Tell me I wasn’t the only one who tuned in for the premiere of History Channel’s Jurassic Fight Club last night (Tuesdays, 9 p.m. ET). The first face-off pitted Majungatholus against Majungatholus (pictured) in a CGI battle to the death based on a scenario paleontologists deduced from fossil finds on the island of Madagascar. The first 45 minutes showed the science that determined that a female dinosaur had gone cannibal on a male. The final 15 minutes recreated their deadly encounter, after an ominous flashing of the warning "YOU ARE ABOUT TO SEE A GRAPHIC DEPICTION OF A VIOLENT PREHISTORIC BATTLE. VIEWER DISCRETION IS ADVISED." Allow me to give you the fascinating play-by-play after the jump.
Paleontologist expert "Dinosaur George" Blasing, the MVP of thisseries, I can already tell, led the narration of the story: A male catches the scent of afemale and works his way into her territory. He tries to woo her intomating with a simple swaying ritual meant to convey that he’s not athreat, just horny. (I’m paraphrasing.) She’s having none of him, andaggressively hisses and bares her teeth. He doesn’t understand… until he catches a glimpse of her offspring. Knowing that she won’tget busy as long as she’s got a baby, he decides the offspring mustdie. (!)
It’s on.
The female, fast and furious with her maternal instinct,rams the male as he runs for the juvenile, who’s been sitting soinnocently behind a tree that you want to reach through the television and pull him outto the safety of your living room. (Cut to you settling for aprofane exclamation of approval for the female’s counterattack.) The female bitchslaps the male withher powerful tail. Twice. But then the male backs her up until shetrips over a log and falls to the ground. He seizes the opportunity tosnatch the baby. (Cut to commercial, as your mouth hangs open.)
Next, thefemale comes to, sees the male thrashing her offspring about in his mouth, chargeshim and bites his neck so hard that she severs his spinal cord. Nowhere’s where things get really F’d up. When she finds that there’s no lifeleft in her baby — she eats it. Apparently, the Majungatholus’ mind isso small it’s incapable of thinking of two things at once, which meansit can’t mourn. It no longer sees offspring — it sees food source. She needs to replenish the calories she’s just expended. (Cut to a gross shot of a mother eating her baby. Whole.) She then turns to the male.
I’ll letBlasing take this, because boy, does he enjoy it: "He’s still alive but he can’t move. He makes the perfecttarget, and he’s gonna get eaten alive… The female Majungatholusshoves her head into the stomach cavity of the male. She’s seeking themost nutritious parts. She pulls her blood-covered nose out of thestomach and in her jaws [is] the liver." (Cut to that sobering shot.) "This is not an act ofvengeance. The female eats the male for sustenance, not to get even forwhat it did to her young."
Fascinating. As is the fact that the male’s plan would’ve worked, Blasing says, had the female not been present when he attacked the offspring. She would’ve just discovered it dead and gone in to reproductive mode again.
Cut to me programming my DVR to record all new episodes of Jurassic Fight Club. And you?
Comments (1-16) of 16 Add your comment
Clearly, you forgot the first rule of Jurassic Fight Club.
I’ve already set my DVR, thanks for the tip!
You know, I had considered tivo’ing this for my dinosaur-crazy five-year-old. Not gonna happen.
And on that thought, I’m heading out to lunch.
wooow. I’m so watching this now
Mandi, I’m officially in love with you.
Gross! Yet mesmerizing. Interestingly modern Lions and Tigers apparently display the same sort of behavior. Proof that the more things change, the more they remain the same.
wow–what a show! Kept me on the edge of my seat! Great balance of science and drama!
wow–what a show! Kept me on the edge of my seat! Great balance of science and drama!
it makes more sense for female being larger than male as she needs to protect her youngthis show is awesome anyway
those anyone think the looks like a oversized turkey
they make the fights more gruesome and violent and edit with more pg 13 violence
soory i meant to the male looks like an oversized turkey
Jurassic Fight Club ROCKS. Awsome graphics, cool sounds. It puts you in the middle of the fight!
Sorry if this is off topic, but did anyone catch this release this week? Thought it might be of interest to all prehistoric fans.
ACTRESS LANA WOOD ATTACKED
BY 70 FOOT SHARK
Hollywood actress Lana Wood, who once played Plenty O’Toole opposite Sean Connery in the James Bond movie, Diamonds Are Forever, was attacked by what eyewitnesses say was a Megalodon, a 70-foot, 70,000 pound prehistoric cousin of the Great White shark. The attack occurred in the waters off the coast of Monterey, California. . .in the pages of New York Times best-selling author Steve Alten’s new release MEG: Hell’s Aquarium.
Lana Wood, a former Playboy centerfold, has an extensive career in the movies, and wrote a best-selling memoir about her late sister, actress Natalie Wood, back in 1986. She contacted Steve Alten a year ago and asked him to make her a character in his new MEG book, the fourth and best story in the series.
In his review of Hell’s Aquarium, Steve Donoghue, Managing Editor of Open Letters Monthly states, “Alten writes the whole thing in hyperkinetic present tense, with turns and twists in every scene until it squeaks…there’s a scene late in the book involving a shark autopsy that any thriller-writer would give a tonsil to have thought up! The whole thing fizzes with the kind of fun delirium only the most effective giant killer shark novels dare to attempt.”
http://www.wix.com/Meg_HellsAquarium/meg
Sorry if this is off topic, but did anyone catch this release this week? Thought it might be of interest to all prehistoric fans.
ACTRESS LANA WOOD ATTACKED
BY 70 FOOT SHARK
Hollywood actress Lana Wood, who once played Plenty O’Toole opposite Sean Connery in the James Bond movie, Diamonds Are Forever, was attacked by what eyewitnesses say was a Megalodon, a 70-foot, 70,000 pound prehistoric cousin of the Great White shark. The attack occurred in the waters off the coast of Monterey, California. . .in the pages of New York Times best-selling author Steve Alten’s new release MEG: Hell’s Aquarium.
Lana Wood, a former Playboy centerfold, has an extensive career in the movies, and wrote a best-selling memoir about her late sister, actress Natalie Wood, back in 1986. She contacted Steve Alten a year ago and asked him to make her a character in his new MEG book, the fourth and best story in the series.
In his review of Hell’s Aquarium, Steve Donoghue, Managing Editor of Open Letters Monthly states, “Alten writes the whole thing in hyperkinetic present tense, with turns and twists in every scene until it squeaks…there’s a scene late in the book involving a shark autopsy that any thriller-writer would give a tonsil to have thought up! The whole thing fizzes with the kind of fun delirium only the most effective giant killer shark novels dare to attempt.”
http://www.wix.com/Meg_HellsAquarium/meg