University of Southampton paleobiologist Dr Neil Gostling provided expert advice for the Netflix series The Dinosaurs, which launches today.
And former undergraduate and master's student at the university, Thomas Land, was a science researcher on the series.
Dr Gostling, Associate Professor in Evolution and Paleobiology, shared his research and expertise on spinosaurs for the four-part documentary, produced by Steven Spielberg and narrated by Morgan Freeman.
The spinosaur expert contributed to the show by detailing the sensory and feeding styles of the dinosaurs - an area of palaeontology he has researched for 10 years.
He said: "It was very exciting to take part behind-the-scenes in The Dinosaurs, I was delighted to be asked to share my research and am excited to see it go to air.
"There are parts of the show - including the opening scene of the trailer that depicts a Spinosaurus's open jaws underwater waiting to strike - that I directly informed. Hunting like that is what many palaeobiologists believe the Spinosaurus did. Many researchers believe its hunting style was very much jaws in the water or jabbing, like a heron, rather than swimming and hunting underwater like a shark.
"It's really exciting that research on spinosaurs, as a group, that we have worked on for years, and ideas we have had about how this dinosaur family lived, are being shared in this fantastic programme."
Dr Gostling was approached to take part in research for the documentary by his former student and now TV researcher and producer, Thomas Land, who was working for production company Silverback Films.
His expertise features in Episode 3 of The Dinosaurs, now available on Netflix.
Dr Gostling's research and expertise also received international prominence in 2023 when he featured in the Sir David Attenborough documentary Attenborough and the Giant Sea Monster.
Watch the trailer for The Dinosaurs:
