- 3 months ago
- #giantsofpatagonia
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Documentary, Dinosaurs, Giants of Patagonia 2007 -2 Lizard Kings
#DinosaursGiantsofPatagonia #GiantsofPatagonia #Dinosaurs
#Documentary
"Dinosaurs 3D" takes an in-depth look at the world of some of the largest dinosaurs, Giganotosaurus and Argentinosaurus among them, with never-before-seen computer-generated footage. Filmed in collaboration with some renowned scientists, it challenges the dimensions of the giant screen.
If it weren't for a series of cataclysmic events, a comet impact being first on the list, our planet could well still be the domain of dinosaurs. Following Pr. Rodolfo Coria, a world-renowned Argentinian paleontologist, we visit sites of major discoveries he has contributed to in Patagonia and travel back in time to see these amazing beasts come to life in 3D. Patagonia has given us the largest living animal to ever walk the Earth: the titanesque plant-eating Argentinosaurus, and its nemesis, the Giganotosaurus, a bipedal carnivore that could easily challenge the famous T-Rex.
#DinosaursGiantsofPatagonia #GiantsofPatagonia #Dinosaurs
#Documentary
"Dinosaurs 3D" takes an in-depth look at the world of some of the largest dinosaurs, Giganotosaurus and Argentinosaurus among them, with never-before-seen computer-generated footage. Filmed in collaboration with some renowned scientists, it challenges the dimensions of the giant screen.
If it weren't for a series of cataclysmic events, a comet impact being first on the list, our planet could well still be the domain of dinosaurs. Following Pr. Rodolfo Coria, a world-renowned Argentinian paleontologist, we visit sites of major discoveries he has contributed to in Patagonia and travel back in time to see these amazing beasts come to life in 3D. Patagonia has given us the largest living animal to ever walk the Earth: the titanesque plant-eating Argentinosaurus, and its nemesis, the Giganotosaurus, a bipedal carnivore that could easily challenge the famous T-Rex.
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🐳
AnimalsTranscript
00:00This is Patagonia, a primordial landscape unlike anywhere on earth, and is bordered
00:23by the Andes mountains to the west and south, plateau and low plains to the east.
00:34Here it feels as though time stands entirely still, as if the age when dinosaurs walked
00:44these plains was, but a moment ago, and a heartbeat away.
01:14Professor Rodolfo Correa is director of the Carmen Funes Museum in Nucan Province, Argentina.
01:23He's best known for the field study and co-naming of the Argentinosaur, the world's largest land
01:29animal, and the Gigantosaur, a carnivore even bigger than T-Rex.
01:37When it comes to really big dinosaurs, simply put, Rodolfo is the man.
01:43My first fossil was not found in a field of tradition.
01:47I found my first fossil in a shelf in a collection of a museum, and I think that was a love of
01:55first sight.
02:00Correa loves his native Argentina, and his love of the land perfectly echoes his passion for
02:05prehistory.
02:06Here, soil erosion has laid bare the story of this land's prehistoric inhabitants for all
02:12to see.
02:16This is dinosaur country.
02:18I would have to go to the field, to go to the countryside, in expeditions.
02:24Many times we have to spend several weeks in the field, away from any human contact.
02:33And in that extreme conditions, of course, there are some risks that show up.
02:49They straddle the line between fact and fiction, these beasts.
02:53Had they never existed, we probably would have dreamt them into being.
02:58Creatures as big as our collective imaginations, as fierce as our darkest nightmares now, vanished
03:04from sight.
03:05It takes a unique camera to capture them.
03:15In this case, an IMAX rig weighing nearly 300 pounds, film stock so rugged it could pull
03:22a truck, and a team of producers, directors and digital whiz kids bent on doing the impossible.
03:32And they'll be doing it all in 3D, a total immersive experience.
03:38Just another on the list of daunting challenges for an IMAX team who believe they can bring
03:42these creatures to life, undaunted by the fact that their star actors have been stone cold
03:49dead for millions of years.
03:56Join us as we venture to the wilds of Patagonia.
04:00Join us in on the wonders of stereoscopic vision and watch prehistory collide with digital
04:06culture to produce dinosaurs, giants of Patagonia.
