1 00:00:01,543 --> 00:00:02,836 [William Shatner] Monstrous ancient beasts 2 00:00:03,003 --> 00:00:05,047 who once roamed our planet 3 00:00:05,214 --> 00:00:07,799 lay hidden beneath our feet... 4 00:00:08,926 --> 00:00:11,178 ...apocalyptic disasters 5 00:00:11,386 --> 00:00:15,265 that transformed prehistoric Earth... 6 00:00:16,265 --> 00:00:19,520 ...and cutting-edge technology that could one day 7 00:00:19,645 --> 00:00:21,897 resurrect the dinosaurs. 8 00:00:22,105 --> 00:00:25,442 [roars] 9 00:00:25,567 --> 00:00:28,028 Stegosaurus, 10 00:00:28,195 --> 00:00:30,239 velociraptor, triceratops 11 00:00:30,364 --> 00:00:33,825 and the mighty Tyrannosaurus rex. 12 00:00:33,992 --> 00:00:36,828 It's intriguing to think that, millions of years ago, 13 00:00:36,995 --> 00:00:40,374 colossal creatures reigned supreme on our planet. 14 00:00:40,541 --> 00:00:44,545 And while scientists have been studying the giant fossils 15 00:00:44,711 --> 00:00:48,215 of what we call "dinosaurs" since the early 1800s, 16 00:00:48,382 --> 00:00:49,716 the fact is, we know very little 17 00:00:49,883 --> 00:00:52,177 about these extraordinary beasts. 18 00:00:53,178 --> 00:00:55,514 What more can be revealed 19 00:00:55,681 --> 00:00:58,767 about the existence and extinction 20 00:00:58,934 --> 00:01:02,896 of the most baffling behemoths to ever roam the Earth? 21 00:01:04,272 --> 00:01:07,734 Well, that is what we'll try and find out. 22 00:01:07,901 --> 00:01:09,945 ♪ ♪ 23 00:01:22,666 --> 00:01:25,752 It's funny to think that a group of long-extinct, 24 00:01:25,919 --> 00:01:29,464 incomprehensibly massive "giant lizards" 25 00:01:29,631 --> 00:01:33,260 are as beloved to us as a puppy dog. 26 00:01:34,803 --> 00:01:39,725 Today, dinosaurs are an enduring fixture in popular culture, 27 00:01:39,891 --> 00:01:42,311 but what do we really know 28 00:01:42,477 --> 00:01:45,522 about these extraordinary, diverse creatures 29 00:01:45,689 --> 00:01:50,027 who have captivated our imagination for centuries? 30 00:01:50,193 --> 00:01:54,156 Dinosaurs are a hugely fascinating group of animals 31 00:01:54,323 --> 00:01:56,992 for a massive chunk of humanity. 32 00:01:58,076 --> 00:02:00,162 It's like people of all groups, 33 00:02:00,329 --> 00:02:02,706 all nationalities, all ages-- 34 00:02:02,873 --> 00:02:04,833 from young kids to old people-- 35 00:02:05,000 --> 00:02:06,668 everyone's interested in dinosaurs. 36 00:02:06,835 --> 00:02:09,211 I mean, the whole idea that there's a group 37 00:02:09,378 --> 00:02:13,550 of often gigantic reptiles that lived millions of years ago, 38 00:02:13,717 --> 00:02:15,010 is one of the key things 39 00:02:15,177 --> 00:02:16,970 that makes us really interested in them. 40 00:02:18,055 --> 00:02:20,849 [Ben McGee] I think dinosaurs are central 41 00:02:21,016 --> 00:02:23,685 in the collective social imagination now 42 00:02:23,852 --> 00:02:26,855 because they hint at the existence 43 00:02:27,022 --> 00:02:30,108 of a full and complete alien Earth 44 00:02:30,275 --> 00:02:31,526 that none of us experienced. 45 00:02:31,693 --> 00:02:34,488 When we discovered "them," 46 00:02:34,655 --> 00:02:37,658 the giant lizards, something totally different 47 00:02:37,866 --> 00:02:39,993 than the life we have today, 48 00:02:40,160 --> 00:02:44,122 well, that has a mystique to it that just doesn't go away. 49 00:02:44,289 --> 00:02:47,250 But we really, ultimately, don't know much 50 00:02:47,417 --> 00:02:50,420 about the dinosaurs and the world they inhabited. 51 00:02:51,546 --> 00:02:53,298 [Nick Longrich] The first dinosaur to be excavated 52 00:02:53,507 --> 00:02:56,134 that was named would be Megalosaurus, 53 00:02:56,301 --> 00:02:58,970 and this was described in 1825 54 00:02:59,137 --> 00:03:02,057 by William Buckland, an early paleontologist. 55 00:03:02,265 --> 00:03:05,310 And at the time, they thought it was a bear-like creature. 56 00:03:05,477 --> 00:03:07,521 They didn't really know that Megalosaurus 57 00:03:07,646 --> 00:03:09,856 was a dinosaur then because the concept of "dinosaur" 58 00:03:10,023 --> 00:03:11,483 had not yet been invented. 59 00:03:12,484 --> 00:03:15,070 That fell to another paleontologist, Richard Owen, 60 00:03:15,237 --> 00:03:17,572 working at the British Museum in London, 61 00:03:17,739 --> 00:03:20,409 who recognized that animals like Megalosaurus 62 00:03:20,575 --> 00:03:23,745 were a completely new group of reptiles 63 00:03:23,912 --> 00:03:26,081 that he named "Dinosauria." 64 00:03:27,874 --> 00:03:29,584 Today, every week or so, 65 00:03:29,751 --> 00:03:31,378 new dinosaurs are being discovered. 66 00:03:31,586 --> 00:03:33,255 There are so many species 67 00:03:33,422 --> 00:03:35,590 being discovered, you literally can't keep track of them. 68 00:03:35,757 --> 00:03:38,552 I think the latest count is something between 69 00:03:38,718 --> 00:03:42,305 1,300 and 1,400 known species, 70 00:03:42,472 --> 00:03:45,267 and dozens of new species are found every year. 71 00:03:45,434 --> 00:03:48,270 Assuming dinosaur diversity was roughly comparable 72 00:03:48,437 --> 00:03:49,938 to modern large mammal diversity, 73 00:03:50,147 --> 00:03:51,773 that would suggest that something like 74 00:03:51,940 --> 00:03:54,609 a quarter of a million species might have existed. 75 00:03:55,735 --> 00:03:57,320 [Shatner] Dinosaur fossils have been found 76 00:03:57,446 --> 00:03:59,364 on all seven continents. 77 00:03:59,531 --> 00:04:04,077 Paleontologists have unearthed giant, lumbering herbivores... 78 00:04:05,162 --> 00:04:07,706 ...swift, two-legged predators, 79 00:04:07,873 --> 00:04:11,835 monstrous creatures that roamed the ocean depths 80 00:04:12,002 --> 00:04:15,922 and flying reptiles that were the size of a fighter jet. 81 00:04:16,089 --> 00:04:19,468 And despite everything we've uncovered, 82 00:04:19,634 --> 00:04:23,805 these creatures are still one of Earth's greatest mysteries. 83 00:04:27,350 --> 00:04:30,187 The Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago, Illinois. 84 00:04:30,353 --> 00:04:33,231 Every year, more than a million people come to see 85 00:04:33,398 --> 00:04:36,109 the museum's most popular attraction, 86 00:04:36,276 --> 00:04:40,030 the most remarkable Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton 87 00:04:40,197 --> 00:04:41,948 ever found, 88 00:04:42,115 --> 00:04:46,870 a fossilized monster affectionately called Sue. 89 00:04:47,871 --> 00:04:49,331 [Jingmai O'Connor] Sue the T. rex 90 00:04:49,498 --> 00:04:53,960 is the most famous fossil in the world. 91 00:04:54,085 --> 00:04:56,797 It's famous because it's the most complete 92 00:04:56,963 --> 00:05:00,383 adult T. rex that has ever been discovered 93 00:05:00,550 --> 00:05:04,679 in 120 years of T. rex research. 94 00:05:04,805 --> 00:05:07,974 And we have about 73% of the bones, 95 00:05:08,141 --> 00:05:12,854 so 280 of the 350 bones that make up the skeleton. 96 00:05:13,021 --> 00:05:16,650 Sue was first found near Faith, South Dakota, in 1990. 97 00:05:16,817 --> 00:05:19,528 It was found by Sue Hendrickson 98 00:05:19,694 --> 00:05:21,988 and a team of commercial paleontologists 99 00:05:22,155 --> 00:05:24,616 that were looking for fossils. 100 00:05:26,034 --> 00:05:27,619 [Naish] This is one of the biggest, 101 00:05:27,828 --> 00:05:30,539 most powerful land predators that's ever existed. 102 00:05:30,747 --> 00:05:34,584 It has a total length of roundabout 13 meters. 