― The official Apple TV+ episode synopsis for Oceans
Oceans is the fourth episode of the second season of Prehistoric Planet, and the ninth episode of the series overall.
Segment I: Phosphorosaurus[]
― David Attenborough, Oceans
The first segment of the episode, taking place somewhere in Hokkaido, Japan,[PhP 1] starts with a massive Mosasaurus swimming close to a reef, prompting several of the area's inhabitants to scamper and hide. Even so, the point of the segment was to prove that not all mosasaurs are alike.
― David Attenborough, Oceans
In the maze of rocks and corals, a female Phosphorosaurus makes her way through as her bigger relative patrols the waters just outside her hideout, cautiously avoiding danger as she occassionally rises to the surface to breathe.
― David Attenborough, Oceans
As night falls, Phosphorosaurus emerges from her sanctuary, seeking a particular type of food. With her eyes dilated greatly like an owl's, she sets out to meet her targets. In almost-total darkness, a massive shoals of lanternfish migrate, flashing their lights to confuse and disorient any predators that want to feast on them. But with her large eyes, Phosphorosaurus can visualize the dazzling display before her very well, charging several times through the shoals of fish to grab as many as she can.
― David Attenborough, Oceans
By dawn, as the lanternfish shoals descend back to the depths and the massive mosasaurs come out, once again prowling the reef, Phosphorosaurus returns to hiding in her sanctuary amongst the coral-encrusted rocks, waiting for nightfall to hunt once more.
Segment II: Hesperornis and Xiphactinus[]
― David Attenborough, Oceans
The second segment of the episode, by the warm, shallow seas of North America, a massive shoal of fish attracts many Hesperornis, with the flightless seabirds catching several fish with their beaks full of needle-sharp teeth.
― David Attenborough, Oceans
The presence of the shoal soon attracts even larger predators. Several Xiphactinus arrive to take their share. But as the shoals of fish diminish, the X-fish, still hungry, seek out even larger prey to satiate their appetites.
― David Attenborough, Oceans
Suddenly, several Hesperornis are attacked by Xiphactinus, with some even being swallowed whole. The surviving Hesperornis frantically attempt to escape the predators with evasive maneuvers. While Xiphactinus is faster, Hesperornis is more agile, allowing some of the birds to repeatedly dodge their pursuers just a second before getting grabbed and devoured.
― David Attenborough, Oceans
Following this, one Xiphactinus is shown chewing on the body of a smaller X-fish, for their voracious appetites meant that any other living thing is nothing more but potential prey. With the shoal of fish reduced to nothing, the hunters leave the area.
Segment III: Baby Ammonites[]
TBA
Segment IV: Tuarangisaurus and Mosasaurus[]
― David Attenborough, Oceans
The fourth segment of Oceans takes place in the Darwin Rise, a continent-sized region in the very heart of the Pacific Ocean, known for many atolls that have formed due to millions of years of geological activity throughout the Cretaceous Period. Some of the seamounts can cover about 1,200 square kilometers (463 square miles), roughly matching the size of the city of Los Angeles in California, USA, with steep, earthquake-formed flanks redirecting currents and drawing in animals of all sizes to the oasis within, the lagoons within atolls like these serving as the only sanctuary for thousands of miles.[DN 1] In one seamount of such size, several Tuarangisaurus take refuge.
― David Attenborough, Oceans
However, every day, the elasmosaurs need to hunt, and to do so, they must leave their shallow shelter and venture into the deeper waters of the open ocean. There, where nutrients rise from the ocean floor, thousands of fish gather, ensuring a plentiful supply of food for the elasmosaurs. In turn, however, they themselves become part of the menu of the rich feeding grounds. A 50-foot (15-meter) Mosasaurus, the biggest predator in the Late Cretaceous oceans.

― David Attenborough, Oceans
As the elasmosaurs continue to feed, the Mosasaurus stalks them from the ocean floor, having predicted their movements due to their daily feeding forays. In one sudden movement, the mosasaur rushes upward and almost catches an elasmosaur, which manages to escape along with the rest of its pod. Unlucky in catching prey, the Mosasaurus retreats back to the ocean floor.
