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-----Original Message-----
From: owner-dinosaur@usc.edu [mailto:owner-dinosaur@usc.edu]On Behalf Of Ann Schmidt Sent: Wednesday, October 31, 2001 9:16 AM To: dinosaur@usc.edu Subject: Re: walking with beasts fact files >This looks like some really great
stuff. I'm pleased that they are using both the genus and species names
for most of the
>animals. From what is known about the
show would experts say it is fairly accurate in its depictions, perhaps more so
then
>Walking with
Dinosaurs? I did
not work on this project, but I know and have talked with folks who did.
The producers are doing more (particularly in the various digital cable and
digital satellite formats) to get out information about what is known, what is
inference, and what is pure speculation.
That
being said, some of the guys I talked to lameneted the fact that the production
team was (on some occasions, at least) still more interested in big,
spectacular, and/or scary than in well-constrained data or well-grounded
fact. To which I say "my world, and welcome to it"...
The
previous "that being said" being said, I think that the fact that the general
public knows diddly about Cenozoic mammals (with the exceptions of the
Pleistocene tundra fauna and the African hominids) will mean that WWB
will be a great help in introducting the world to the
Tertiary.
Does
anyone know what the episode breakdown will be like (i.e., topics or
faunas)? From my glance at the the taxa involved, it is almost all
Eurasian, with at least one African and one South American fauna
represented. Didn't notice any North American forms (expect protests from
protoceratid and merycoidodontid workers! :-).
Thomas R. Holtz,
Jr. |