How accurate is "Primeval"?

"Primeval" is likely to be as accurate as it can be with the information that we have available to date. However, to appeal to a wide audience, it may be that sometimes the sounds, behaviour or stories surrounding the animals are more exaggerated.

Fossil skeletons and trace fossils can tell us a lot about the animals they represent and how they may have behaved. Everything from the shape of the bones, the size of the skeleton, the position of the bones, the stomach remains, etc can give vital clues to how prehistoric animals once stood, moved, ate, etc. The fossils may also be compared to animals alive today that live in similar environments or have similarly positioned bones in the skeleton.

While it is very rare, dinosaur skin is occasionally preserved as a fossil. Here at Bristol's City Museum & Art Gallery, we have the fossilised skin of a Scelidosaurus. While we may never know the colour of the skin for sure, we are able to determine its texture from the fossil. The colour of the skin is guesswork, helped by examining the skin of similar animals that are alive today, eg other reptiles, in similar environments. By also looking at the bone structure of prehistoric animals, scientists can discover how the muscles may have been positioned on the skeleton. Using this method, scientists have an idea of how prehistoric animals may have looked on the outside with the skin attached!

I have recently watched the first two series of Primeval on DVD just to be able to answer this question and others like it.

The animals in the show tend to be rather exaggerated - bigger, faster, smarter and more vicious than the real animals were likely to be. They also tend to behave in rather dubious ways (particularly when it comes to hunting and feeding). However, behaviour can be quite freely interpreted since most of what we 'know' is based on living relatives, the occasional piece of preserved behaviour (trackways etc.) and interpretation of how morphology might be used. I would argue that most of what is 'known' about fossil organisms is actually derived from clues that have a variety of interpretations. If the reconstruction accounts for the clues it cannot be considered wrong, even if it falls outside the currently accepted range of interpretation.

Then again, the human behaviour in the programme is rather unbelievable at times, so I have my doubts about the other animals...

I also have problems with the scientists and their half-baked pseudo-scientific philosophising. For experts in their field they really have a poor grasp of logic and basic scientific principles and as for some of the outfits...