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00:00Two hundred fifty million years ago, before the time of the dinosaur.
00:30This is not a reptile, nor a dinosaur, but an early relative of mammals in Ostrancevia.
01:00This is not a reptile, nor a dinosaur, but an early relative of the dinosaur.
01:18This is not a reptile.
01:22This is a reptile.
01:26The Great Dying.
01:51The Permian Extinction.
01:54The most catastrophic extinction event in the history of the planet.
02:07Those that now die, usher in the birth of a new era, with a new cast of characters.
02:20We live on a dinosaur planet.
02:33It is they, not us, who shaped the world we know.
02:35But much of what we knew about dinosaurs is wrong.
02:50Now, a revolution in science has transformed their story, forcing us to look at dinosaurs in revolutionary new ways.
03:03Dinosaurs were more like birds than giant lizards.
03:07They may have nurtured their young, courted their mates, teamed up to kill their competition, and were very successful for a very long time.
03:20Within the past generation, almost everything we thought we knew about dinosaurs has been demonstrated wrong.
03:27Before the dinosaur revolution, people used to refer to dinosaurs as evolutionary dead ends or evolutionary mistakes.
03:35But nothing could be further from the truth.
03:39Dinosaurs are still with us in the form of birds.
03:42And if you count up the species, birds outnumber mammals more than two to one.
03:48When people refer to dinosaurs as evolutionary failures, it flat out makes me angry.
03:55There couldn't be a worse example of an evolutionary failure.
04:00Just how did dinosaurs take over the planet?
04:04It may have been simply a matter of breeding.
04:13The Permian extinction wiped out most of the Earth's population.
04:16But 20 million years later, life has rebounded.
04:23Herds of large proto-mammals called Dicinodonts roam the land.
04:33Early dinosaurs, like Eoraptor, are outnumbered ten to one.
04:46There is more deadly competition.
04:47Saurasuchus, a giant forerunner of the modern-day crocodile.
04:51Saurasuchus, a giant forerunner of the modern-day crocodile.
04:52Saurasuchus, a giant forerunner of the modern-day crocodile.
04:56Saurasuchus, a giant forerunner of the modern-day crocodile.
04:57Saurasuchus, a giant forerunner of the modern-day crocodile.
05:02There is more deadly competition.
05:08Sorosuchus, a giant forerunner of the modern-day crocodile.
05:32A giant forerunner, a giant forerunner.
05:50Welcome to the Eoraptor version of a singles bar.
06:20Welcome to the Eoraptor version of a singles bar.
06:38In this dance, the females take the lead.
07:08The inspection process begins.
07:33As is so often the case, the females call the mating shots.
07:58The females take the lead.
08:08The females take the lead.
08:14The females take the lead.
08:24The females take the lead.
08:30The females take the lead.
08:40The females take the lead.
08:46The females take the lead.
08:56The females take the lead.
09:02The females take the lead.
09:08The females take the lead.
09:20The females take the lead.
09:24The females take the lead.
09:30The females take the lead.
09:40One proto-mammal's loss is our lucky Eoraptor's gain.
09:46And their adventures are just beginning.
10:04Dinosaurs didn't rule the earth for 135 million years without some innovative strategies for perpetuating the species.
10:12Beginning of the 1980s, we started to find more and more nests and eggs of dinosaurs.
10:19We can now say with some confidence that they looked after their young.
10:24And they may have looked after those young in far more sophisticated ways than we once believed.
10:32It's possible that Eoraptor, as far back as the late Triassic, was already engaging in a higher level of parental care than we had seen up to that point in time.
10:42You're ensuring or helping to ensure that your genes get passed on.
10:47And that's why parental care is a very adaptive strategy.
10:50It's a great advantage for animals that practice it.
10:53But they couldn't become parents without eggs.
10:57And those eggs then, as now, are tempting targets for predators.
11:03Probilisodon, a wolverine-like forebear of the first mammals.
11:13Go on!
11:37Just one baby emerges from the nest.
12:07Oh, no, no, no.
12:37Like some modern birds, not only the mothers, but the fathers may have been involved in protecting the offspring.
13:07To be continued...
13:37See you later.
14:07Let's go.
14:37Let's go.
15:07Let's go.
15:37Let's go.
16:07Let's go.
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18:13Mongolia, 70 million years ago.
18:23Meet Gigantoraptor, a creature on a mission.
18:43A new army is not only a full ув Swiss.
18:48A new army is not only an army, but by its own army,
18:52the ontoage is a strong enemy.
18:55And I am a brave man,
18:57and I am not afraid of that.
19:00I am not afraid of this,
19:03but I am still a eldest at a time.
19:06Let me see your friend.
19:08Let me see your own body.