― David Attenborough, Oceans
With many elasmosaurs around, it didn't take long before another opportunity presented itself. Camouflaged against the ocean floor, the Mosasaurus awaits for an easy target, and rushes at it from below, emerging out of the water with the elasmosaur in its massive jaws.
― David Attenborough, Oceans
The Mosasaurus circles around the Tuarangisaurus, which was instantly killed by its assault, floating just beneath the surface of the water. With the hunt over, the mosasaur grabs its prey and drags it to the bottom for it to feed on.
Segment V: World of Ammonites[]
― David Attenborough, Oceans
Of the ammonites that escaped the rock pools, less than 1 in 100 have survived several months at sea. These have found a sea grass bed off the coast of Europe, where shoals of ammonites appear in a variety of sizes and shapes. Ammonites found here include the six foot long Baculites, which feeds near the sea floor, and the similarly-sized Diplomoceras, which is shaped like a paper clip. They eat plankton, crustaceans, and some even eat fish; all of which are found in abundance here. Adult nostoceras favor the sea floor in deeper water.
Ammonites have been thriving in these prehistoric oceans for almost 400 million years and there are thousands of species- one of the most successful species to have ever lived.
Segment VI: Morturneria[]
The sixth and final segment of Oceans takes place in the frozen seas surrounding Antarctica.
― David Attenborough, Oceans
After a long, cold winter of almost-total darkness, the low sun shines down for the first time in months, melting and opening up some gaps in the ice.
― David Attenborough, Oceans
Emerging from one of these gaps is a Morturneria followed by its calf, which snuggles up to its parent. These Morturneria are part of a pod that traveled 2000 miles from South America to feast in the Antarctic during spring. Within another ice gap, a small group of four Morturneria, are shown resting up for the moment.
― David Attenborough, Oceans
One calf dives down under the ice to emerge out of another ice gap just a short distance nearby, where four adult Morturneria are waiting.
― David Attenborough, Oceans
Deciding it is now time to feed, the pod of elasmosaurs descend to the depths, scraping their half-closed jaws against the the sea floor (with some sweeping their mouths horizontally across the seabed, and others rushing forward to shovel in a mouthful of it), scooping up the mud and filtering out the hundreds of tiny animals with their sieve-like combs of needle-like teeth. A Morturneria calf returns to the surface to briefly take a breath of air, then dives back down to rub against its mother before surfacing with her to breach the surface.
― David Attenborough, Oceans
The segment ends with the calf swimming around in the ice gap under the watch of its mother as the view zooms out to show the extent of the frozen seas of Antarctica under the light of the low sun.
Uncovered Segment I: How Fast Was A Mosasaur?[]
This Uncovered segment is dedicated to discussing how fast a mosasaur could be.
― Dr. Michael Habib, University of California
Presented as the main focus is the largest mosasaur, Mosasaurus hoffmannii. The secret to the success of this ambush hunter is that it can move with incredible speed while it was only stationary moments before. Today, this is demonstrated by crocodiles, which have muscles that can deliver short bursts of tremendous power. Dr. Michael Habib, one of the show's consultants, brings up how mosasaurs may have bent themselves in a C-shape, then, in one sudden movement, push off of the water on the side of their bodies. As seen in modern-day fish, this "C-start" technique allows them to accelerate from a standstill to full speed in an instant. The suggestion is that mosasaurs use this same technique on a much greater scale. Using a 42-foot, 12-ton mosasaur for reference, the Prehistoric Planet research team ran a unique test four times to finally figure out exactly how fast can Mosasaurus hoffmannii actually swim.
― Kiersten Formoso, University of Southern California
The force generated by a mosasaur traveling at full speed is compared to the impact of a full-sized semi-truck, which, along with the mosasaur's powerful bite force, can prove immediately fatal.
― David Attenborough, How Fast Was A Mosasaur?
With this, based off of these calculations, a mosasaur 13 meters (42 feet) in length like the one in the diagram displayed in this segment could travel 9.75 meters (32 feet) per second, and a mosasaur that is 15 meters (50 feet) long like the one on the show could travel 11.4 meters (37 feet) per second.