103 00:05:34,751 --> 00:05:36,920 It would have weighed roundabout ten tons. 104 00:05:37,045 --> 00:05:39,339 Tyrannosaurus rex has an incredibly broad, 105 00:05:39,548 --> 00:05:42,717 hugely powerful, very heavily muscled skull 106 00:05:42,884 --> 00:05:44,886 and its teeth are rounded and cross-sectioned. 107 00:05:45,053 --> 00:05:48,014 They're more like-- kind of like railroad spikes. 108 00:05:48,181 --> 00:05:51,893 This dinosaur was able to take among the most powerful bites 109 00:05:52,060 --> 00:05:54,855 of any land-living animal in history. 110 00:05:55,021 --> 00:05:57,274 So, it is an awesome animal. 111 00:05:57,440 --> 00:05:58,859 It makes perfect sense that people 112 00:05:59,067 --> 00:06:01,152 are really obsessed with this incredible animal. 113 00:06:02,237 --> 00:06:03,655 [Shatner] Scientists have estimated 114 00:06:03,864 --> 00:06:05,615 that there was once two and a half billion 115 00:06:05,824 --> 00:06:08,535 T. rex dinosaurs on Earth. 116 00:06:08,702 --> 00:06:11,538 Yet, so far, we've only found about 30 117 00:06:11,746 --> 00:06:14,082 relatively complete skeletons. 118 00:06:14,249 --> 00:06:17,043 And this astonishing low percentage of discovery 119 00:06:17,210 --> 00:06:19,880 can be applied to many other species 120 00:06:20,005 --> 00:06:23,508 who have laid buried for millions of years. 121 00:06:24,509 --> 00:06:26,970 I'm sure that humans have been tripping over dinosaur bones 122 00:06:27,137 --> 00:06:28,513 for thousands of years, 123 00:06:28,680 --> 00:06:30,682 but they weren't recognized as fossils. 124 00:06:30,849 --> 00:06:34,895 The oldest known dinosaur that we can see right now 125 00:06:35,061 --> 00:06:38,315 is a dinosaur from Tanzania that is called Nyasasaurus. 126 00:06:38,481 --> 00:06:41,484 It's about 237 million years old. 127 00:06:41,651 --> 00:06:43,945 But we don't know the total number of dinosaurs 128 00:06:44,112 --> 00:06:47,073 that ever existed and probably never will. 129 00:06:48,533 --> 00:06:50,785 If we go back to the turn of the last century, 130 00:06:50,952 --> 00:06:52,787 to, say, 1900, 131 00:06:52,954 --> 00:06:55,123 there was one new dinosaur species discovered 132 00:06:55,290 --> 00:06:57,626 and published about every year. 133 00:06:57,792 --> 00:07:00,962 By 1970, it was half a dozen. 134 00:07:01,129 --> 00:07:03,340 Now it's one a week. 135 00:07:03,548 --> 00:07:06,843 I would guess that we haven't even come close to discovering 136 00:07:06,968 --> 00:07:10,388 one percent of the dinosaur species that ever lived. 137 00:07:10,555 --> 00:07:11,765 And then there are certain environments 138 00:07:11,931 --> 00:07:14,351 that just don't preserve geologically. 139 00:07:15,435 --> 00:07:18,229 For example, there were probably alpine dinosaurs. 140 00:07:18,396 --> 00:07:22,025 Think of today's mountain goats and bighorn sheep. 141 00:07:22,192 --> 00:07:23,443 Well, mountains erode. 142 00:07:23,568 --> 00:07:25,278 In order to form fossils, you need places 143 00:07:25,445 --> 00:07:28,490 that collect sediment, not places that shed sediment. 144 00:07:28,657 --> 00:07:29,991 So, there are, there are just some dinosaurs 145 00:07:30,158 --> 00:07:33,328 that we will not discover, I think, ever. 146 00:07:33,495 --> 00:07:35,372 -[snarling] -[Longrich] There's a huge 147 00:07:35,538 --> 00:07:37,999 amount of diversity out there waiting to be found. 148 00:07:39,084 --> 00:07:41,127 And sometimes, we find something that completely surprises us, 149 00:07:41,294 --> 00:07:44,089 that kind of overturns our thinking. 150 00:07:44,255 --> 00:07:46,049 One of the strangest out there is there's an animal 151 00:07:46,216 --> 00:07:48,051 called Yi qi, from China... 152 00:07:49,135 --> 00:07:51,888 ...and it has these bat-like membranous wings 153 00:07:52,055 --> 00:07:53,515 it could fly on. 154 00:07:54,557 --> 00:07:56,017 But the absolute strangest dinosaurs, 155 00:07:56,226 --> 00:07:59,104 in my mind, would have to be the alvarezsaurs. 156 00:07:59,270 --> 00:08:00,730 And I described one of these animals, 157 00:08:00,897 --> 00:08:02,273 a little animal called Albertonykus. 158 00:08:02,440 --> 00:08:04,275 They have these incredibly short forelimbs, 159 00:08:04,442 --> 00:08:06,319 but they're very stoutly built, 160 00:08:06,444 --> 00:08:07,904 and they had a single hooked claw. 161 00:08:08,071 --> 00:08:10,281 They'd take these claws, rip into logs, 162 00:08:10,407 --> 00:08:11,866 rip into termite nests, 163 00:08:12,033 --> 00:08:13,576 and put their long, little snout down there 164 00:08:13,785 --> 00:08:15,412 and eat the insects. 165 00:08:15,578 --> 00:08:17,330 So, dinosaur anteaters. In my mind, 166 00:08:17,497 --> 00:08:19,499 that's the strangest thing they ever came up with. 167 00:08:20,959 --> 00:08:22,419 [Shatner] Paleontologists have unearthed 168 00:08:22,627 --> 00:08:26,381 all kinds of bizarre dinosaur species, 169 00:08:26,589 --> 00:08:28,341 including Spicomellus, 170 00:08:28,550 --> 00:08:32,761 an armored tank with spikes fused directly to its ribs, 171 00:08:32,929 --> 00:08:34,847 and Deinocheirus, 172 00:08:35,014 --> 00:08:36,850 a massive omnivore that combines traits 173 00:08:37,015 --> 00:08:40,311 from several different branches of the dinosaur family tree. 174 00:08:40,477 --> 00:08:43,106 Yet, there are countless questions 175 00:08:43,273 --> 00:08:45,859 that remain unanswered. 176 00:08:46,026 --> 00:08:48,737 [Naish] We are still just scratching the surface. 177 00:08:48,903 --> 00:08:50,989 We only know a tiny percentage 178 00:08:51,156 --> 00:08:54,284 of the things that we would like to know and which we could know. 179 00:08:54,451 --> 00:08:57,954 There's a massive wealth of dinosaur finds 180 00:08:58,121 --> 00:09:00,040 still yet to be made. 181 00:09:00,165 --> 00:09:04,044 What kind of animals dinosaurs were like when they were alive, 182 00:09:04,210 --> 00:09:05,920 what their social behavior was like, 183 00:09:06,046 --> 00:09:08,465 how they interacted with one another, 184 00:09:08,631 --> 00:09:10,258 exactly what they looked like 185 00:09:10,467 --> 00:09:12,677 and exactly what they did with their appearances, 186 00:09:12,844 --> 00:09:14,679 how they interacted with one another 187 00:09:14,804 --> 00:09:16,264 during, like, mating displays. 188 00:09:16,431 --> 00:09:18,308 We know almost nothing. 189 00:09:19,392 --> 00:09:21,269 [Longrich] The evolutionary relationships of dinosaurs, 190 00:09:21,436 --> 00:09:23,938 when they evolved, where they evolved, when they went extinct, 191 00:09:24,147 --> 00:09:26,316 a lot of these things we still need to understand. 192 00:09:26,483 --> 00:09:28,443 How are all these various species related? 193 00:09:28,610 --> 00:09:30,278 How is a T. rex related to a brontosaurus, 194 00:09:30,403 --> 00:09:32,113 related to a triceratops, 195 00:09:32,280 --> 00:09:34,908 and the-- related to a velociraptor? 196 00:09:35,075 --> 00:09:38,369 Because if we had a complete evolutionary tree, 197 00:09:38,536 --> 00:09:40,371 we could see when certain link groups appeared 198 00:09:40,538 --> 00:09:42,916 and where they appeared and how their anatomy evolved. 199 00:09:43,083 --> 00:09:45,794 It would help us piece together their evolution 200 00:09:45,960 --> 00:09:47,796 in a far more complete way. 201 00:09:48,838 --> 00:09:51,216 And we're trying to build something like that, 202 00:09:51,382 --> 00:09:52,884 but it's incredibly difficult, 203 00:09:53,051 --> 00:09:55,220 and nobody can seem to agree on the answer. 204 00:09:55,428 --> 00:09:57,806 There's still a lot to be discovered. 205 00:10:01,518 --> 00:10:03,895 [Shatner] The Yucatán Peninsula, Mexico. 206 00:10:04,062 --> 00:10:07,857 Hidden beneath layers of limestone and ocean sediment 207 00:10:08,066 --> 00:10:11,319 lies a scar more than 100 miles wide. 208 00:10:11,444 --> 00:10:15,490 It's the remnants of an ancient asteroid impact 209 00:10:15,657 --> 00:10:18,701 that reshaped all life on planet Earth. 210 00:10:18,910 --> 00:10:22,122 Today, it's known as the Chicxulub crater, 211 00:10:22,247 --> 00:10:25,083 and it's believed to be the smoking gun 212 00:10:25,250 --> 00:10:27,794 in a planetary murder mystery. 213 00:10:28,753 --> 00:10:32,799 Chicxulub refers to a impact crater 214 00:10:32,966 --> 00:10:35,552 that was made by, uh, an asteroid 215 00:10:35,718 --> 00:10:39,389 that was about seven miles in diameter 216 00:10:39,556 --> 00:10:42,976 that impacted our planet 66 million years ago 217 00:10:43,143 --> 00:10:46,604 in what is today the Yucatán Peninsula. 218 00:10:46,771 --> 00:10:50,233 This is the major cause of the mass extinction 219 00:10:50,400 --> 00:10:52,694 that wiped out the dinosaurs. 220 00:10:52,861 --> 00:10:55,697 And it's only been very recently that the first site 221 00:10:55,905 --> 00:11:00,243 has been put forth as actually capturing that catastrophe. 222 00:11:01,494 --> 00:11:04,539 [Shatner] The theory that an asteroid killed the dinosaurs 223 00:11:04,747 --> 00:11:06,833 was only first proposed in 1980, 224 00:11:07,000 --> 00:11:10,003 by Nobel prize-winning physicist Luis Alvarez 225 00:11:10,128 --> 00:11:12,881 and his geologist son Walter. 226 00:11:13,006 --> 00:11:16,634 The Alvarez hypothesis initially faced skepticism 227 00:11:16,801 --> 00:11:19,137 in the scientific community, 228 00:11:19,345 --> 00:11:23,683 but in 1991, opinions changed 229 00:11:23,850 --> 00:11:25,560 when the Chicxulub crater was identified 230 00:11:25,685 --> 00:11:28,646 as the ancient impact site. 231 00:11:30,356 --> 00:11:33,193 And just how could one single asteroid 232 00:11:33,359 --> 00:11:36,362 decimate life across the entire planet? 233 00:11:38,198 --> 00:11:41,034 [McGee] A impactor came in with an explosive power 234 00:11:41,201 --> 00:11:43,620 which is almost unthinkable. 235 00:11:44,579 --> 00:11:46,873 Millions and millions of times stronger 236 00:11:47,040 --> 00:11:48,708 than the strongest nuclear weapons ever built. 237 00:11:48,875 --> 00:11:50,919 It would have been things that don't seem comprehendible. 238 00:11:51,044 --> 00:11:53,713 It heats up the air around you to the point 239 00:11:53,880 --> 00:11:56,633 that it can light wet vegetation on fire. 240 00:11:56,799 --> 00:12:00,011 You've got shock waves traveling faster than the speed of sound, 241 00:12:00,178 --> 00:12:03,806 leveling everything within a thousand miles. 242 00:12:03,973 --> 00:12:07,727 A giant global tsunami thousands of feet tall. 243 00:12:09,562 --> 00:12:13,775 And then, all of this material that was shot out into space, 244 00:12:13,942 --> 00:12:18,279 fine portions of it end up circling the upper atmosphere, 245 00:12:18,404 --> 00:12:20,073 and they start to block out the Sun. 246 00:12:20,240 --> 00:12:23,409 And that is what kicks off the ecological disaster 247 00:12:23,576 --> 00:12:26,996 that ends up killing 80% of the life on Earth. 248 00:12:28,248 --> 00:12:31,042 [O'Connor] One thing I think is so fascinating 249 00:12:31,209 --> 00:12:36,506 is that if this asteroid hit our planet a few hours earlier 250 00:12:36,673 --> 00:12:38,341 or a few hours later, 251 00:12:38,549 --> 00:12:40,301 it would have hit a different spot, right, 252 00:12:40,510 --> 00:12:42,011 because the planet's always rotating, 253 00:12:42,178 --> 00:12:43,680 and if it had, 254 00:12:43,805 --> 00:12:46,641 it would not have caused a mass extinction. 255 00:12:47,725 --> 00:12:50,687 It hit in a shallow marine shelf, 256 00:12:50,853 --> 00:12:54,774 and in this shelf, you have all these sulfur minerals 257 00:12:54,941 --> 00:12:58,069 that, when blasted up into the air, 258 00:12:58,236 --> 00:13:01,197 then caused a chain reaction of events. 259 00:13:02,573 --> 00:13:03,992 [Longrich] Temperatures plunge, 260 00:13:04,158 --> 00:13:06,244 large parts of the world just start freezing. 261 00:13:06,411 --> 00:13:08,288 and things that rely on sunlight, 262 00:13:08,454 --> 00:13:10,290 things like plants, 263 00:13:10,456 --> 00:13:11,958 uh, things like algae, 264 00:13:12,125 --> 00:13:13,668 uh, that form that basis of the food chain, 265 00:13:13,835 --> 00:13:15,211 they can't photosynthesize. 266 00:13:15,378 --> 00:13:17,672 Basically, there's no more food left, 267 00:13:17,839 --> 00:13:21,843 and the entire ecosystem collapses. 268 00:13:21,968 --> 00:13:24,929 I think a lot of dinosaurs might have been able to hide out 269 00:13:25,096 --> 00:13:27,140 in little burrows and try and survive the cold 270 00:13:27,348 --> 00:13:29,600 and try and survive the fallout, but there's still 271 00:13:29,726 --> 00:13:33,313 a lot we don't know about exactly how this went down. 272 00:13:34,439 --> 00:13:36,065 [Shatner] While most scientists believe 273 00:13:36,232 --> 00:13:38,484 a devastating asteroid impact was the sole cause 274 00:13:38,651 --> 00:13:40,570 of the extinction of the dinosaurs, 275 00:13:40,737 --> 00:13:42,488 it's far from unanimous. 276 00:13:42,655 --> 00:13:46,826 Because around the same time, 66 million years ago, 277 00:13:46,993 --> 00:13:50,913 there was also a catastrophic volcanic eruption 278 00:13:51,080 --> 00:13:54,333 on a truly apocalyptic scale. 279 00:13:55,418 --> 00:13:56,586 [Naish] Several other important things 280 00:13:56,753 --> 00:13:58,421 were happening at the same time 281 00:13:58,629 --> 00:14:01,549 as the Chicxulub impact event. 282 00:14:01,716 --> 00:14:06,512 For example, we know that there was a massive outpouring of lava 283 00:14:06,679 --> 00:14:10,349 in central India, resulting in incredibly thick lava deposits 284 00:14:10,516 --> 00:14:12,602 known as the Deccan Traps. 285 00:14:12,727 --> 00:14:14,771 People have often asked, could those 286 00:14:14,937 --> 00:14:18,232 actually be responsible for the extinction of dinosaurs 287 00:14:18,399 --> 00:14:22,028 rather than the Chicxulub impact event? 288 00:14:22,195 --> 00:14:23,446 [McGee] The Deccan Traps were 289 00:14:23,613 --> 00:14:25,948 a style of volcanism that we don't see today, 290 00:14:26,115 --> 00:14:27,658 where you have a giant fissure open up 291 00:14:27,867 --> 00:14:31,829 and huge quantities of gas and dust are released. 292 00:14:31,996 --> 00:14:35,041 So, some have alleged that it could be that the asteroid 293 00:14:35,208 --> 00:14:37,251 did it on its own, and it could be 294 00:14:37,418 --> 00:14:40,046 that it had help from the Deccan Traps. 295 00:14:41,130 --> 00:14:43,132 [Shatner] It's surprising to think that plausible theories 296 00:14:43,299 --> 00:14:46,844 about an extinction event are recent discoveries. 297 00:14:47,887 --> 00:14:50,640 But perhaps more shocking 298 00:14:50,765 --> 00:14:55,561 is the consensus that our planet is still home 299 00:14:55,686 --> 00:14:59,899 to living, breathing dinosaurs. 300 00:15:00,858 --> 00:15:03,069 Birds are dinosaurs. 301 00:15:03,236 --> 00:15:04,987 And every time a scientist said, 302 00:15:05,154 --> 00:15:07,907 "Hmm, I think birds are living dinosaurs," 303 00:15:08,074 --> 00:15:10,034 they did so by studying archaeopteryx, 304 00:15:10,201 --> 00:15:12,537 which is the oldest bird ever found. 