04:12Dinosaurs, giants of Patagonia paints a meticulous picture of a lost world, allowing us a glimpse
04:19into what the earth looked like when Argentinosaur and Gigantosaur called it home.
04:22As you'll be with us on this journey back in time, we're going to ask you to join us in a little prehistoric trivia, a pop quiz on the Cretaceous
04:26period.
04:27But don't worry, we're not going to take it too seriously.
04:33We're not going to take it too seriously, and you shouldn't either.
04:40Welcome armchair paleontologists.
04:41Come on in, grab a cup of joe and join us.
04:46It's Cretaceous as we kick back way back into prehistory.
04:53Sharpen your pencils and get ready.
04:54It's trivia time.
04:55Okay.
04:56The dinosaurs range from the Cretaceous.
04:57But don't worry, we're not going to take it too seriously.
05:00But don't worry, we're not going to take it too seriously.
05:02And you shouldn't either.
05:04Welcome armchair paleontologists.
05:06Come on in, grab a cup of joe and join us.
05:10It's Cretaceous as we kick back way back into prehistory.
05:16Sharpen your pencils and get ready.
05:19It's trivia time.
05:21Okay.
05:22The dinosaurs' reign came to an end in the late Cretaceous due to either a comet or an
05:28asteroid smashing into the earth forever changing the planet's climate.
05:33Now here's the question.
05:35This unhappy event occurred.
05:38A. 65 million years ago.
05:41B. 650 million years ago.
05:45Or C. On a rainy night in the late 1980s.
05:52I'm sorry.
05:53The dinosaurs had millions of years, but you don't.
05:56Time's up.
05:58For those of you who chose C. On a rainy night in the late 1980s.
06:02I'm sorry.
06:03You may have confused the demise of the mighty dinosaur with the breakup of Duran Duran.
06:09It's a common mistake.
06:10Better luck next time.
06:12For those of you who chose B. 650 million years ago.
06:17I'm afraid you two are in error.
06:19Although this is about the time the humble sponge came into being.
06:24And for those of you who chose A.
06:26Well bingo.
06:27You're all over it.
06:28It was indeed a scant 65 million years ago that our little blue planet got smacked.
06:33The rest is history.
06:35Prehistory.
06:36And now back to our program.
06:40Behind this ambitious project lie two remarkable individuals.
06:45Paleontologist Rodolfo Correa and the film's writer and director Mark Fafard.
06:53Rodolfo is a scientist, so he's an inquisitive mind to start with.
06:58And being someone very curious myself, I relate to other curious people.
07:05And I think that people having quests can share with other people having quests.
07:15For the director, the match with Rodolfo Correa is a good one.
07:18They both have oversized passions.
07:20It's a very unique scenario to show just a moment in life of these dinosaurs, of these
07:30Patagonian dinosaurs.
07:31Roll camera.
07:32In action.
07:35Fafard is known as a trailblazer in the realm of large format filmmaking.
07:40Dinosaurs and Giants of Patagonia is only his latest foray into IMAX.
07:50It's a medium he knows well.
08:05Fafard's groundbreaking film, Adrenaline Rush, explored the thrill of skydiving.
08:13Taking viewers on an unforgettable journey into extreme sport.
08:35In Viking's journey to new worlds, Fafard brought fresh insight into a remarkable period of discovery.
08:43Viewers were given front row seats in an epic tale of exploration and adventure.
08:53Now Fafard is involved in an even greater challenge.
08:56To film the unfilmable, to bring prehistory to life, to tame it, and to bring it in here for all of us to see.
09:05The truth of the matter is that making movies about extinct creatures is a tricky proposition.
09:24Doubly so on the big screen, and exponentially more difficult working in three dimensions.
09:31But that's exactly what the team creating dinosaurs, Giants of Patagonia, have set out to do.
09:37Whatever it takes.
09:40Today, this haunting landscape is temporary home for a small group of filmmakers determined to bring Patagonia's original inhabitants back to life.
09:52We're trying to mimic what life looked like 85 million years ago.
10:02We're trying to mimic what life looked like 85 million years ago.