19:11Oh, my God.
19:41Oh, my God.
20:11Oh, my God.
20:41Oh, my God.
21:11Oh, my God.
21:15Dinosaurs aren't the only creatures who take care of their families.
21:18But Gigantoraptor needs to find a mate before he can even think about a family.
21:27The dinosaur revolution has driven science to startling new conclusions about how dinosaurs lived.
21:41And many of the most significant new findings are coming from entirely unexpected new locations.
21:47To me, the most exciting thing in paleontology is simply that we have so much of the world left to explore.
21:58Antarctica is, in a lot of ways, the final frontier in dinosaur paleontology.
22:02The ice of Antarctica has disgorged incredible new fossil discoveries.
22:08Among those discoveries is one of the earliest large carnivorous dinosaurs, a bizarre creature from the early Jurassic named Cryolophosaurus.
22:18You've got to love Cryolophosaurus.
22:21I mean, it wasn't nicknamed Elvasaurus for nothing.
22:24It's got the beautiful comb crest hanging over.
22:27Just a fascinating-looking animal.
22:29So the question, naturally, is what did it do with such a crest?
22:33If the size of the crest was related to how healthy the animal was,
22:37it would have been a way of saying, I'm a really successful Cryolophosaurus.
22:41You'd like my genes.
22:49A female Cryolophosaurus inspects her eggs.
22:52The male helps.
23:22Another male appears.
23:40He's larger.
23:41With a bigger crest.
23:43And he takes advantage of the situation.
23:46A female cryolophosaurus.
23:52A female cryolophosaurus.
23:53A female cryolophosaurus.
23:54A female cryolophosaurus.
23:55A female cryolophosaurus.
23:56A female cryolophosaurus.
23:57A female cryolophosaurus.
23:58A female cryolophosaurus.
23:59A female cryolophosaurus.
24:00A female cryolophosaurus.
24:01A female cryolophosaurus.
24:02A female cryolophosaurus.
24:03A female cryolophosaurus.
24:04A female cryolophosaurus.
24:05A female cryolophosaurus.
24:06A female cryolophosaurus.
24:07A female cryolophosaurus.
24:08A female cryolophosaurus.
24:09A female cryolophosaurus.
24:10A female cryolophosaurus.
24:11A female cryolophosaurus.
24:12A female cryolophosaurus.
24:13A female cryolophosaurus.
24:14A female cryolophosaurus.
24:15A female cryolophosaurus.
24:16Color flushing can attract a mate, but it can also terrify a rival.
24:46Let's go.
25:16Oh, no, no, no, no.
25:46Ah!
25:48Ah!
25:50Ah!
25:52Ah!
25:54Ah!
25:56Ah!
25:58Ah!
26:00Ah!
26:02Ah!
26:04Ah!
26:08Ah!
26:10Ah!
26:12Ah!
26:14Ah!
26:28Ah!
26:30all traces of a previous bloodline must be eliminated.
27:00Even today, there is no starker assertion of power than this, eliminating the
27:30progeny of a competitor.
27:32It's the law of the jungle.
27:35So in the animal world, it's very common to see males competing against each other for
27:41access to females.
27:43So animals will risk life and limb to make sure that their genes get onto the next generation.
27:50The new lion's first job is to kill the cubs of his predecessor.
27:55That sounds very cruel.
27:56It is cruel.
27:58But it makes a lot of evolutionary sense.
28:01Kill those babies and start generating a new brood of your own among the females.
28:07And then you can take care of your own descendants.
28:11Because remember, that's what success is in evolution.
28:17Sometimes, details hidden inside the bones reveal the secrets to a species' evolutionary success.
28:24Here, a fossil is evidence of a prehistoric battle.
28:30A tooth from one of the largest predators ever to swim in the Earth's seas.
28:36The 45-foot-long mosasaur.
28:39Not a dinosaur, but a marine lizard.
28:43A mosasaur had more than 70 of these lethal teeth.
28:47And it knew how to use them.
28:49But on this tooth, a bite mark can be found.
28:55Something tried to kill a killer, and the shape of this bite impression proves it.
29:01This mosasaur tooth was bitten by a shark.
29:05Now, what could drive a shark to bite a huge mosasaur?
29:0975 million years ago, the late Cretaceous.
29:11A vast inland sea covers what is now the Great Plains of Western North America.
29:15A vast inland sea covers what is now the Great Plains of Western North America.
29:45While dinosaurs were taking over the land, some reptiles, like mosasaurs, had returned to the sea.
29:56But, unlike most reptiles, the mosasaur bears her young live far from shore and far from attacks by land-based predators.
30:06A vast
30:29Another of evolution's winners, then, as now,
30:58a killer.
31:28A killer.