305 00:15:13,579 --> 00:15:17,041 The first one ever found was found in 1855, 306 00:15:17,166 --> 00:15:19,127 and was only identified as an archaeopteryx, uh, 307 00:15:19,293 --> 00:15:20,586 when John Ostrom came around 308 00:15:20,753 --> 00:15:22,672 in, like, the late '60s, early '70s. 309 00:15:23,923 --> 00:15:26,926 Archaeopteryx is the single fossil responsible 310 00:15:27,093 --> 00:15:31,013 for our current understanding that dinosaurs are not extinct, 311 00:15:31,180 --> 00:15:33,850 and that birds are living dinosaurs. 312 00:15:34,016 --> 00:15:35,768 And I would argue that that's one 313 00:15:35,935 --> 00:15:38,187 of the most transformative things 314 00:15:38,354 --> 00:15:40,815 that we have learned about the natural world 315 00:15:40,982 --> 00:15:42,775 in the last 50 years. 316 00:15:43,860 --> 00:15:45,528 [Longrich] Birds are not dinosaur relatives, 317 00:15:45,695 --> 00:15:47,613 they are the direct descendants of dinosaurs. 318 00:15:47,780 --> 00:15:49,615 A handful of birds managed to survive 319 00:15:49,782 --> 00:15:51,576 that extinction event somehow 320 00:15:51,742 --> 00:15:54,078 and then radiate and give rise to all modern birds. 321 00:15:54,203 --> 00:15:57,373 If you want to see a really primitive dinosaur-like bird, 322 00:15:57,540 --> 00:15:59,792 probably your best bet would be either a chicken or a duck. 323 00:15:59,959 --> 00:16:01,794 It's possible the early duck-like 324 00:16:01,961 --> 00:16:04,922 and chicken-like birds may have lived alongside T. rex. 325 00:16:06,048 --> 00:16:07,300 [Lance Geiger] In some ways, that's freaky. 326 00:16:07,508 --> 00:16:10,511 I mean, a chicken bears a startling amount 327 00:16:10,678 --> 00:16:13,681 of genetic comparison to a Tyrannosaurus rex. 328 00:16:13,806 --> 00:16:15,266 That's just kind of amazing to think, 329 00:16:15,433 --> 00:16:16,642 because you look at a chicken, you don't think 330 00:16:16,809 --> 00:16:18,352 of the giant apex predator. 331 00:16:18,519 --> 00:16:20,479 But there are certainly birds, 332 00:16:20,605 --> 00:16:22,231 like the shoebill stork 333 00:16:22,398 --> 00:16:25,359 or the cassowary, that are very large, 334 00:16:25,484 --> 00:16:27,111 sometimes, you know, four, five feet tall, 335 00:16:27,278 --> 00:16:29,363 which is kind of terrifying for a bird, right? 336 00:16:29,530 --> 00:16:32,158 So, we're still in the era of the dinosaurs. 337 00:16:32,325 --> 00:16:35,161 They're just, you know, now they're shoebill storks. 338 00:16:36,412 --> 00:16:40,082 [O'Connor] The idea that birds are living dinosaurs 339 00:16:40,249 --> 00:16:45,546 drastically changes how you look at animals alive on our planet. 340 00:16:45,713 --> 00:16:47,590 But then, there is so much 341 00:16:47,757 --> 00:16:51,344 we do not know about the biology of dinosaurs. 342 00:16:51,510 --> 00:16:54,639 Like, very fundamental questions. 343 00:16:54,764 --> 00:16:56,557 Like, okay, for example, take archaeopteryx. 344 00:16:56,724 --> 00:16:58,184 There's features of archaeopteryx 345 00:16:58,351 --> 00:16:59,977 that tell us this thing could fly. 346 00:17:00,186 --> 00:17:03,064 But how it flew is a mystery. 347 00:17:03,231 --> 00:17:04,898 It's a very fundamental question 348 00:17:05,107 --> 00:17:07,568 that we still don't understand, and there's so much more. 349 00:17:07,734 --> 00:17:09,779 Every other paleontologist you ask 350 00:17:09,987 --> 00:17:13,531 is gonna have their own set of burning questions 351 00:17:13,699 --> 00:17:16,285 that they are dedicating their lives to trying to answer. 352 00:17:16,452 --> 00:17:18,412 For every question we attempt to answer, 353 00:17:18,579 --> 00:17:22,124 we usually just create ten more questions for ourselves. 354 00:17:22,290 --> 00:17:25,002 There is a lot we don't know. 355 00:17:27,255 --> 00:17:29,757 Who would have thought that a chicken 356 00:17:29,924 --> 00:17:33,052 shares the skeletal traits of a Tyrannosaurus rex? 357 00:17:33,052 --> 00:17:34,387 shares the skeletal traits of a Tyrannosaurus rex? 358 00:17:34,554 --> 00:17:35,805 So, if the birds we see each day 359 00:17:35,972 --> 00:17:38,558 are considered "living dinosaurs," 360 00:17:38,724 --> 00:17:42,436 is it possible that other prehistoric species 361 00:17:42,603 --> 00:17:44,939 may have survived and evolved 362 00:17:45,147 --> 00:17:50,111 to become creatures of myth and legend? 363 00:17:54,240 --> 00:17:57,785 [Shatner] The Great Wall of China, May 2024. 364 00:17:57,952 --> 00:17:59,620 Along the Jiankou section 365 00:17:59,829 --> 00:18:02,415 of this serpentine wonder of the world, 366 00:18:02,582 --> 00:18:05,543 scientists from the Beijing Institute of Archaeology 367 00:18:05,751 --> 00:18:09,130 discover the sculpture of a dragon's head 368 00:18:09,297 --> 00:18:10,923 carved into stone. 369 00:18:12,008 --> 00:18:14,510 For 6,000 years, China has revered 370 00:18:14,677 --> 00:18:18,014 these powerful, serpent-like beings. 371 00:18:18,180 --> 00:18:20,308 But where did the belief 372 00:18:20,474 --> 00:18:24,061 in these legendary creatures come from? 373 00:18:24,270 --> 00:18:25,938 [Naish] Throughout history, people have come up 374 00:18:26,147 --> 00:18:29,859 with ideas about enormous, mythical, 375 00:18:30,067 --> 00:18:32,153 predatory reptiles that have special powers. 376 00:18:32,320 --> 00:18:35,114 They were able to fly 377 00:18:35,281 --> 00:18:37,533 or they could breathe fire 378 00:18:37,700 --> 00:18:41,329 or they were impervious to weapons. 379 00:18:41,495 --> 00:18:44,957 And a really popular idea which just never goes away 380 00:18:45,124 --> 00:18:48,169 is, surely, these stories about these creatures-- 381 00:18:48,336 --> 00:18:51,213 dragons-- surely, they're based on fossils. 382 00:18:51,380 --> 00:18:53,799 Fossils like those of dinosaurs. 383 00:18:53,966 --> 00:18:57,803 [Shatner] Could dragon legends trace back to ancient people 384 00:18:57,928 --> 00:19:02,725 stumbling upon dinosaur bones and mistaking them for monsters? 385 00:19:02,892 --> 00:19:04,977 It's a compelling idea. 386 00:19:05,186 --> 00:19:09,231 But does it fully explain why dragon stories appear 387 00:19:09,398 --> 00:19:12,943 in so many cultures separated by oceans 388 00:19:13,110 --> 00:19:15,446 and thousands of years? 389 00:19:16,447 --> 00:19:18,699 We can see the word "dragon" being referred to 390 00:19:18,908 --> 00:19:20,993 different creatures at different time periods 391 00:19:21,160 --> 00:19:23,537 in many, many different cultures around the world. 392 00:19:23,746 --> 00:19:25,873 Uh, it shows up in the Bible. 393 00:19:26,040 --> 00:19:28,209 And one place where you find a huge role 394 00:19:28,376 --> 00:19:31,962 for winged feathered serpents in the divine sense 395 00:19:32,129 --> 00:19:33,756 is in Mesoamerica. 396 00:19:33,923 --> 00:19:36,509 Quetzalcoatl from the Aztec tradition. 397 00:19:36,676 --> 00:19:38,928 Pretty much all over Central America. 398 00:19:39,929 --> 00:19:43,391 And in here, I really don't think we can discount the role 399 00:19:43,557 --> 00:19:46,894 that dinosaur fossils and other evidence of dinosaurs played. 400 00:19:47,061 --> 00:19:49,438 Dinosaur eggs, for example. 401 00:19:49,563 --> 00:19:51,148 Everybody knows what an egg is. 402 00:19:51,315 --> 00:19:54,151 What happens when you find an egg that is clearly ancient? 