10:06We're on this mission of working with invisible subjects, and that is exceedingly difficult.
10:12Okay, stand by, three, two, one, action!
10:16Shooting a subject that's extinct is the fact that it's not there, it's not in front of us.
10:22We have to pretend that it's moving.
10:24This remote part of Patagonia forms the perfect backdrop for their film and the ideal setting for our story.
10:36A place big and strange enough that for a moment we can allow ourselves to imagine a world where such extraordinary creatures drew breath, roamed free, and ruled all they surveilled.
10:52Shooting in isolated areas of Patagonia is only part of the challenge Fafard must face.
11:10He must also tame a range of advanced technologies in order to bring Coria's extraordinary discoveries to life.
11:17It's a complex recipe involving large format film plates, computer imaging, and digital composition.
11:24What will make this film about dinosaurs different from every film made about dinosaurs is that this one will literally carry the audience in the Cretaceous.
11:36This movie, in this kind of format, with this technology, is a brand new experience for me.
11:45The large format film, especially in 3D and stereoscopic view, it's a real good way to show those dinosaurs in their real environment.
11:53By coming to this movie, people will travel back in time. That's what, you know, the greatest part of the experience would be.
12:00To make the journey convincing requires a thorough understanding of how we perceive the world around us.
12:29Specifically, how our vision works. To create a sense of depth perception that transports us into the moment.
12:36Seeing in stereo is something so commonplace we rarely think about what it involves.
12:41But, making that happen in a movie theater requires an in-depth understanding of optics and how to use that to the filmmaker's advantage.
12:51Before you go rushing out to shoot your own 3D movie, you'd best wrap your head around the concept of stereoscopic vision.
13:03Because 3D movies employ a lot of highly technical stuff just to achieve what our eyes do naturally.
13:093D vision occurs because both of our eyes share pretty much the same field of vision.
13:15Horses, for instance, with eyes on the sides of their head, see almost completely different things out of each eye, resulting in very limited depth perception.
13:24Whereas we see the same visual information twice, from slightly different perspectives.
13:34Our brain, using a process known as stereopsis,
13:40then combines the two images into one, and voila! Depth perception is born!
13:46For the IMAX guys, replicating the process involves shooting with two lenses, recording two different perspectives on two rolls of film.
13:57When it comes to showing the movie, the projector uses polarized filters on the lenses to beam two slightly different images onto the same screen.
14:08Polarized glasses ensure viewers receive one image in each eye.
14:14The brain does the rest, combining the two images into one stereoscopic picture, despite the fact the screen and the images are actually flat.
14:25It's a textbook case of movie magic.
14:29And it's tricky to do, requiring exact calibration.
14:33Get it wrong by a fraction of an inch, and all you'll do is give the audience an IMAX-sized headache.
14:40Do it right, and you've got one of the most impressive and immersive technologies on offer.
14:47Throw in state-of-the-art computer graphics and a few dozen thundering reptiles,
14:52and you've got dinosaurs, giants of Patagonia.
14:56The perfect recipe for folks who like their prehistory big, bold, up close, and personal.
15:03You would think that you could just take a camera and plant it and pretend that life is going to move in front of it.
15:17We used measuring sticks to show us how high the shoulder of these dinosaurs were, and also their depth and their breadth and their length.
15:30You know, when we get all these elements out in front of the camera, you realize that these things were enormous.
15:37And in many cases, we had to back up and expand the frame because we just hadn't given enough room to have a full-scale dinosaur.
15:46And it was our first take of Dino 3D!
16:02The audience of large format movies likes to travel.
16:17Patagonia is such an exotic and beautiful place that they will get their share of exoticism.
16:23shooting in such a remote area is a unique challenge.
16:38It's not like a Hollywood back lot with hot and cold running everything.