31:30A killer.
31:32A killer.
31:34A killer.
31:36A killer.
31:38A killer.
31:40A killer.
31:42A killer.
31:46A killer.
31:48A killer.
31:54A killer.
31:56A killer.
31:58A killer.
32:00A killer.
32:02A Mosasaur weighs ten times
32:31It can swim at speeds up to 30 miles per hour
32:38And is very, very deadly
33:01I'm going to make this one
33:08I'm going to make this one
33:13I'm going to make this one
33:16Let's go!
33:46Even millions of years ago,
34:15a mother's protective instinct is a force of nature that can change the world.
34:29We talk about the Mesozoic as the age of dinosaurs, but it's more than that, because there are
34:35other groups that are successful then too.
34:38For example, in the skies are the pterosaurs, dinosaurs' weird-looking flying cousins.
34:44And in the seas, we saw many different sorts of marine reptiles.
34:49One of the mightiest of these, and the last of them to show up on the scene, was a very
34:53successful group, and that's the mosasaurs.
34:57Mosasaurs became the apex predators of the sea.
35:00If you're a full-grown, large mosasaur, top of the food chain, nothing was going to interfere
35:06with you whatsoever, and you were going to stay there.
35:08They had dislocating jaws, they had two sets of teeth, and anything that was going to
35:12come into contact with them was going to lose.
35:14The closest living relatives of mosasaurs, as best we can tell, are monitor lizards.
35:19That includes things like the Komodo dragon.
35:21Now, one of the primary differences between them is that living monitor lizards universally
35:26lay eggs.
35:27But, mosasaurs gave birth to live young.
35:30Mosasaurs gave live birth, and we can tell that because of a specimen from South Dakota,
35:35where they found a large mosasaur with a juvenile internally, and it was basically giving live
35:41birth.
35:42Giving birth in the water, the mosasaurs may have been able to pick a place where there
35:46weren't as many predators around, and therefore increase the chances that a young would survive.
35:51When the mosasaurs were giving live birth, the females would have been under distress.
35:56There's definitely going to be some blood, and I think that that situation is going to target
36:01some predators to hone in on the area.
36:04If some big sharks like Squalachorax or Catoxyrhina came in, I don't know how much of a chance
36:09they would have really stood.
36:11The mosasaurs were winners.
36:13They were successful in their time.
36:16Their success came in being able to give birth live in water.
36:20And in the end, that is the only measure of success in evolution.
36:25To win, you have to reproduce.
36:29By the time of the early Jurassic, dinosaurs had become the dominant creatures on the planet,
36:36partly because of their successful mating strategies.
36:40They may have lived in families and nurtured their young.
36:44And for many types of dinosaurs, this family could become an extended one.
36:50Some dinosaurs lived in massive herds of dozens, potentially even hundreds of animals.
36:55Some dinosaurs lived in smaller groups, what they call harems, where a male would control a group of females.
37:02For those in the herd, there would be safety in numbers.
37:07But for those on the outside, it was a dangerous world.
37:11And even in a world of giants, there were hidden threats.
37:18threats.
37:19.
37:25.
37:29Let's go.
37:59Let's go.
38:29Let's go.
38:31Let's go.
38:33Their giraffe-like necks are perfect for reaching high branches and the sweet resin.
38:39A male attempts to attract one of the herd's females.
39:02But the master of the harem drives him off.
39:13Without a herd of his own, this male becomes a target.
39:37We have met this crested cryolophosaurus before.
39:55Now he wants dinner.
40:07And he is not alone.
40:16Let's go.
40:24Let's go.
40:28Let's go.
40:36Let's go.
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40:50Let's go.
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41:26A mud bath may not look attractive, but it serves as an organic bug repellent.
41:52A little bad luck goes a long way.
42:13Meet the harem's new master.
42:15Let's go.
42:16Let's go.
42:17Let's go.
42:18Let's go.
42:19Let's go.
42:20Let's go.
42:21Let's go.
42:22Dinosaurs and giant reptiles ruled the Earth for 135 million years.
42:41They must have done something right.
42:46Dinosaurs are frequently portrayed as the poster children for failure.
42:51If it's like a dinosaur, it's dead.
42:53It's extinct.
42:54This is completely wrong.
42:55Completely wrongheaded based on what we know today.
42:58The story of dinosaurs isn't the story of a rise and fall.
43:02It's a success story that began 230 million years ago and that continues today.
43:08Is the dinosaur revolution over?
43:11By no means.
43:12There are all sorts of new frontiers that are opening in dinosaur studies.
43:17The biggest new frontier is what we haven't thought of yet.
43:21We haven't thought of yet.
43:22We haven't thought of yet.
43:28We haven't thought of yet.
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