Extinct animals in Prehistoric Planet: Ice Age make it a must-watch

Back in 1999 BBC Walking with Dinosaurs the series spawned a new format: “wildlife documentaries” featuring long-extinct animals. I'm a big fan of this genre and Prehistoric Planet: Ice Agecreated by BBC Studios for Apple TV, takes it to new heights.

Two previous episodes Prehistoric planet brought dinosaurs back to life in amazing detail. The third series is dedicated to the many unusual mammals that until recently roamed the planet.

The visualization is simply amazing. If I didn't know the animals on screen were extinct, I'm not sure I'd be able to tell if the footage was real, especially with the eyes looking incredibly lifelike.

There were moments when the movements of some animals seemed a little strange to me, but nothing more. As my highly critical son puts it, “The only sign they aren’t real is how good they look.”

Paleontologists who also saw the trailer seems very impressed. The point is, if you're interested in extinct animals, Prehistoric Planet: Ice Age this is a must watch.

Another thing I really like about this is that it's not easy woolly mammoths run through the snow, trying to escape from saber-toothed cats. Don't worry, all iconic ice age beasts have: giant slothswoolly rhinoceroses, giant armadillos, scimitar-toothed catsColumbian mammoths and much more.

But the series also looks at what was happening across the planet, not just the icy extremes, and features many lesser-known species, including some I'd never heard of. (The creature that this program talks about was the king of beasts in Africa during the Ice Age came as a complete surprise to me.)

Another attraction for me is the “killer koalas”, or marsupial lions (Thylakoleo). Just earlier this month, a study was published showing that Koalas are the closest living relatives marsupial lions, so, apparently, the creators of the program knew about this find in advance. Other Australian fauna also appears, including a rhino-sized marsupial called Diprotodon.

There are also some nice, lighter touches, including a sequence where a squirrel tries to eat a huge cannonball fruit, which is clearly a reference to Ice age series of animated films.

I'm not sure Tom Hiddleston will be the narrator instead of David Attenborough. Hearing Loki's voice was sometimes distracting.

There's also a distinct lack of blood and gore, presumably with a younger audience in mind. I won’t go into details so as not to spoil anything, but it bothered me.

My main complaint, however, is that the science portions at the end are too short. I would have liked to hear a lot more from the experts featured, especially about the evidence and thinking behind the behavior depicted. I imagine that the majority New scientist readers will agree, but maybe that's just us.

The first of these science pieces also explains that there has been a long series of ice ages in recent times, but surprisingly there is no mention of carbon dioxide when explaining why. CO reduction₂ what is this this series of ice ages beganand CO₂ feedbacks also greatly amplified the effects of orbital changes.

Finally, watch out for dire wolves. I've written a lot this year about claim that dire wolves were brought back to life by making several changes to the genes of gray wolves. One problem is that people have only ever seen fantasy versions of dire wolves, e.g. Game of Thrones The series – I have not seen high-quality artistic reconstructions of a real animal.

Finally, we now have a science-based attempt to recreate what extinct animals looked like in great detail – and no, they're not just great white wolves. The head shape is distinctive, and in this image their fur is brownish.

In my opinion, bringing extinct animals back to life on screen in this way is the only kind of rebirth we should strive for in the vast majority of cases. We imagine a long series of ice ages to a sudden endand, unfortunately, these extraordinary animals no longer have a place on the planet.

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