History WesternAnimation / PrehistoricBeast

* CanadaEh: The story is set in Alberta, Canada, 65 million years ago during the Late Cretaceous.

* AnAesop: According to Tippett, there is a subtle moral message in this short: Don't be gluttonous and wander off from the group. The ''Monoclonius'' was so caught up in eating the vegetation that it didn't notice it was going into the ''Tyrannosaurus'' territory until it stumbled upon the corpse of the predator's last victim.

* TerrifyingTyrannosaur: The ''T. rex'' is a portrayed as a nightmarish predator that lives the darkest parts of the forest, waiting for unsuspecting prey to venture into the dense woods, isolated from the rest of the herd.

* DaylightHorror: The main story takes place in broad daylight, albeit in the dense woods where very few sunlight rays make it through.

* CurbStompCushion: [[spoiler: While the ''Tyrannosaurus'' wins the fight,]] the ''Monoclonius'' does inflict a stab wound on the carnivore's leg.
* DaylightHorror: The main story takes place in broad daylight.
* DownerEnding: [[spoiler: The ''Monoclonius'' ends up killed and eaten by the ''T. rex''.]]

%%* LightIsNotGood: See DaylightHorror above.

* LightIsNotGood: See DaylightHorror above.

* EverythingsBetterWithDinosaurs

* StockDinosaurs: Played straight with the ''Tyrannosaurus''. The dead dinosaur seen at the beginning being eaten by the ''Tyrannosaurus'' appears to be an ''Edmontosaurus''.

* SeldomSeenSpecies: In place of the popular ''Triceratops'', the lead ceratopsian role here is taken by a ''Monoclonius'', a smaller and earlier relative of Trike itself.

* AnachronismStew: ''Tyrannosaurus'' and ''Monoclonius'' did not live at the same time in the Cretaceous period. One wonders why they couldn't have just used the iconic ''Triceratops'' instead as the lead ceratopsian.

* DaylightHorror: The whole story takes place in broad daylight.

Made with the go motion animation technique, scenes from ''Prehistoric Beast'' were included in the 1985 full length documentary ''Film/Dinosaur1985'', first aired on Creator/{{CBS}} in the United States on November 5, 1985. The film was originally released only for animation festivals, but can now be watched full online in Tippett's official Website/YouTube channel. Available [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hlaXIRTjNfo here]].

* DoubleMeaning: The tagline on the poster reads "Long before there was Franchise/Jurassic Park there was...". This ostensibly means that this happened before that, but one can also read it as how this work came out before JP.

[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/phil_tippett_prehistoric_beast_logo.jpg]]

''Prehistoric Beast'' is a ten-minute long experimental animated film created by Phil Tippett and released in 1984. It is notable for being the first film by the Creator/TippettStudio. Set in Mesozoic times, it tells the story of a ''Monoclonius'' as it is hunted by a ''TyrannosaurusRex''.

* TyrannosaurusRex: The main predator of the film, naturally.

* StockFootage: As mentioned above, stock footage of this film was shown in the documentary ''Dinosaur!'', on which Tippett worked too.

Made with the go motion animation technique, scenes from ''Prehistoric Beast'' were included in the 1985 full length documentary ''[[Film/Dinosaur1985 Dinosaur!]]'', first aired on Creator/{{CBS}} in the United States on November 5, 1985. The film was originally released only for animation festivals, but can now be watched full online in Tippett's official Website/YouTube channel. Available [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hlaXIRTjNfo here]].