Death of Dynasty is the sixth and last episode in the Walking with Dinosaurs series
Along with various Palaeontologists, Dr.Thomas Holtz of Maryland University advised this episode. This Palaeontologist is known for his expertise on North American Dinosaurs of the Late Cretaceous, particularly of Tyrannosaurids. The Tyrannosaurus rex female is the focus of the plot.
Plot
65, 500, 000 BC - Late Cretaceous - Montana
This episode starts months before the extinction of the dinosaurs. The last dinosaurs are depicted living under stress due to excessive volcanism. The episode focuses on a female 14 metre long T-Rex who abandons her nest, the eggs rendered infertile due to volcanic poisoning. Her calls for a mate are answered by a smaller male who has killed a young Triceratops and is eating it. Later, after repeated copulation, she eventually drives him off. The mother fasts for an extended period as she tends to her nest, dealing with raids by dromaeosaurs and Didelphodons. Only three eggs hatch and the mother brings down an Anatotitan to feed herself and her brood. While defending her two surviving offspring several days later, the mother tyrannosaur is fatally injured by an
A mature female Tyrannosaurus Rex looks into the brilliant volcanic sunset, in the Late Cretaceous of Montana, 65.5 MYA.
Ankylosaurus. The chicks remain next to the carcass of their mother until they, and the rest of the non-avian dinosaurs, are killed when an asteroid slams into the Earth, a catastrophe that triggers the K-T extinction. A short final sequence shows the present-day Earth, dominated by large mammals, but still populated with numerous dinosaurs known as birds, Crocodiles and Turtles.
Dinosaurs
- Anatotitan
- Ankylosaurus
- Deinosuchus
- Didelphodon
- Dinilysia, live-acted with a Boa
- Dromaeosaurus
- unidentified small ornithopods
- Quetzalcoatlus
- Torosaurus
- T-Rex
- Triceratops (carcass)