16:42everything this crew is smack dab in the middle of nowhere and everything is a challenge
16:53in documentary filmmaking we're faced with many different hazards and challenges
16:59in argentina it was basically the terrain the weather the wind there's days when
17:06people don't even come out of their homes because the wind is too strong and it's too dangerous
17:11light patagonian breeze patagonia it's a little bit windy but it's not chilling
17:18you know we face lots of different hazards we're working with heavy gear and we're moving it around
17:23on unbearable terrain sometimes and hauling a 300 pound camera down the sides of riverbeds
17:29crevasses and whatever that's very challenging
17:40for faffard and his team all the frustrations of working on location would be worthwhile if they
17:54could get the kind of footage needed to tell the story convincingly faffard is looking for realism
18:01bringing together the exact elements that would transport the viewer into rodolfo coria's prehistoric
18:07world which is what's so irresistible about large format filmmaking the imax experience is an immersive
18:15one where filmmakers are able to have their subject matter reach out and touch you that's what happens
18:22with imax 3d it's really as if you've been transported to another world alas we are not boasting quite the
18:31same horsepower here on the small screen and we are missing a third dimension to boot but
18:36we do have some very cool paleontological trivia to fill the void so get ready for the next round
18:51welcome our chair paleontologists come on in as we get totally old school
18:56it's cretaceous join us as we kick back way back into prehistory it's trivia time and only one
19:08question stands between you and paleontological greatness and here it is dinosaurs are divided into
19:16two main groups psoricia and ornithisia according to what criteria is this division made a their hip structure
19:27b their choice of habitat or c their choice of diet oh i'm sorry your time is up for those of you who chose b
19:38choice of habitat congratulations are in order for choosing such a plausible criteria unfortunately nobody ever thought of it
19:46before clever but wrong for those that selected c choice of diet well what can we say brilliant choice but
19:54also wrong which leaves us with a their hip structure no kidding that's it bird hips or reptile hips
20:04that's what it's all about in the dinosaur classification game now you know stranger still
20:11the bird sight is sericea not ornithisia even though you'd think it was the other way around
20:18what can we say paleontology is flat out weird and that's all we have time for back to our program
20:28in the end of course the dinosaurs didn't make it ending up in textbooks and museums rather than
20:35basking in the sun and chasing down prey but don't get too cocky dinosaurs dominated the earth for 180
20:43million years as for whether we'll make it anywhere near that long is a very open question but that's
20:50a story for another day what we do know is that if the fart and his team are successful then for the first
20:58time we'll be able to watch life-sized dinosaurs in a theater in three dimensions
21:12to fafard's way of thinking large format filmmaking and dinosaurs are the perfect meeting between medium
21:19and subject matter pushing it to the third dimension is just the next logical step on the road to actually
21:25slipping back into prehistory and one of the long dead stars of the film the argentinosaur and giganitosaur well
21:36in many respects that's where our story really begins
21:56like all good stories this one begins in a land far away and a long long time ago more specifically
22:04about 90 million years ago when the world was young and human life was but a darwinistic twinkle
22:11in a far distant future to put it simply the neighborhood was a little on the rough side
22:18populated as it was by a scaly assortment of predators
22:23most of whom viewed each other as so many potential menu items
22:30the biggest of the lot was argentinosaur the largest heaviest beast that ever lived
22:37it was a herbivore which must have been something of a relief to well pretty much everybody else
22:44the argentinosaurus the biggest dinosaur ever found so far on earth was discovered in january of 1989
22:59in a tiny town called plaza wingo in the north western patagonia in argentina every backbone of argentinosaurus is
23:07the size of the size of a refrigerator
23:13we were able to reconstruct a whole skeleton of this animal and it's shown a 40 meters long 100 feet long
23:23dinosaur 80 100 tons in weight and this dinosaur lived 90 million years ago in patagonia
23:33to look up at this incredible monster getting under it was like entering a cathedral of bones
23:50the meat eating end of the spectrum was the giganitosaur
24:04weighing in at nearly eight tons this was one beefy lizard
24:08not a creature you'd want to encounter in a dark alley or on a sunny day for that matter
24:19rodolfo correa and his colleagues are discovering more about these marvelous creatures every day
24:25but they are still beings filled with mystery it has always been this way
24:31back in 1842 a gentleman by the name of sir richard owen invented the term dinosaur which roughly