403 00:19:54,318 --> 00:19:56,821 So, these can influence an already existing story, 404 00:19:57,029 --> 00:19:58,531 provide confirmation, 405 00:19:58,698 --> 00:20:01,158 and really help increase everybody, uh, believing 406 00:20:01,283 --> 00:20:02,993 that these things were real. 407 00:20:04,036 --> 00:20:06,414 [Shatner] Discovering dinosaur fossils proves that sometimes, 408 00:20:06,580 --> 00:20:10,793 extraordinary monsters really are rooted in real creatures. 409 00:20:11,836 --> 00:20:16,966 While we know some dinosaurs did evolve into modern-day birds, 410 00:20:17,133 --> 00:20:20,177 is it possible that other kinds of dinosaurs 411 00:20:20,386 --> 00:20:24,348 are still hiding in the remote corners of our world? 412 00:20:26,058 --> 00:20:29,353 For well over a century, legendary creatures like 413 00:20:29,520 --> 00:20:32,189 the Loch Ness Monster 414 00:20:32,356 --> 00:20:36,193 and Champ from Lake Champlain in North America, 415 00:20:36,360 --> 00:20:40,156 were all connected to an ancient type of dinosaur, 416 00:20:40,322 --> 00:20:43,743 or a marine reptile, known as a plesiosaur. 417 00:20:43,951 --> 00:20:45,536 [John Rhodes] These are instances in which people have 418 00:20:45,703 --> 00:20:50,833 sighted large swimming creatures that resemble a plesiosaur. 419 00:20:51,000 --> 00:20:52,793 And we hear these repeated stories 420 00:20:52,960 --> 00:20:54,128 over and over and over again. 421 00:20:54,295 --> 00:20:56,589 Now, could they be real? 422 00:20:56,756 --> 00:20:59,175 Could some sort of dinosaur aquatic life 423 00:20:59,341 --> 00:21:02,720 during the dinosaur time have survived just like the birds? 424 00:21:03,763 --> 00:21:05,848 Eighty percent of the oceans remain unexplored, 425 00:21:06,015 --> 00:21:07,850 and so, what's down there? 426 00:21:08,017 --> 00:21:09,560 Anything's possible. 427 00:21:11,812 --> 00:21:13,481 [Shatner] Sightings of massive creatures 428 00:21:13,606 --> 00:21:15,483 said to resemble dinosaurs 429 00:21:15,649 --> 00:21:18,194 are more widespread than you might imagine. 430 00:21:19,236 --> 00:21:22,907 In fact, it's believed that a ferocious predator 431 00:21:23,073 --> 00:21:27,411 lurks in one of the last unexplored regions on Earth. 432 00:21:28,412 --> 00:21:30,498 [Gerhard] From the remote Kasai valley 433 00:21:30,706 --> 00:21:32,124 of the African Congo, 434 00:21:32,291 --> 00:21:35,002 there are accounts of another type of dinosaur 435 00:21:35,127 --> 00:21:37,296 that resembles a Tyrannosaurus rex, 436 00:21:37,505 --> 00:21:40,424 and it's known as the Kasai rex. 437 00:21:41,467 --> 00:21:43,260 Allegedly, it was encountered by a Swedish hunter 438 00:21:43,469 --> 00:21:46,472 named J.C. Johanson back in 1932. 439 00:21:46,639 --> 00:21:49,308 While on a hunting excursion, Johanson claimed 440 00:21:49,475 --> 00:21:52,144 that he encountered this animal that was bipedal, 441 00:21:52,311 --> 00:21:53,771 about 40 feet long, 442 00:21:53,938 --> 00:21:56,565 reddish in color with black stripes, 443 00:21:56,732 --> 00:21:59,568 and it was, in fact, attacking elephants. 444 00:22:00,611 --> 00:22:03,447 And he claims that he took three shots at it... 445 00:22:06,033 --> 00:22:07,326 ...with only one shot connecting, 446 00:22:07,493 --> 00:22:09,578 and it ran off into the bush. 447 00:22:09,787 --> 00:22:11,831 And then there's the mokele-mbembe, 448 00:22:11,997 --> 00:22:14,375 which means "the one who stops the flow of the river." 449 00:22:14,542 --> 00:22:17,837 It's typically seen in the areas around Lake Tele, 450 00:22:18,003 --> 00:22:21,048 the Likouala swamp, the Sangha River. 451 00:22:21,215 --> 00:22:26,178 And it's typically described as about the size of an elephant, 452 00:22:26,387 --> 00:22:30,057 a long, flexible neck and a long tail. 453 00:22:30,224 --> 00:22:34,186 Now, this physical description doesn't match any known animals, 454 00:22:34,353 --> 00:22:36,188 but it is almost an exact description 455 00:22:36,355 --> 00:22:39,358 of a small sauropod type of dinosaur. 456 00:22:39,483 --> 00:22:41,402 So, it almost seems as if 457 00:22:41,527 --> 00:22:44,446 the African Congo really sounds like a lost world. 458 00:22:44,572 --> 00:22:47,241 [Shatner] Could unidentified dinosaurs 459 00:22:47,366 --> 00:22:50,286 really exist in the deep recesses of our planet, 460 00:22:50,452 --> 00:22:52,454 beyond the reach of science? 461 00:22:52,621 --> 00:22:55,082 For some, it's a distinct possibility. 462 00:22:55,207 --> 00:22:59,753 And perhaps, long ago, the very same question was asked 463 00:22:59,920 --> 00:23:03,716 about giant, fire-breathing dragons. 464 00:23:04,758 --> 00:23:06,468 [Rhodes] You see the pictures of these dinosaurs, 465 00:23:06,635 --> 00:23:09,430 and most of it's born out of our imagination. 466 00:23:10,598 --> 00:23:13,642 It's not that fossil evidence gives us a clear answer. 467 00:23:13,767 --> 00:23:15,477 They might have a few bones of a creature 468 00:23:15,644 --> 00:23:16,896 and say, "This is what it looked like," 469 00:23:17,062 --> 00:23:18,355 and I think that's the same thing 470 00:23:18,522 --> 00:23:19,899 that they did in ancient past. 471 00:23:20,107 --> 00:23:21,483 They would look at the bones 472 00:23:21,650 --> 00:23:24,445 and kind of have an idea of what it might be. 473 00:23:24,612 --> 00:23:27,239 It may not be what they think it is, 474 00:23:27,406 --> 00:23:29,199 but their imaginations and their cultures 475 00:23:29,325 --> 00:23:33,370 believed that was the actual bones or fossils of a dragon. 476 00:23:34,872 --> 00:23:39,001 Do medieval tales of dragons and other monstrous creatures 477 00:23:39,126 --> 00:23:42,421 suggest that dinosaurs 478 00:23:42,630 --> 00:23:44,965 could have lived much longer than we thought? 479 00:23:45,132 --> 00:23:46,800 While it's possible that evolution 480 00:23:46,926 --> 00:23:49,678 may have helped some species adapt and survive, 481 00:23:49,678 --> 00:23:50,888 may have helped some species adapt and survive, 482 00:23:51,055 --> 00:23:55,643 today, scientists are experimenting 483 00:23:55,768 --> 00:23:58,562 with revolutionary technology 484 00:23:58,687 --> 00:24:03,067 that could soon bring the extinct back to life. 485 00:24:06,070 --> 00:24:08,405 [Shatner reads on-screen text] 486 00:24:08,572 --> 00:24:10,699 Colossal Biosciences, 487 00:24:10,908 --> 00:24:13,619 a genetic engineering company, and its partner, 488 00:24:13,827 --> 00:24:16,705 announce they are the first laboratories in the world 489 00:24:16,872 --> 00:24:22,419 to successfully sequence the entire Asian elephant genome. 490 00:24:23,545 --> 00:24:25,589 This incredible achievement could allow scientists 491 00:24:25,756 --> 00:24:27,883 to do something once believed impossible: 492 00:24:28,008 --> 00:24:32,763 bring a prehistoric animal back to life. 493 00:24:34,348 --> 00:24:35,683 [Geiger] Colossal Biosciences 494 00:24:35,849 --> 00:24:37,810 wants to use genetic manipulation 495 00:24:37,977 --> 00:24:40,771 in order to bring back animals that have gone extinct. 496 00:24:40,938 --> 00:24:42,856 For example, the woolly mammoth. 497 00:24:43,899 --> 00:24:46,944 We have examples that are frozen in permafrost. 498 00:24:47,111 --> 00:24:49,029 And so, they hope that you can maybe 499 00:24:49,196 --> 00:24:51,031 take the genes from a woolly mammoth, 500 00:24:51,198 --> 00:24:52,992 you can gestate that in an existing elephant, 501 00:24:53,158 --> 00:24:55,202 and you've recreated the mammoth. 502 00:24:56,286 --> 00:24:57,371 [Lacovara] The woolly mammoth went extinct just about 503 00:24:57,538 --> 00:24:59,248 3,300 years ago. 504 00:24:59,415 --> 00:25:01,000 And to do something like 505 00:25:01,125 --> 00:25:02,876 bring back the woolly mammoth, 506 00:25:03,043 --> 00:25:06,046 has deep implications for medical technology, 507 00:25:06,213 --> 00:25:10,467 it has deep implications for modern conservation. 