Isisaurus/Segments

Main **Segments**

MainSegments

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

## Badlands

### Segment 1

Badlands starts out in The Deccan Traps in India. The dangers of this place, one of the largest and most active volcanic regions in the world is made clear by all the lava and smoke spewing from various places in the area.

Even so, under the light of dawn, a herd of *Isisaurus* females risk their lives going through the volcanic badlands just to get to where they need to go. For a while, all seems well, with them able to traverse the deadly area by traveling on cooled lava, their long necks keeping their heads above the deadly gases clinging close to the ground.

***“ They're entering a low-lying area where the deadly gases are particularly thick, and for these females, something is already wrong. And worse, as the sun rises and warms the air, the gases swirl even higher. Long necks can no longer protect the herd. They must escape to higher ground, and quickly. The climb is steep, but should bring fresher air. ”***

― **David Attenborough**, *Badlands*
However, as the titanosaurs enter a low-lying area where the gases are even more heavily-concentrated, the rising sun warms the air and causes the gases to rise. With the land and time itself working against them, the *Isisauruses* hurry to higher ground, with some shown struggling up a steep climb in a bid for salvation. Fortunately, the herd makes it past this slope, and sees before them the place they need to go to.

***“ Relief, at last. And ahead, their final destination. A volcanic island in the sky, rising high above these treacherous badlands. The huge crater, a caldera, provides a safe, communal nesting ground. The surrounding sea of poisonous gases helps to keep predators away. And the in-built geothermal heating makes it an ideal incubator. ”***

― **David Attenborough**, *Badlands*
With that, the hundreds of sauropod enact what they came to do, lay eggs in the warm soil, a great incubator. One mother, as she is kicking dirt back to bury her eggs in a mound, accidentally gets sand on the face of another *Isisaurus*, waking her up. The sauropods settle down, some sleeping, some just lying next to their eggs, looking down on their effort. The segment ends with the view zooming out and away from the caldera, showing the rocky, desolate world surrounding it.

### Segment 5

In the fifth and final segment of Badlands, the summer heat ends up stirring electric storms, which, in turn, shift the direction of the winds, blowing away the poisonous gases around the crater where the *Isisauruses* laid their eggs months before. From beneath the sand of the caldera, the newborn *Isisauruses* call out to each other, synchronizing their hatching. Hundreds of *Isisaurus* babies, each less than a foot in length, begin to make their way around the caldera, searching for food. There is one source of sustenance left in the crater, their mothers' dung. Aside from serving as a surprisingly-nutritional meal, this dung contains healthy bacteria that their gut needs, as well as pheromones for them to home in on their mother's herd, which would lead them to the safety of the forest. The juveniles head out on their first journey into the world, and their first encounter with its perilous elements.

While making their way through the volcanic fields full of hot springs, one *Isisaurus* slips off the edge of a pit with steep slopes leading into a deadly trap, a bubbling pool of liquid mud. While it manages to avoid falling immediately into the pit, it is stuck and left crying for help, no longer able to climb out.

After two days of travel, just as the hatchlings appear to be running out of energy to continue, they find vegetation around them, grown from seeds that came from their mothers' dung. After feeding on these plants to refill their reserves, their continue moving forward, right into new threats up ahead.

***“ After two days of trekking, the babies' reserves are running low. But their mothers have come to the rescue again. Small plants have taken root in the cracked lava, sprouting from seeds dropped in the mothers' dung. But a new danger is heading their way. Now the wind has cleared the toxic gases, the door opens... for predators. A Rajasaur. With so many babies out in the open, this could be a feast. ”***

― **David Attenborough**, *Badlands*
A *Rajasaurus* enters the scene, running around to devour as many *Isisaurus* babies as it can. Some babies sneak around and hide in the cracks within the jagged rocks of cooled lava, and the *Rajasaurus* attempts to dig the crack open in order to get to the juveniles. Soon, another *Rajasaurus* arrives, resulting in more *Isisaurus* hatchlings getting eaten. For a moment, the two hunters get into a squabble, either due to territorial reasons or over feeding priorities, with one briefly driving the other off with a hiss before continuing to hunt the *Isisauruses*, some of which manage to slip in small crevices where the hunters, for all their speed and agility, cannot reach them. With their prey gone, the hunters leave.

***“ Despite the dangers, hundreds of babies succeed in reaching the forest. Here, they will live together, hidden in the undergrowth, for several years... until finally, they are big enough to join their mothers' herds. With luck, the females among them will return to this crater in years to come to lay eggs of their own. Like many animals that live in such inhospitable places, the risks will be high. But there are also great opportunities in the badlands of the Prehistoric Planet. ”***

― **David Attenborough**, *Badlands*
Despite the perils of their journey claiming hundreds of juvenile *Isisauruses*, hundreds more manage to reach the forest, ensuring the successful survival of their generation, which would one day return to the volcanic wasteland to lay their young there like their mothers before them. The segment ends with a view of the now-empty caldera where the babies were born in, the view zooming out to once again show the extent of The Deccan, proof of the great risks and opportunities offered by the badlands of the Prehistoric Planet.

## 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 *Isisaurus* is used in this Uncovered segment, dedicated to discussing whether dinosaurs were good parents.

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.

## Prehistoric Planet: Uncovered - How Did Dinosaurs Get So Big?

  **How Did Dinosaurs Get So Big?**
**Subject**
The evolutionary means and efficient systems that let sauropods attain their massive sizes.

**Experts**
Professor Paul Barrett, Dr. Susannah Maidment
Footage of *Isisaurus*, along with most of the other sauropods in the series, is used in this Uncovered segment, which is dedicated to discussing how sauropods got to grow bigger than their modern counterparts.

## Trivia

* The first and fifth segments of Badlands, showing the struggle of both mother and newborn *Isisauruses* in the Lameta Formation, were shot in three different locations in Iceland, the Fagradalsfjall Volcano of the Reykjanes Peninsula (which, after around 6000 years of inactivity, erupted in 2021 and 2022, while the second season of Prehistoric Planet was being worked on), the Námafjall Geothermal Area on the east side of Lake Mývatn, and the Hverfjall Crater, a tephra cone also to the east of Lake Mývatn.
	+ The Fagradalsfjall Volcano actually stopped erupting just when the production team arrived to film in that area, so they had to rely on eruption footage that they recorded while they were still scoping out and reviewing the location.
	+ The last of these three sites served as the caldera where the *Isisauruses* laid their eggs.
	+ There were also plans to shoot parts of these segments in Hawaii, but this was made problematic by COVID-19 restrictions.

## References

1. ↑ I Know Dino: The Big Dinosaur Podcast, Episode 444: Dinosaurs in the Badlands: Featuring 2 Producers from Prehistoric Planet 2