Montana's badlands may be a rugged place better suited for rattlesnakes than camera crews. But as the unforgiving landscape gives up one dinosaur find after another, the rattlesnakes, it appears, may have to get used to company.

During the past few years film crews from the BBC and the Discovery Channel have brought international attention to Montana and its famed paleontologist Jack Horner. Documentaries like "Valley of the T. rex" and "T. rex: Warrior or Wimp," have played to a dinosaur-loving audience far beyond the Big Sky.

Now, a new documentary is in the works as the Discovery Channel plans to nationally broadcast updates from a Montana dino dig for two weeks this summer.

"What they're trying to do is bring paleontology discoveries to their viewers as they happen," said Jamie Cornish, marketing director of the Museum of the Rockies in Bozeman. "For two weeks solid they'll bring that day's updates to their viewers."

Cornish said the updates will be posted on the channel's Website. The segments will also be aired on the Discovery Channel weekdays at 6 p.m. between July 25 and Aug. 7.

Excavation teams from the Museum of the Rockies will dig at several locations throughout Montana this summer. Crews will continue working the Hell Creek site near Fort Peck as well as the Egg Mountain site near Choteau, which was recently christened the Beatrice Taylor Paleontology Research Site.

The Discovery Channel, however, will focus on a new dig in north-central Montana, where a team of paleontologists will excavate three duck-billed dinosaurs.

"They're approximately 75 million years old," Cornish said. "What's important about that is that it's a period in which we have found very few dinosaurs. It will be interesting to see what those dinosaurs tell us."

The presence of television cameras and stage crews at a Montana dinosaur dig is nothing new. On Monday, the Discovery Channel aired a segment of the "Valley of the T. rex," which featured Horner wandering Montana's famed Hell Creak Formation in search of fossils.

Hell Creek has revealed several T. rex fossils during the past few years. It also has helped fuel the argument on whether the animal was a scavenger, as Horner believes, or a hunter.

The BBC has posted the transcripts from its recent documentary, "T. rex: Warrior or Wimp," on its Webpage. In the show, Horner defends his theory that the dinosaur was ill-equipped as a hunter.

"For years, people had just assumed that T. rex was a killer," Horner said in the show. "No one questioned it -- it was sort of ingrained into everyone's minds from the time they were kids to grownups."

Horner also argues on "Valley of the T. rex" that the dinosaur was a poor hunter -- if it hunted at all. Brain castings suggest the animal had a superb sense of smell but poor eyesight. Measurements taken from its leg bones suggest it adapted to long walks over millions of years, yet it couldn't run as a hunter.

T. rex's arms, Horner added, were practically useless. Its teeth and powerful jaws, however, could crush bone -- perfect for a prehistoric scavenger left with the toughest pieces of gristle and meat.

"What's exciting is, the science doesn't progress unless there's controversy," Cornish said. "Horner is very much open to this debate and these issues."

Cornish said the Discovery Channel has given the Museum of the Rockies a grant to help fund its digs. While Horner may not be accustomed to the camera, Cornish said, he sees it as a tool for education -- one of his primary aims.

Jack Henderson, executive director of Discovery.com, visited the Hell Creek site in 2000 to begin filming.

"Horner could probably find a bone sliver in a haystack," Henderson reported. "He's got a reputation, even among fellow researchers and his graduate students, for his ability to spot dinosaurs and fossilized bones where others see only a maze of textures in the dust."

Reporter Martin Kidston can be reached at 447-4086, or at mkidston@helenair.com