Olorotitan/Segments

## OlorotitanSwan Titan

Olorotitans tending to their nests in the third segment of Ice Worlds

## Presence

* Ice Worlds (Segment 3)
	+ 17+ adult females
	+ Several juveniles
* Were Dinosaurs Good Parents?
	+ Stock footage from Ice Worlds

 Main **Segments** Gallery

MainSegmentsGallery

These are Prehistoric Planet segments which feature ***Olorotitan***.

## Ice Worlds

**Ice Worlds**, Segment III
**Setting**
Udurchukan Formation, Amur Oblast, Far East Russia

In the third segment of the episode, 17 female *Olorotitans* make a precarious journey through a volcanic field, traveling in a thin line across a narrow path flanked by numerous vents of toxic gases. The hadrosaurs risk taking this deadly path every year to lay their eggs in warm, volcanic soil, laying and burying them in mounds. When the juveniles the hatch, the mothers greet their newborn children and bring them some vegetation to eat. Being young, the juveniles appear quite playful. As the long days of summer continue, horsetails quickly take over the fields, providing constant food for the *Olorotitans*. The juveniles, still as playful as ever (with some even playing with their discarded eggshells), grow quickly in this land of plenty. Even so, these same warm conditions also prove to be productive for problems. As adults drink from a slow flowing body of water, mosquitoes spawn and soon begin to spread, pestering the hadrosaurs nonstop.

***“ Every year, this paradise turns into a living hell. Hadrosaurs have surprisingly-thin skin, and so have little defense against bloodsucking insects. Constant irritation makes it hard to feed, and they become dangerously weakened. And babies can lose blood in life-threatening quantities. ”***

― **David Attenborough**, *Ice Worlds*
As the plague of mosquitoes worsens, the herd moves on. One mother, checks on one of her children, a juvenile struggling to stand, much less walk forward, as several mosquitoes target it. Struggling against the insects herself, with some even swarming on her face and eyes, the mother decides to cut her losses, and abandons her child, who collapses, seemingly succumbing to the mosquitoes. The herd moves up to higher ground, where the winds bring them some relief, but it appears that not everyone is able to go that far, and another juvenile is seen being abandoned by its mother, helpless and unable to move due to the continued assault of the mosquitoes.

***“ Of the hundreds of hadrosaur babies born, only one in ten survive their first year. But those that do have a good chance of reaching adulthood. By nesting in this volcanic valley, the parents give their young the best possible start in life. ”***

― **David Attenborough**, *Ice Worlds*
Some *Olorotitans* have gathered atop a rocky cliff overlooking the fields and rivers below, with one mother looking over her surviving children as they play. Just then, the juveniles notice something calling from the back of the cliff, prompting their to mother to look behind her. Right there and then, a juvenile, likely one of those that have been abandoned to the mosquitoes earlier, comes up to the cliff, running back to rejoin its siblings and its mother. With this hopeful turn of events, the segments ends with the *Olorotitans* moving on from the rocky cliffs, continuing on their journey.

## Prehistoric Planet: Uncovered - Were Dinosaurs Good Parents?

  **Were Dinosaurs Good Parents?**
**Subject**
The parenting strategies dinosaurs used to ensure the survival of their brood.

**Experts**
Dr. Darren Naish
Footage of *Olorotitan* is briefly used in towards the end of this Uncovered segment, dedicated to discussing whether dinosaurs were good parents, since, much like the *Isisaurus* herd in Badlands, the *Olorotitan* also relied on the same practice of using volcanic fields to incubate their eggs.

A fossilized titanosaur egg, 1.5 kilograms when freshly laid, and possessing a 2-millimeter (0.08-inch) shell, is shown. While these eggs had some decent amount of protection, they still needed to be kept safe and warm, hence sparking questions regarding the idea of dinosaur parental care.

One strategy of keeping their eggs safe and warm involves the standard plan of building nests and sitting on top of these nests. Proof is seen in the usual example of this, preserved fossils of oviraptorids that died sitting on their unhatched eggs, some of which contain embryos. Even so, this method of egg incubation has downsides.

***“ Having to sit on an egg and actually look after it means that you are committed to the care of that egg for the entire duration of their development up until the point of hatching. ”***

― **Dr. Darren Naish**, *Lead Scientific Consultant*
While for some dinosaurs, this commitment was worth making, it isn't a feasible strategy for larger dinosaurs like sauropods, which would have crushed their eggs under their immense mass if they attempted to do the same. Their solution is made apparent by remains of egg clutches laid in a long trench (dug by the mother's back feet, which are then covered up again once the process of egg-laying is done), reminiscent of what turtles do in the warm sand of seashores. Some dinosaurs are also believed to pile up a compost heap of rotting vegetation on top of the eggs to keep them warm, much like bush turkeys in Australia do today, with the rotting process of the vegetation releasing enough heat to keep the eggs beneath it warm for up to seven weeks. An even more unusual means of keeping eggs warm is discovered in 2010, involving usage of the heat produced by the Earth itself.

***“ In one particular site in Argentina that's had lots of sauropod egg discoveries, it's right next door to some geothermal springs. We're thinking that sauropods were using that volcanic activity to help keep its eggs warm. ”***

― **Professor Paul Barrett**, *Natural History Museum*
The segment then circles back to the Deccan Region in India, the very setting of the *Isisaurus* segments in Badlands, to show more evidence, with several dinosaur eggs sandwiched between several layers of lava adding even more proof that, just as the Badlands episode portrays, dinosaurs risked their lives to visit sites like the Deccan, one of the largest and most active volcanic regions in the world, to use the place as a nesting site for several centuries. In the end, with all these different, effective strategies to ensure their eggs would hatch, dinosaurs have proven to be great in taking good care of their eggs, one key to their dominance for more than 150 million years.

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