24:43translates to terrible lizard it's a great name it'd be a pretty good name for a rock bear but it brought
24:49with it a number of associations that may be flat out wrong you see once you call these things lizards
24:57you start thinking of them as lizards and that's the mother of all assumptions for instance you
25:03begin to think of them as cold-blooded because they're lizards right actually owen thought they
25:10were warm-blooded but by the first half of the 20th century scientists determined that owen was wrong
25:17and the dinosaurs were actually cold-blooded and that was the case for a while until well they
25:24changed their minds and now the thinking is more in line with sir owen with general agreement that
25:30these creatures were in many respects warm-blooded the truth is that the terms cold-blooded and warm-blooded
25:38are falling out of favor somewhat as we discover that body temperature can be maintained in a number of
25:44different ways the current thinking is that large dinosaurs may have been gigantotherms
25:52maintaining their body heat by virtue of huge body mass so now you know but just to be safe we'll be
26:01checking back with the experts in another 50 years to see if they've changed their minds again
26:11warm-blooded or cold-blooded the very thought of a hungry gigantosaur is enough to give you the chills
26:1845 feet of pure carnivore interestingly enough the one you're looking at here is a pretty recent
26:26example of the species having been born not from an egg
26:30but in a digital design studio in quebec city
26:42although many of the dinosaurs for the film were created in a computer the lead dinosaurs were made
26:48the old-fashioned way no not by a couple of amorous reptiles after a bottle of wine but by sculptors
26:55working with traditional tools the work is painstaking and the attention to detail is exact
27:04these are the stars of the film and no detail is too small rodolfo coria works closely with the
27:12artists to ensure the creatures are accurate reflections of his conception of what these beasts looked like
27:18the dinosaurs need to be transported very carefully to canada's capital city of ottawa where they will
27:30be scanned using advanced laser scanners to produce digital information that can be imported into the
27:36team's computers and thereby beginning their journey back to their home in patagonia
27:42in nature the argentinosaur reached lengths of up to 120 feet and weighed in at upwards of 100 tons
27:54even in the digital realm these creatures are massive computer generated images are created out of tiny
28:02polygons which together create the shape and surfaces of the creatures on screen
28:07these are compositions of unsurpassed realism multi-gigabyte images that in computer terms
28:16make the dinosaurs of jurassic park look well prehistoric by comparison
28:31and these are not just pretty pictures
28:33they represent the coming together of computer modeling the latest scientific research and advanced
28:42mathematics for every dinosaur you see in this film we had to create the skeleton the envelope which
28:50is the skin and also the muscles what's fantastic about the skeleton is that we have complete control
28:55over it we created a character setup which is transforming the skeleton into like a digital puppet
29:01and with the controllers we can affect in different areas in ways like for instance rotation or
29:08translation the dinosaur to figure out how dinosaur would move we look at other animals in nature to
29:14see how they would react how the weight shift and all the the subtleties of the motion so our dinosaurs
29:20have parts of parts of elephants parts of reptiles birds all combined together
29:35so
29:39so
29:43so
29:47so
29:49Striding among the greats of 19th century paleontology was Othniel Charles Marsh, a veritable giant
30:12in the field, whose work included some early studies on the Stegosaurus, specifically on
30:19its brains. And the plural is applicable here, because there was some thought that the Stegosaurus
30:25had two, count them, two brains. One comparatively small thing in its head, the other nearly 20
30:33times bigger, located, well, the other brain was thought to be in its hindmost region,
30:41um, around its tail. The jury's still out as to what this second, larger part of the nervous
30:48system was all about. Some believe it provided a form of glucose. Whatever it was, it turns
30:54out not to be unique to the Stegosaurus. It's an anatomical feature that occurs in many reptiles.
31:00The creature's actual brain was only about three ounces, which isn't a lot of grey matter
31:05to power four and a half tons of Stegosaurus. So any help in the brain department would have
31:10been appreciated. Although the relationship between the two organs remains a bit of a
31:14mystery. We're pretty sure now it wasn't actually a second brain. But for a long time, paleontologists
31:21weren't sure. They were, you might say, of two minds about the whole thing.
31:28Now you have to admit that's pretty strange, a creature with a brain in its butt. You know
31:34what they say. Two heads are better than one, regardless of where it's located. Now before
31:40we move on, let's take another moment for a quick round of trivia.
