Ep 7. Fire and Ice

In the seventh episode of Animal Armageddon season 1, titled "Fire and Ice," viewers are taken on a journey through two iconic prehistoric epochs – the Pleistocene and the Permian, which are both defined by brutal environments that tested the survival skills of the world's deadliest creatures.

In the Pleistocene epoch, viewers meet a cast of dangerous animals that once thrived in a time when the planet was plunged into a deep freeze. In North America, for example, herds of woolly mammoths roamed the tundra, while sabre-toothed tigers stalked their prey across the snow-covered plains.

However, the cold wasn't the only challenge these creatures faced. As few plants could survive in the harsh tundra, much of their food had to come from the less-frozen forests at the southern end of their domain, which led to the creatures having to migrate long distances in order to survive. This created enormous pressure on their populations, and when ice sheets began to recede around 10,000 years ago, the world saw the extinction of some of its most iconic animals.

The Permian, on the other hand, took place millions of years earlier, when Earth was a drastically different place. Instead of being covered in ice, it was a boiling hot world, with volcanoes spewing ash and lava across vast swathes of land. This created a fiercely inhospitable environment, where animals had to evolve in order to survive.

One such animal was the dinocephalian, a mammal-like reptile that roamed the steaming plains of Russia during the Permian era. As viewers learn in "Fire and Ice," these herding animals were among the largest creatures of their time, and they had unique adaptations that enabled them to both feed and protect themselves in their dangerous environment.

However, even for animals as well-adapted as the dinocephalians, life in the Permian was exceptionally difficult. In addition to predators like the giant saber-toothed gorgonopsids, they also faced threats from massive volcanic explosions that could darken the sky and choke them with ash and smoke.

Despite these challenges, the Permian saw the rise of a diverse array of animals that would go on to shape the course of Earth's evolution for millions of years to come. However, it was also marked by catastrophic extinctions, including the catastrophic event that extinguished around 90 percent of all marine species and 70 percent of all terrestrial vertebrates roughly 250 million years ago.

"Fire and Ice" brings these two epochs together in a fascinating exploration of how the world's deadliest creatures adapted to two very different environments. With stunning animations, expert insights, and plenty of dramatic re-enactments, this episode of Animal Armageddon offers a window into a past that few of us can truly imagine.