508 00:25:10,634 --> 00:25:12,803 So, I think, as a result of that, 509 00:25:12,970 --> 00:25:14,596 we're going to see species that 510 00:25:14,763 --> 00:25:16,682 would have gone extinct in the near future 511 00:25:16,849 --> 00:25:19,351 be pulled back from the brink of oblivion. 512 00:25:20,477 --> 00:25:21,979 [Shatner] Could it actually be possible 513 00:25:22,187 --> 00:25:24,440 to bring back a woolly mammoth? 514 00:25:24,565 --> 00:25:26,442 While it sounds like science fiction, 515 00:25:26,608 --> 00:25:28,944 in 2024 and 2025, 516 00:25:29,111 --> 00:25:32,114 Colossal Biosciences announced the birth 517 00:25:32,281 --> 00:25:35,659 of three bioengineered dire wolf puppies, 518 00:25:35,868 --> 00:25:38,287 a prehistoric species that went extinct 519 00:25:38,454 --> 00:25:40,706 around 12,000 years ago, 520 00:25:40,873 --> 00:25:45,919 after combining fossilized DNA with modern gray wolf cells. 521 00:25:46,045 --> 00:25:50,049 And their fascinating work begs an obvious question: 522 00:25:50,215 --> 00:25:55,304 will mankind one day resurrect a dinosaur? 523 00:25:56,597 --> 00:25:59,516 So, de-extincting dinosaurs is not really possible 524 00:25:59,683 --> 00:26:01,852 because the DNA is completely shattered 525 00:26:02,019 --> 00:26:04,188 after millions of years. 526 00:26:04,354 --> 00:26:08,025 It would be extraordinarily difficult to reconstruct it. 527 00:26:08,192 --> 00:26:11,945 However, if one has complete control over genetic code, 528 00:26:12,112 --> 00:26:15,949 theoretically, I imagine one could design any animal, 529 00:26:16,116 --> 00:26:19,953 including maybe a dinosaur, that you could create. 530 00:26:20,120 --> 00:26:22,664 It's not scientifically impossible. 531 00:26:22,831 --> 00:26:25,042 It doesn't violate the laws of physics. 532 00:26:25,209 --> 00:26:27,920 But that would be a choice for people to make 533 00:26:28,045 --> 00:26:30,089 of what you bring back and what you don't. 534 00:26:31,215 --> 00:26:32,508 [Lacovara] To be a dinosaur, you have to have 535 00:26:32,674 --> 00:26:35,552 the first dinosaur for an ancestor. 536 00:26:35,719 --> 00:26:37,179 It's the same reason that we're mammals. 537 00:26:37,387 --> 00:26:40,057 We and hamsters and blue whales, 538 00:26:40,265 --> 00:26:43,393 we all have the first mammal for an ancestor. 539 00:26:43,560 --> 00:26:44,978 So, imagine this family tree, 540 00:26:45,187 --> 00:26:47,648 and the ancestor is down at the bottom, 541 00:26:47,815 --> 00:26:49,358 descendants are here. 542 00:26:49,525 --> 00:26:51,610 Everything in that triangle is part of that group. 543 00:26:51,777 --> 00:26:53,403 And so, if you have the first dinosaur 544 00:26:53,570 --> 00:26:56,031 for an ancestor, you are a dinosaur. 545 00:26:57,074 --> 00:26:59,576 Birds have the first dinosaur for an ancestor. 546 00:26:59,743 --> 00:27:03,872 So, it might be possible, through genetic engineering, 547 00:27:04,039 --> 00:27:07,501 to tweak the genomes of birds to get them to express 548 00:27:07,709 --> 00:27:11,004 more of what you might call their dinosaurian traits 549 00:27:11,171 --> 00:27:14,299 so that we could possibly create a facsimile 550 00:27:14,508 --> 00:27:16,218 of a non-avian dinosaur. 551 00:27:18,262 --> 00:27:19,930 [Shatner] Could we engineer bird DNA 552 00:27:20,097 --> 00:27:22,558 to bring dinosaurs back to life? 553 00:27:22,724 --> 00:27:25,978 And if so, how would that be achieved? 554 00:27:26,186 --> 00:27:30,107 Well, some experts believe the solution already exists. 555 00:27:31,149 --> 00:27:32,401 [McGee] There's a gene editing process 556 00:27:32,526 --> 00:27:34,111 using what they call CRISPR, 557 00:27:34,278 --> 00:27:36,238 when you try and edit genetic code, 558 00:27:36,405 --> 00:27:39,408 and while the act of combining DNA 559 00:27:39,575 --> 00:27:42,202 from different organisms may not itself be problematic, 560 00:27:42,327 --> 00:27:45,163 there are several things that can actually go wrong. 561 00:27:45,330 --> 00:27:49,877 Sometimes CRISPR will go in and delete or change things 562 00:27:50,043 --> 00:27:51,211 that weren't supposed to be changed. 563 00:27:51,378 --> 00:27:52,671 It's an accident. 564 00:27:52,838 --> 00:27:54,548 Or there are also problems 565 00:27:54,715 --> 00:27:57,926 where the CRISPR goes to insert the section of DNA 566 00:27:58,093 --> 00:28:00,429 it's trying to insert in the right place, 567 00:28:00,596 --> 00:28:02,055 but it overwrites too much. 568 00:28:03,140 --> 00:28:06,310 [Vescovo] CRISPR, unfortunately, can be quite unpredictable. 569 00:28:06,476 --> 00:28:09,104 The quality controls you must have are extreme. 570 00:28:09,271 --> 00:28:11,732 We still don't quite know how many things work 571 00:28:11,899 --> 00:28:15,777 at the molecular level when it comes to DNA, 572 00:28:15,986 --> 00:28:19,239 cellular mechanics, tissues, all of these things. 573 00:28:19,364 --> 00:28:22,618 This is all very new technology, and we're working through it, 574 00:28:22,826 --> 00:28:24,912 but we're making lots of discoveries. 575 00:28:26,872 --> 00:28:28,498 When we look at these scenarios of kind of playing God 576 00:28:28,707 --> 00:28:30,626 and dealing with extinct species, 577 00:28:30,792 --> 00:28:34,087 there are many scenarios where that could go completely wrong. 578 00:28:34,254 --> 00:28:36,590 There are certain endeavors 579 00:28:36,757 --> 00:28:39,551 that humans should perhaps not pursue. 580 00:28:41,053 --> 00:28:43,597 As cool as it would be to see a living dinosaur, 581 00:28:43,764 --> 00:28:46,433 it would be kind of a Frankenstein-type scenario, 582 00:28:46,600 --> 00:28:48,810 where these genes are kind of manipulated 583 00:28:48,977 --> 00:28:51,313 in weird and interesting ways. 584 00:28:53,190 --> 00:28:56,401 [McGee] Some have alleged that, in trying to create 585 00:28:56,526 --> 00:28:58,654 a species that was once extinct, 586 00:28:58,820 --> 00:29:00,864 you're gonna create Frankenstein DNA, 587 00:29:01,031 --> 00:29:04,451 a mishmash of genetics which is, in some way, unnatural. 588 00:29:04,618 --> 00:29:08,163 But it's worth noting that we are all 589 00:29:08,330 --> 00:29:10,040 Frankenstein DNA already. 590 00:29:10,165 --> 00:29:14,336 Human beings share 60% of our genome with flies. 591 00:29:14,544 --> 00:29:16,004 It's just code. 592 00:29:16,171 --> 00:29:19,174 Things like, you know, the head should go on one side, 593 00:29:19,341 --> 00:29:21,259 the-the legs should go on the other. 594 00:29:21,468 --> 00:29:22,886 Once you accept the idea that we're already 595 00:29:23,053 --> 00:29:25,889 Frankenstein snippets of code, of DNA, 596 00:29:26,056 --> 00:29:27,557 the idea of turning around and swapping 597 00:29:27,724 --> 00:29:29,184 little segments in and out 598 00:29:29,351 --> 00:29:31,979 is suddenly a lot less alarming, I think. 599 00:29:32,187 --> 00:29:33,939 [Lacovara] If we were to be able to bring back 600 00:29:34,147 --> 00:29:35,774 ancient dinosaurs, that's a whole different thing 601 00:29:35,941 --> 00:29:37,859 than, say, bringing back a woolly mammoth. 602 00:29:38,068 --> 00:29:40,445 A woolly mammoth belongs in this world. 