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Monsters Resurrected is an American edutainment television series that premiered on September 13, 2009, on the Discovery Channel.[1][2] The program reconstructs extinct animals of both Mesozoic and Cenozoic. It is also called Mega Beasts.[citation needed]
| No. | Episode title | Episode summary |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Terror Bird | The terror bird Titanis was depicted as a mortal predator that competed with the smaller, but equally aggressive Canis edwardii and Smilodon gracilis. The force and power of the neck muscles is shown by a rendering of the animal hunting a horse in the beginning of the episode. To kill it, it drives its beak into the vertebral column, severing the spinal cord. Another example of this power is shown when the creature kills a ground sloth, using the same method. At the end of the episode, the crew was discussing extinction in the terror bird, two million years ago, and their conclusion was it was out competed for food by Canis edwardii, as well as inability to adapt to climate change. |
| 2 | T-rex Of The Deep | In this episode, the mosasaurs are depicted as the main predators of the Cretaceous seas, competing with the Ginsu sharks and plesiosaurs, eventually driving the former to extinction. It is also shown competing with and killing other mosasaurs. |
| 3 | Biggest Killer Dino[3] | The Spinosaurus is depicted as the apex predator at the time, killing Rugops, Carcharodontosaurus and Sarcosuchus. It fights with a Carcharodontosaurus and emerges victorious by smacking its face with a swipe of its claw. The Spinosaurus was shown being attacked by a Sarcosuchus. It quickly paralyzes the crocodile with a bite to the neck before disemboweling the dead crocodilian. During the heat, the Spinosaurus attempts to steal a dead titanosaur from a pack of Rugops, but their numbers are too great: one Rugops bites the Spino's claw, while another one clamps its jaws on his massive tail. Afterwards, the spinosaur slams to the ground, breaking its neural spine and dying. The pack then devours it, symbolizing the differing fates of the two species. |
| 4 | Great American Predator | In this episode, the Acrocanthosaurus is depicted as an apex predator, strong enough to kill prey ten times its size. Afterward, a young Acrocanthosaurus is shown being scared off its kill by a pack of Deinonychus and being forced to hunt harder prey, like the ankylosaur Sauropelta. |
| 5 | Bear Dog | This episode features the Amphicyon ingens as the new top predator of North America, able to defeat Dinohyus using its intelligence and smaller size to outcompete it. After five million years of dominating the landscape, the bear dog grows bigger, but then Epicyon appears and competes with Amphicyon. They begin to attack and kill the offspring in their burrows, and in the end the canids outcompete the bear-dogs. |
| 6 | Giant Ripper | In this episode, they recreate the Megalania, the top predator of Australia for hundreds of thousands of years. Hunting the largest marsupials ever to evolve using its senses and possibly venom to kill its prey, and it had almost no competition, until humans arrived. The episode also discusses the cryptozoological side about Megalania, ruling out if it could have survived until recent times. It also makes the claim that giant monitor lizards could evolve to become top predator again if humans became extinct. |
The complete 2-disc DVD was released on May 4, 2010 via Amazon. This release did not include Episode 5 (discussing Amphicyon).[4]
In a mixed review, Riley Black wrote in the magazine Smithsonian, "In the end, Monsters Resurrected left me feeling very conflicted. It was wonderful to see scientists describing real fossil evidence and the minutiae of paleontology—in the wake of Walking with Dinosaurs-type shows, it's good to see scientists make a comeback. Nevertheless, the action sequences of the show make me wonder how much of the scientific content actually got through to viewers. What did they remember after watching the show—the details of Acrocanthosaurus anatomy, or a Spinosaurus ripping into everything it came across with merciless abandon?"[5] In a positive review, Brad Newsome of The Age said "the doco does a fine job of explaining the terror birds' killing power and evolutionary history" and called it "fun and educational".[6]
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