the end of its tail and there's

no leg bone of Tyrannosaurus that can

withstand it

predators of the Cretaceous are gigantic

by our standards yet in stature they're

clearly outclassed by plant eaters

carnivores though have one significant

advantage

bigger brains the armored dinosaurs in

general and ankylosaurus is no exception

here were not bright dinosaurs by llola

dumbest dinosaurs ever live their brains

are really small for the size of their

heads and their bodies with prey this

dumb predators don't need to be geniuses

ultimately you really only need to be as

smart or smarter than the animals that

you're around seven tons of

Tyrannosaurus Rex can do a lot of damage

but a little extra brain to make a lot

well t-rex brain was actually a bit

larger than a banana

t-rex brain is just a thousandth of its

body size that's 20 times less brain

power than humans

yeah it's significantly larger than

those of its plant-eater prey

what we see in t-rex is an advanced its

cognitive capabilities were greater its

ability to probably solve problems and

deal with wrinkles in its environment

other carnivores are even more dependent

on cognitive

for protection Deinonychus relies

primarily on its brain the brain

structure of Deinonychus ms relatives is

really quite remarkable pound-for-pound

Deinonychus has one of the largest

brains in the dinosaur kingdom that

brain power is harnessed to achieve one

goal this was an animal that needed some

brain power to know how to attack when

to attack what parts of the prey animal

to attack

the wily part of the brain is the

cerebrum and deinonychus has a big one

it analyzes information from all over

the body and unlike the unsophisticated

brains of its prey it makes decisions

Deinonychus can also do something no

other predator in its day could do call

in reinforcements what we can see with

Deinonychus in this brain structure is

that potentially it has the capacity to

pull off

cooperative hunting Deinonychus is

clever clever enough to deal with

another highly developed creature a

second Deinonychus

hunting together requires an ability to

communicate as well as share tactics and

strategy

this is something only made possible by

a large brain this is an animal that

might have actually had some cleverness

to some animal that might have actually

been able to solve problems the ability

to work cooperatively is the ability to

stay alive

Deinonychus has to keep one step ahead

of its prey anticipating trouble before

it happens living as a hunter was not

the easy life

the irony for many predators is they're

very concerned about injuring themselves

even the toughest most well-armed

man-eaters regularly come face to face

with prey that can kill them whether you

have the jaws of Tyrannosaurus Rex or

are armed to the teeth whether after

every hunt just might be your last

think about predation is it's very

dangerous both for the prey and for the

predator

there are many specimens that have

puncture wounds and open sores when they

die an injury even a minor way can stop

a predator from hunting a virtual

guarantee of death by starvation the

life of the carnivore was so hard and

through a beat up there all beat to hell

before they became a fossil it's not

like Africa or Asia today where you have

lots of smaller animals and there's one

or two big things like elephants rhinos

we're talking about an entire landscape

that's filled with birds of multi-ton

herbivores

for carnivores today just as during the

Cretaceous staying alive is tough very

tough

if we look at lives of living predators

today they're pretty short lives each

individual life does not span its

potential whenever they become older and

weaker they're more susceptible to

injury every time you hunt you're

putting your life on the line

in the world of dinosaurs predators stop

at nothing to survive

they use every tool in their arsenal

legalize stealth

super-hearing an advanced sense of smell

but in the end

those who live by the cloth sometimes

die