603 00:29:40,612 --> 00:29:45,158 For species that went extinct in the near-term at our hands, 604 00:29:45,283 --> 00:29:47,619 like the woolly mammoth, like the dodo, 605 00:29:47,828 --> 00:29:49,454 We have a moral obligation to bring back 606 00:29:49,621 --> 00:29:51,164 those creatures if we can. 607 00:29:51,289 --> 00:29:53,333 This is their world, and they can still play 608 00:29:53,500 --> 00:29:55,711 an important role in their ecosystems. 609 00:29:55,877 --> 00:29:58,338 A T. rex, a Dreadnought, a triceratops, 610 00:29:58,547 --> 00:30:00,257 has no place in this world. 611 00:30:00,465 --> 00:30:02,092 It's not the kind of thing you would want to release 612 00:30:02,259 --> 00:30:03,802 on the landscape. 613 00:30:03,927 --> 00:30:07,097 I'm not sure it's a fantastic idea. 614 00:30:09,516 --> 00:30:13,437 There may come a day when advances in genetic engineering 615 00:30:13,603 --> 00:30:14,438 will resurrect a dinosaur. 616 00:30:14,438 --> 00:30:16,106 will resurrect a dinosaur. 617 00:30:16,273 --> 00:30:21,611 But if so, could humans coexist with these mighty beasts? 618 00:30:21,778 --> 00:30:24,865 Well, according to some, 619 00:30:25,032 --> 00:30:28,118 it's already happened. 620 00:30:31,038 --> 00:30:33,123 [Shatner reads on-screen text] 621 00:30:36,043 --> 00:30:38,837 Heavy rains transform the region 622 00:30:39,004 --> 00:30:40,839 as the Guadalupe River raises 623 00:30:40,964 --> 00:30:43,884 26 feet in less than an hour. 624 00:30:44,968 --> 00:30:48,346 Catastrophic flash floods sweep away homes, 625 00:30:48,513 --> 00:30:50,682 vehicles, 626 00:30:50,849 --> 00:30:55,062 and claim an estimated 135 lives 627 00:30:55,270 --> 00:30:58,857 in the sixth deadliest freshwater flood disaster 628 00:30:59,066 --> 00:31:00,567 in U.S. history. 629 00:31:00,734 --> 00:31:06,198 But those raging waters also reveal a new window 630 00:31:06,364 --> 00:31:09,826 into Earth's prehistoric past. 631 00:31:11,703 --> 00:31:13,955 During 2025, parts of Texas 632 00:31:14,122 --> 00:31:17,918 were severely affected by major flooding events. 633 00:31:18,043 --> 00:31:20,128 And floods are bad, 634 00:31:20,295 --> 00:31:24,508 they cause all kinds of problems for people and environments. 635 00:31:24,674 --> 00:31:26,968 But one thing they do, which is of interest 636 00:31:27,135 --> 00:31:29,012 to people interested in fossils, 637 00:31:29,179 --> 00:31:34,309 is floods obviously scour away a lot of surface material, 638 00:31:34,476 --> 00:31:36,603 like, you know, sand and rocks and-and such. 639 00:31:36,770 --> 00:31:39,856 And as a consequence, they often reveal the bedrock, 640 00:31:40,023 --> 00:31:42,442 rocks that you haven't seen before. 641 00:31:42,609 --> 00:31:47,322 And a major flood event revealed a new set of tracks 642 00:31:47,489 --> 00:31:51,118 laid down about 113 million years ago 643 00:31:51,243 --> 00:31:55,247 made by a particularly big, impressive predatory dinosaur. 644 00:31:55,413 --> 00:31:57,707 An animal called Acrocanthosaurus. 645 00:31:57,874 --> 00:31:59,793 And the tracks are really pristine. 646 00:31:59,960 --> 00:32:01,503 They look really great. 647 00:32:02,587 --> 00:32:05,465 [Shatner] Texas has long been seen as a hot spot 648 00:32:05,632 --> 00:32:08,343 for well-preserved dinosaur tracks. 649 00:32:09,344 --> 00:32:12,848 In 1972, the Dinosaur Valley State Park 650 00:32:13,014 --> 00:32:15,809 was established to protect some of the most 651 00:32:15,976 --> 00:32:18,854 pristine fossilized dinosaur footprints... 652 00:32:19,896 --> 00:32:21,523 ...in the world. 653 00:32:21,690 --> 00:32:22,941 [Williams] The Dinosaur State Park 654 00:32:23,150 --> 00:32:25,402 is right on the Paluxy River, 655 00:32:25,569 --> 00:32:27,445 which is outside of Glen Rose, Texas. 656 00:32:27,612 --> 00:32:30,615 There's some beautiful examples of cerapods 657 00:32:30,782 --> 00:32:33,326 and therapod dinosaur footprints there. 658 00:32:33,493 --> 00:32:36,538 They've got prints going left, right, all over. 659 00:32:36,746 --> 00:32:39,249 It's like a major freeway for all the dinosaurs 660 00:32:39,416 --> 00:32:41,001 to come through. 661 00:32:41,126 --> 00:32:43,545 But the interesting thing about this area 662 00:32:43,712 --> 00:32:46,173 is that there's also man prints 663 00:32:46,339 --> 00:32:48,842 that are inside of the... the mud strata, 664 00:32:48,967 --> 00:32:51,636 or the limestone which is from the Cretaceous period. 665 00:32:51,803 --> 00:32:53,847 So, about 113 million years old. 666 00:32:54,014 --> 00:32:56,391 It's perfectly preserved. 667 00:32:56,558 --> 00:32:59,603 It creates a broader picture and makes you wonder. 668 00:32:59,769 --> 00:33:01,313 This is incredible. 669 00:33:01,479 --> 00:33:03,690 So, I think there is something going on. 670 00:33:03,857 --> 00:33:07,152 I think we need to do a little bit more evaluation 671 00:33:07,319 --> 00:33:09,404 and we need to keep an open mind and we need 672 00:33:09,571 --> 00:33:13,074 to examine the facts a little bit clearer. 673 00:33:13,241 --> 00:33:16,077 So-- and of course, that builds the-the controversy, is: 674 00:33:16,244 --> 00:33:18,538 did man coexist with dinosaur? 675 00:33:20,081 --> 00:33:21,666 [Shatner] It's widely believed that Homo sapiens, 676 00:33:21,833 --> 00:33:24,211 the first anatomically modern humans, 677 00:33:24,377 --> 00:33:26,838 appeared around 65 million years 678 00:33:27,005 --> 00:33:30,717 after non-avian dinosaurs went extinct. 679 00:33:32,844 --> 00:33:36,264 But not everyone agrees with this theory. 680 00:33:36,431 --> 00:33:39,476 Willie Dye, a lecturing archeologist 681 00:33:39,643 --> 00:33:41,603 at the Creation Evidence Museum 682 00:33:41,770 --> 00:33:44,606 believes the Paluxy River fossil site 683 00:33:44,773 --> 00:33:48,360 provides clear evidence that mankind 684 00:33:48,485 --> 00:33:51,571 once walked with dinosaurs. 685 00:33:51,738 --> 00:33:54,074 I just really enjoy-- especially, working in, 686 00:33:54,241 --> 00:33:56,910 in Glen Rose with the dinosaur tracks. 687 00:33:57,077 --> 00:33:59,913 Eleven different species of dinosaurs there. 688 00:34:00,080 --> 00:34:02,457 And human footprints all in the same area. 689 00:34:02,666 --> 00:34:05,418 We've uncovered over 600 dinosaur tracks 690 00:34:05,627 --> 00:34:07,504 and over 90 human footprints 691 00:34:07,671 --> 00:34:09,755 in the same Cretaceous limestone. 692 00:34:09,922 --> 00:34:13,510 You have the Delt track, with the Acrocanthosaurus 693 00:34:13,677 --> 00:34:16,972 stepping into a human footprint. 694 00:34:17,138 --> 00:34:20,725 That's one of the most famous ones that we have in there. 695 00:34:20,891 --> 00:34:22,643 And then we've had, uh, evolutionists 696 00:34:22,811 --> 00:34:24,145 that say, "Impossible." 697 00:34:24,312 --> 00:34:26,313 That's-that's their word. "Impossible." 698 00:34:26,481 --> 00:34:28,900 But yeah, you're looking at the evidence right there. 699 00:34:29,985 --> 00:34:32,362 [Shatner] The theory that man and dinosaur coexisted 700 00:34:32,487 --> 00:34:35,949 is related to an idea known as creationism, 701 00:34:36,116 --> 00:34:37,951 which includes the belief that God created 702 00:34:38,118 --> 00:34:43,123 both dinosaurs and human beings around 6,000 years ago. 703 00:34:43,290 --> 00:34:47,418 It is not accepted by the scientific community. 704 00:34:49,379 --> 00:34:51,130 But ever since dinosaur tracks have been found 705 00:34:51,297 --> 00:34:53,925 in the Paluxy River over a century ago, 706 00:34:54,092 --> 00:34:57,512 the site has been a popular destination 707 00:34:57,679 --> 00:35:03,059 to see where some believe man and dinosaur 708 00:35:03,268 --> 00:35:05,353 walked side by side. 709 00:35:06,438 --> 00:35:07,772 [Williams] On the Paluxy River, 710 00:35:07,939 --> 00:35:09,899 the prints were first found by George Adams 711 00:35:10,108 --> 00:35:12,611 and his brother Ernest "Bull" Adams 712 00:35:12,777 --> 00:35:14,654 back around 1908. 