31:46Welcome armchair paleontologists. Come on in. Mi casa su casa. It's Cretaceous. Join us
31:59as we kick back way back into prehistory. Sharpen your pencils and get ready. It's trivia time.
32:07And our topic today is stuff that's older than dinosaurs. Sure, they're old, but dinosaurs
32:13weren't the first living creatures to take up residence here on planet Earth. In fact,
32:19a number of species still with us predate the dinosaur, including all of the following except
32:26one. Can you spot the imposter? A. Jellyfish. B. Dragonflies. And C. Cocker Spaniels. I'm afraid
32:40your time's up. For those of you who chose A. Jellyfish, we're sorry to inform you that
32:46the jellyfish was a well-established resident hereabouts long before the dinosaur. So you
32:51would be, how can we put this kindly, totally wrong. For those of you who chose B. Dragonflies,
32:58you join the losers over with the jellyfish people. Our friends the dragonfly have been around
33:04for nearly 400 million years, a veritable arrival on the Mayflower in prehistory terms. And for
33:12those clever folk who chose C. Cocker Spaniels, well, we're speechless. You're right. Our fluffy
33:18friend the Spaniel is a relative newcomer, belonging to the genus Canis familiaris, domesticated from
33:25wolves a scant 15,000 years ago. Well, that's all we have time for. Back to our program.
33:31Dinosaurs. Giants of Patagonia is about more than the huge reptiles that made the Triassic
33:38such a bizarre and awe-inspiring place. Filmmakers also investigated other extraordinary beasts,
33:46including some of a more aquatic bent, like my personal favorite, Leopleurodon, a sea creature
33:53that makes Australia's white sharks look like guppies.
33:56A silent killing machine they believe may have reached lengths in excess of 70 feet. Its trademark
34:14dental work was comprised of a lethal hybrid of teeth and tusks. The Leopleurodon sampled water
34:22through its nostrils, smelling in stereo as it were, making it an extremely able hunter. As for predators,
34:33the Leopleurodon had none. I mean really, what the heck is going to eat that thing?
34:40If 3D computer wizardry is complex with land creatures, it's doubly so with the things that lived underwater.
34:48Not only is there the challenge of creating the surrounding structures and the beast itself, but even the water,
34:55the currents and the surrounding fish and plankton have to be built and animated in order to produce an underwater sequence so real.
35:03While so real, we're almost tempted to hold our breath.
35:14It turns terrifying. It turns surprising. The enduring appeal of dinosaurs lies in their otherness.
35:22Their utter strangeness to us and the world we inhabit has fascinated paleontologists for more than a hundred years.
35:33Of course, it was so long ago and everything was so different from the way that it is today that nearly anything seems possible.
35:44Because what we're talking about here is an enormous sweep of time.
35:49Something paleontologists often refer to as deep time.
35:52The thing that's amazing about dinosaurs is that they've been around for 180 million years.
36:08They were very successful. They've been dominating the planet for much longer than we did.
36:12And that's where we get into an ocean that we call deep time. How do you understand time at this scale?
36:21I think we're fascinated by dinosaurs because they're part of us.
36:26Not because we've lived among them, but because they incarnate the sum of our fears.
36:31To understand dinosaurs, you've got to have a sense of time on a scale that's rather difficult to fathom.
36:42We tend to think in terms of weeks and years.
36:46But when you start measuring the age of our planet, the scale becomes immense.
36:51In Canada's Northwest Territories, they've discovered rocks that date from 3,500 million years ago or 3.5 billion years ago.
37:05Whichever number you find easier to comprehend.
37:10The Earth itself is estimated to be over 4.5 billion years old.
37:14Imagine this screen, all 52 by 72 feet of it, as representing the total age of the Earth.
37:23Now for some perspective, let's compare that with the average human lifespan.
37:28There. That's speck.
37:32That's the blink of an eye that the average human life amounts to.
37:35A pinprick in deep time.
37:38Fafard's challenge as a director is to try and take the audience by the hand
37:42and make that great traverse across deep time.
37:46Dinosaurs roamed the Earth for 180 million years.