Uncovered Segment II: What Do We Really Know About Ammonites?[]
TBA
Fauna[]
Main[]
Scrapped[]
Trivia[]
Filming Locations[]
Filming locations for the episode were confirmed on "I Know Dino: The Big Dinosaur Podcast", Episode 446: Dinosaur-era Oceans and Darren Naish from Prehistoric Planet 2.
- The second segment, set in the the Western Interior Seaway, was shot in Dunsborough, Western Australia.
- The third segment, set on the Ibero-Armorican Island (which encompasses France and the Iberian Peninsula), was shot at Porto Santo Island near Madeira, Portugal.
- The fifth segment, set in the Tethys Ocean, was shot in the Es Freus Marine Reserve in the Mediterranean Sea near Ibiza and Formentera, Balearic Islands, Spain, taking advantage of the Posidonia meadows, seagrass that is endemic to the Mediterranean Sea.
Miscellaneous[]
- While the second segment of this episode is confirmed to take place in the Western Interior Seaway during the early Maastrichtian stage of the Late Cretaceous Period (around 72 million years ago), its exact setting remains unknown. Based on the presence of the scrapped animals, the segment could be, at least during the planning stages, either within or near the Moreno Formation in San Joaquin County, California, USA (where Hydrotherosaurus is known from) or the Pierre Shale, a formation in the Great Plains, east of the Rocky Mountains, stretching from Pembina Valley in Canada to New Mexico (where the last and largest species of Dolichorhynchops, D. bonneri, is known from).
- After its equivalent in the previous season, Coasts (which has only its first segment featuring dinosaurs, specifically T. rex, not counting extant avians like the ostrich and the emu in the accompanying Uncovered segment), this episode features the fewest number of dinosaur species, as it only has Hesperornis in the second segment, and juvenile Pyroraptors in the third segment.
- This is the second episode in the series that does not feature pterosaurs (though some seem to have been planned to appear initially), following Ice Worlds of the previous season. Coincidentally, both episodes are the fourth in their respective seasons.
- This episode was "voted the unluckiest episode to shoot" by the staff, given the turbulence of the waters and various weather disturbances.[PhP 1]
- On the 27th of August, 2021, Hurricane Ida struck the Grand Cayman Island (used as the shooting location for the first and fourth segments), leaving the filming crew stuck in the ground floor of their accommodation with no food or running water for several days.[PhP 1]
- A Mediterranean cyclone struck the Balearic Islands, the shooting location for the fifth segment of the episode.[PhP 1]
- While shooting for the sixth segment (which is set in the López de Bertodano Formation in Antarctica) in Sweden, the temperatures were originally around -27 to -28 degrees Celsius (-16.6 to -18.4 degrees Fahrenheit), leaving a lot of ice without holes (which the staff needs to show the Morturneria poking their heads out of the water). Overnight, the temperature went up to 3 degrees Celsius (37.4 degrees Fahrenheit), causing all the ice in the area to have holes, making it hard to find ice sheets without gaps, which the episode needed to present as a danger that may prevent the Morturneria from rising to the surface to breathe. Eventually, as the wind picked up, the temperatures rose up to 12 degrees Celsius (53.6 degrees Fahrenheit) in under a week, causing all the ice meant for the scene to break up and melt.[1][PhP 1]
References[]
General[]
Dr. Darren Naish[]
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 The fourth segment of Oceans takes place in the Darwin Rise.
- ↑ In Oceans, parts of a seamount closest to the surface of the water was supposed to feature rudist reefs. Producer Paul Stewart started the idea, and even brought in his rudist fossils, but they were unable to fit these bivalves into the story of Coasts. Rudists are small, unusual bivalves that came in different shapes and sizes. They formed unusual reefs that would have been hostile to other organisms. There were even physical models made for them, but they were unfortunately never featured in the series.
Prehistoric Planet[]
- ↑ 1.00 1.01 1.02 1.03 1.04 1.05 1.06 1.07 1.08 1.09 1.10 1.11 1.12 1.13 I Know Dino: The Big Dinosaur Podcast, Episode 446: Dinosaur-era Oceans and Darren Naish from Prehistoric Planet 2
- ↑ Hesperornis concept art for Prehistoric Planet featuring Dolichorhynchops
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 Prehistoric Planet: Bait ball
External Links[]
- Prehistoric Planet Official Megathread: Oceans. Archived on Patreon.