The Vanished Sea is the third episode of The Future Is Wild, first aired on 16 April 2002. It showcases the Mediterranean Salt Flat of 5 million AD, and features the gryken, scrofa, and cryptile. An HD remaster was released on the official The Future Is Wild YouTube channel on 11 January 2025.
Synopsis[]
On the vast salt pan of the Mediterranean Salt Flat, a female cryptile mates after a brief competition between males, she then heads to an island of limestone karst to lay her eggs in the soil of a gryke. She escapes from a gryken, a predator inhabiting the grykes, which goes on to attack a scrofa. The scrofa also escapes, and the gryken is charged at by an aggressive scrofa boar. A second attack on a scroflet, a baby scrofa, is successful, and in the confusion of the attack, another scroflet wanders off the karst and onto the salt. Exhausted by the heat and lack of water, it ends up at a brine lake, too salty to drink from, where a cryptile is hunting flies. By the next day, the harsh conditions of the salt flat have killed the unfortunate scroflet.
Appearances[]
Organisms[]
Times & places[]
- 5 million AD
- Europe
- Mediterranean Salt Flat
- Human era (stock footage)
Cast[]
- Narrated by Christian Rodska
- Richard Fortey
- Mike Linley
- Stephen Harris
Crew[]
- Written by Victoria Coules
- Principal Scientific Advisors: Neill Alexander, Stephen Harris, Mike Linley, Roy Livermore, Paul Valdes
- Images developed by Dougal Dixon
- Animation: 422
- Animation Director: Peter Bailey
- Compositing Director: Mike Shirra
- Graphic Directors: Kate Finding, Nicky Thompson
- Photography: Kevin Flay
- Sound: Kevin Meredith
- Film Editor: Liz Thoyts
- Sound Design: Paul Cowgill
- Music Composer: Nicholas Hooper
- Dubbing Mixer: Graham Wild
- Digital Post Production: Sue Land
- Online: Pink House Post Production
- Production Team: Jeremy Cadle, Clare Dornan
- Researchers: Belinda Biggam, John Capener
- Film Researcher: Lawrence Breen
- Library Footage: BBC, Granada Visual Wildlife, Australian Broadcasting Corporation
- Production Co-ordinator: Kensa Duncan
- Production Manager: Wolfgang Knopfler
- Producer: Paul Reddish
- Series Producers: Paul Reddish, Steve Nicholls
- Executive Producers: John Adams, Daniela Bagliani, Walter Köhler, Ruth Omphalius, Dawn Sinsel, Emanuela Spinetta
- Thanks to Ingleborough National Nature Reserve
Watch online[]
Notes[]
- On IMDb, the episode has a rating of 8.0/10 based on 25 reviews.[1]
- The portions of this episode set on the limestone karst plateaus were filmed at Ingleborough National Nature Reserve, which is noted for its "great expanse of limestone pavement," in the United Kingdom. The real limestone plateaus there are known as "White Scars" and "Twistleton Scars".
Gallery[]
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References[]
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