37:50We've been here, in our latest incarnation, for about 160 at that time.
37:55And over the last 150 years or so, we've turned our attention towards the planet's earlier inhabitants.
38:03And to be honest, it's been something of a mixed success.
38:07Which brings to mind the cautionary tale of the Archaeoraptor.
38:12In 1999, a remarkable discovery emerged when a potential missing link between dinosaurs and birds was unveiled.
38:20The extraordinary new specimen was dubbed Archaeoraptor.
38:23There was considerable excitement at the news.
38:25Even the prestigious publication National Geographic covered it.
38:29Then some killjoy noticed that the fossil's tail had been glued on and came from a different creature entirely.
38:34And so the short, unhappy story of the Archaeoraptor came to an abrupt halt.
38:41But questions about birds and dinosaurs persisted and are the source of much confusion and some acrimony amongst paleontologists.
38:48Dinosaurs' skeletons, their footprints so much about them, are reminiscent of birds that we can't help but wonder what links exist between them.
38:58Recent fossil discoveries in China suggest some dinosaurs, for at least a portion of their lives, had feathers.
39:03For many of us, this requires a bit of imagination.
39:07Envisioning our old friend Velociraptor, for instance, sporting feathers like some giant carnivorous chicken.
39:13Still, the existence of feathers doesn't necessarily mean they could fly, much less that they were birds.
39:19Feathers make excellent insulation, so it was probably just that.
39:23A little something extra to keep a cold dinosaur warm on a chilly Cretaceous evening.
39:27And the truth is, if you ask your local paleontologist, she'll likely tell you that, technically speaking, what we think of as birds are actually modern-day dinosaurs.
39:38Imagine that, real live dinosaurs hanging out in the backyard.
39:44Forgive me if I find that just a little bit disconcerting.
39:48Dinosaurs in the backyard kind of makes you rethink the karma in the neighborhood, doesn't it?
39:53The strange creatures, indeed. There's still so much more for us to learn about them.
39:58The feathers, the bizarre neurological wirings of the Stegosaurus, and probably even weirder things yet to be discovered.
40:05But for Fafard and his team, this quest is drawing to a close, and what a remarkable journey it's been.
40:15And undertaking equal parts art and science.
40:17Making their contribution to the ongoing debate about what these creatures really were.
40:24And how they behave.
40:26It's a realm in constant evolution.
40:29Shifting with each new breakthrough.
40:32A world that dinosaurs, giants of Patagonia, conjures up vividly.
40:37Providing us a glimpse into what the Earth looked like when the Argentinosaur and the Gigantinosaur called it home.
40:52It will always tantalize us. This world of the Lizard Kings.
40:57So much like our own. Yet alien to us.
41:00Its hold on our imaginations is complete.
41:04We shall forever be in its thrall.
41:07Trying to reach out and touch a world forever gone from sight.
41:11It lives on in us.
41:14A primordial memory of a time long before our own.
41:19Distant yet familiar.
41:22Where terrible creatures ruled.
41:24Creatures ruled.
41:37Like most professions, paleontology has its own specialized jargon.
41:43A multisyllabic toolbox that enables paleontologists to talk to one another about the weird and wonderful work they do.
41:50Because they spend a lot of time trying to classify the various beasts they study, they use something called phylogenetics.
42:01Now phylogenetics is basically the study of who's related to whom and who came first.
42:08It breaks everybody up into groups and then uses something called a cladogram to map out their relationship to one another.
42:17A cladogram is a fancy name for a family tree, showing who evolved into whom.
42:25All of this, both phylogenetics and the cladogram were the invention of a German biologist named Willi Hennig.
42:34In fact, it could be said that this entire system of classification used today evolved directly from him.
42:44And for what it's worth, Willi Hennig was the son of one Marie Grobe, a German factory worker.
42:51Marie, in turn, was a modern Homo sapiens.
42:56Homo sapiens, as some of you are no doubt aware, appear in the fossil records in Africa about 135,000 years ago.
43:04And are, in turn, the evolutionary descendants of...
43:09Well, you get the picture.
43:12Or in this case, you get the cladogram.
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