Meet the dinosaurs of the prehistoric planet, season 2

The second season of the series will begin on May 22. on Apple TV+ and will feature more than two dozen new species from various branches of the tree of life that existed some 66 million years ago, give or take a few million (okay, don’t take more than a couple.)

I spoke with showrunner Tim Walker and Darren Naish, a paleozoologist and the show’s chief scientific advisor, to find out what to expect from the new season and possibly more seasons or shows.

“You’re going to feel really different,” Naish said. It will offer “a deeper, more intimate view of this world, with so many new behavioral interactions that convey so many really important messages about what the Late Cretaceous world was like.”

Pop culture is full of misconceptions about ancient organisms. A prehistoric planetThe first season was all about tweaking the narrative by focusing on a variety of beasts, including a massive pterosaur. Quetzalcoatlus resembles a cassowary Corythoraptor and theropod tyrannosaurus. (We’re talking about the Late Cretaceous; there’s always a T. rex.)

The second season picks up where the first left off, adding 25 new species to the cast as well as familiar faces from the first season. Headlining the new troupe are the oft-overlooked denizens of the dinosaur age—perhaps because they’re not dinosaurs.

In the premiere, a herbivorous crocodylomorph Simosuchus and mammal Adalatherium appear in a rather fascinating picture of Cretaceous Madagascar, where life may have evolved independently (and thus uniquely) from life on the African continent.

Dynamic moments like Adalatherium hiding from the predator and Corytoraptors eggs stolen from under noses—er, beaks—play night vision, giving the scenes the feel of a true nature documentary.

“We’re starting to reach the pinnacle of CGI production in terms of photorealism,” Walker said. “Incorporating aspects of other wildlife filmmaking techniques is part of the time-traveling natural history genre we’ve created.

But it wouldn’t be enough to showcase dinosaurs and their contemporaries with scaly, feathered, and furry high-end CGI trappings. Both Naish and Walker talked about the intimate stories of various creatures: their constant failures and successes in their struggle to survive, at least long enough to reproduce. It’s the small moments, like a velociraptor’s little stumble, that make us fascinated by the creatures, because we can’t help but see the human meanings in their behavior, just like with viral animal videos.

Naish said the team created prehistoric planet models using modern creatures as analogs. Some pterosaurs “probably behaved like storks,” explained Naish and the large. Simosuchus took cues from modern crocodiles and armadillos.

“One of the things that’s important to me—and I hope people will understand this—is complexity, because, contrary to the old-fashioned view, complexity was much lower in the past than it is now.” Today, all the research that’s being done right now contradicts that,” Naish said. “The Late Cretaceous world was as complex as it is today. We’ve just lost most of that complexity to extinction. So life has to start again from the starting point.

Each episode also has a segment, A Prehistoric Planet: Revealed, a sequence they created before but only added for Season 2. This may sound familiar to HBO fans; it’s “how we did it” in the spirit of behind-the-scenes explorations in Game of Thrones and Inheritance. But of course, A Prehistoric Planet: Revealed is based on researchers describing the scientific consensus and how it was incorporated into the show, rather than the giant acting of CGI dinos.

Click through to see some of our favorite characters A prehistoric planet has a second season.

T. rex and Quetzalcoatlus

One scene in season two depicts a confrontation between two very different creatures, both terrifying in their own way. Left: A familiar sight: Tyrannosaurus, a Late Cretaceous apex predator. Right: A slightly less known profile Quetzalcoatlus northopi, the largest flying creature that ever lived (as far as we know); it was a pterosaur that was the height of a giraffe and had a wingspan of 12.19m, roughly the size of some fighter jets.

Tarchia

Armored attachment to The prehistoric planet Pantheon is Tarchia, the largest ankylosaurus yet known. Desert dweller Tarchia had a spiny, covered back and a massive, hipped tail. At least some ankylosaurs had spines growing directly from their ribs, in one of evolution’s most metallic feats.

Pectinodon

to meet Pectinodon, a late Cretaceous troodont dinosaur. Here, a grown man, Pectinodon, interacts with the young. Note the different coloration of the animals, as well as how different the color of the young feathers of the young birds (which are dinosaurs) is compared to the mature ones.

Triceratops

You probably recognize Triceratops; the animal’s unique head crest and horns set it apart from many other popular dinosaurs. Triceratops is displayed A prehistoric planet had its first season, but in a snowy environment. Here they are seen in a forest full of ferns.

Alamosaurus

Behold: America’s largest dinosaur. Alamosaurus was a nearly 30.48-meter-long titanosaur, a unique group of sauropods noted for their enormous size. These creatures, which include fan favorites like Megaloolithus and Patagotanare, are the largest land animals currently known to science.

Ammonites

Aha! You’re going to yawn and roll your eyes because that was just a list of dinosaurs, right? Wrong! The new season also features land mammals, crocodylomorphs, and, as you can see here, ammonites, an extinct species of marine mollusc that was abundant during the Cretaceous period.

mortuary

Badly nicknamed Mortuary, he was a plesiosaur that lived in the cold waters of the Earth’s southern hemisphere during the Cretaceous period. Mortuary was not the first plesiosaur to grace the show. Last season, there was a group of plesiosaurs that swallowed rocks, which helped the small-toothed creatures digest their food.

Xiphactinus

There are also fish in the new season, namely Xiphactinus, a rather terrifying ocean dweller. Looking like someone gave the grouper a set of fake vampire teeth, Xiphactinus could grow up to 20 feet long (about the size of the largest great white sharks). Not for me, dog. I mean, fish.

Hesperornis

There is something strange about this bird—can you tell? Hesperornis was not only flightless but also wingless. So it really was not flying A powerful diver and swimmer, the unique animal is seen here hunting fish.

Pachycephalosaurus

This Pachycephalosaurus represents a group of late Cretaceous dinosaurs known for their bony, domed skulls, which the animals may have used for dominance battles or mating.

Rapethosaurus

Rapethosaurus was a species of Cretaceous titanosaur native to Madagascar. Here, a group of animals is seen trampling across the terrain of the island.

Rajasaurus

Rajasaurus was a carnivorous theropod that lived in the late Cretaceous period. Here you can see the open jaw, exposing the sharp teeth. Rajasaurus would have been a fearsome predator in its day.

the emperor

Hatzegopteryx

Velociraptor

Austroraptor