713 00:35:15,697 --> 00:35:18,867 Even up into the 1930s, people were coming down there 714 00:35:19,034 --> 00:35:22,162 to talk to Ernest "Bull" Adams, 715 00:35:22,287 --> 00:35:25,415 and just to see the man prints 716 00:35:25,582 --> 00:35:29,085 and the huge dinosaur prints that were alongside. 717 00:35:29,252 --> 00:35:30,962 They were becoming so popular, 718 00:35:31,087 --> 00:35:33,590 they started selling chunks and blocks 719 00:35:33,757 --> 00:35:35,383 of these dinosaur prints to people. 720 00:35:35,550 --> 00:35:36,885 And during the Great Depression, 721 00:35:37,052 --> 00:35:39,554 people did what they had to to make money. 722 00:35:39,721 --> 00:35:42,891 They were running out of prints to sell, 723 00:35:43,058 --> 00:35:46,019 so George thought, "Well, I can make some money 724 00:35:46,227 --> 00:35:49,314 if I carve up a few fake ones." 725 00:35:49,481 --> 00:35:51,941 And that was a big mistake because 726 00:35:52,150 --> 00:35:55,779 a lot of people now associate the Glen Rose formation 727 00:35:55,987 --> 00:35:58,406 with these "fake" human footprints. 728 00:35:58,573 --> 00:36:00,825 And he only made maybe two or three of them. 729 00:36:00,992 --> 00:36:04,245 And those are the ones that did the most damage to this story. 730 00:36:04,412 --> 00:36:06,581 But the prints that are available now 731 00:36:06,790 --> 00:36:10,710 are slowly degrading because of carbonic acid in the rainwater. 732 00:36:10,877 --> 00:36:12,879 It'll slowly destroy the limestone, 733 00:36:13,004 --> 00:36:15,215 to the point where you can't tell if it's a dinosaur, 734 00:36:15,382 --> 00:36:17,509 if it's a human footprint. 735 00:36:18,593 --> 00:36:20,345 [Shatner] While the dinosaur footprints are genuine, 736 00:36:20,512 --> 00:36:23,139 the alleged human tracks have been largely regarded 737 00:36:23,348 --> 00:36:25,767 as manufactured or misidentified. 738 00:36:25,934 --> 00:36:29,312 But should the idea be dismissed altogether? 739 00:36:30,355 --> 00:36:32,190 Even the theory that the dinosaurs were killed 740 00:36:32,357 --> 00:36:37,904 by an asteroid impact was only substantiated in the 1990s. 741 00:36:38,071 --> 00:36:41,282 So, how can we say for certain that we know everything 742 00:36:41,449 --> 00:36:47,163 about the timeline between man and dinosaur? 743 00:36:47,288 --> 00:36:48,540 [Williams] We were always taught 744 00:36:48,748 --> 00:36:53,211 in school that the dinosaurs were here 745 00:36:53,378 --> 00:36:56,506 and they ended around 65 million years ago, 746 00:36:56,673 --> 00:36:59,801 and then man came on the scene millions of years after that. 747 00:36:59,926 --> 00:37:01,636 We need to keep an open mind, 748 00:37:01,803 --> 00:37:04,472 and we need to examine the facts a little bit clearer 749 00:37:04,472 --> 00:37:05,598 and we need to examine the facts a little bit clearer 750 00:37:05,724 --> 00:37:08,977 without having a lot of this idealism 751 00:37:09,185 --> 00:37:11,771 that man was here at a certain time. 752 00:37:11,938 --> 00:37:13,982 It deserves a little bit more attention 753 00:37:14,149 --> 00:37:15,650 than we've been giving it. 754 00:37:19,362 --> 00:37:21,489 [Shatner] Sixty-six million years ago, 755 00:37:21,656 --> 00:37:24,242 an apocalyptic cataclysm 756 00:37:24,367 --> 00:37:27,412 dramatically altered the course of life on Earth, 757 00:37:27,579 --> 00:37:31,374 and killed all non-avian dinosaurs. 758 00:37:31,541 --> 00:37:36,337 But what if an extinction event never happened? 759 00:37:36,546 --> 00:37:40,508 What would dinosaur evolution look like? 760 00:37:40,675 --> 00:37:42,469 [Naish] What would the world be like had 761 00:37:42,635 --> 00:37:45,513 that mass extinction event not happened? 762 00:37:45,680 --> 00:37:49,225 Would dinosaurs have evolved intelligence 763 00:37:49,392 --> 00:37:53,688 similar to that of primates, or even humanlike dinosaurs? 764 00:37:53,855 --> 00:37:55,315 And it was asked, most famously, 765 00:37:55,482 --> 00:37:58,318 by the Canadian paleontologist Dale Russell, 766 00:37:58,443 --> 00:38:01,613 who, in 1981, actually proposed 767 00:38:01,780 --> 00:38:04,699 that had non-bird dinosaurs not become extinct, 768 00:38:04,908 --> 00:38:07,327 they would ultimately have given rise 769 00:38:07,494 --> 00:38:10,705 to big-brained humanoid dinosaurs. 770 00:38:10,872 --> 00:38:13,166 And Russell actually worked with a model maker 771 00:38:13,333 --> 00:38:16,044 to produce a reconstruction of what this creature, 772 00:38:16,211 --> 00:38:19,047 this "dinosauroid," might have looked like. 773 00:38:19,214 --> 00:38:23,426 And their creature looks suspiciously like a small, 774 00:38:23,593 --> 00:38:26,221 green, scaly humanoid. 775 00:38:27,263 --> 00:38:30,809 [Longrich] Dale Russell had this idea of a, a dinosauroid, 776 00:38:30,975 --> 00:38:34,938 which is an intelligent, tool-using dinosaur. 777 00:38:35,146 --> 00:38:37,816 It walks upright, it kind of looks like a human. 778 00:38:37,982 --> 00:38:39,734 So, it seems like science fiction. 779 00:38:39,901 --> 00:38:42,612 And yet, these get at some of the most profound questions 780 00:38:42,779 --> 00:38:45,532 we can possibly ask about evolution. 781 00:38:46,658 --> 00:38:49,494 [Shatner] Big-brained humanoid dinosaurs? 782 00:38:49,661 --> 00:38:53,665 What would life have been like for these dinosauroids? 783 00:38:53,832 --> 00:38:56,459 Would they have developed their own religious beliefs, 784 00:38:56,668 --> 00:39:00,964 advanced technology or maybe even their own space program? 785 00:39:01,130 --> 00:39:05,510 Or might they have taken another path entirely? 786 00:39:05,677 --> 00:39:08,221 What if the dinosaurs didn't go extinct? 787 00:39:08,429 --> 00:39:11,349 What might that evolutionary pathway have looked like? 788 00:39:12,433 --> 00:39:15,270 The dinosaurs didn't really do anything wrong. 789 00:39:15,436 --> 00:39:19,065 They were highly diverse, highly successful. 790 00:39:19,232 --> 00:39:23,695 And then, cut down in a moment by, basically, a fluke. 791 00:39:23,862 --> 00:39:27,699 And then the asteroid impact occurs and wiped them out. 792 00:39:29,117 --> 00:39:31,327 And if it had veered off a few thousand kilometers 793 00:39:31,494 --> 00:39:33,162 in a different direction, 794 00:39:33,329 --> 00:39:36,332 missed the Earth entirely, they'd still be here. 795 00:39:36,499 --> 00:39:38,042 One possibility is they might have evolved 796 00:39:38,209 --> 00:39:39,544 into something like us. 797 00:39:39,711 --> 00:39:42,714 But it may well be that dinosaurs 798 00:39:42,881 --> 00:39:44,591 wouldn't have evolved intelligence. 799 00:39:44,757 --> 00:39:46,009 They wouldn't have created civilizations. 800 00:39:46,175 --> 00:39:47,635 I think a more likely scenario 801 00:39:47,802 --> 00:39:49,053 is they kind of would have kept doing 802 00:39:49,220 --> 00:39:50,638 what they were already doing. 803 00:39:50,805 --> 00:39:54,058 That being said, we'll never really know. 804 00:39:54,267 --> 00:39:56,644 So, it's a really profound question, 805 00:39:56,811 --> 00:39:58,688 but it's very difficult to answer. 806 00:39:59,856 --> 00:40:01,524 [Shatner] If non-avian dinosaurs had been given 807 00:40:01,691 --> 00:40:05,320 more time on the planet, what might they have become? 808 00:40:05,445 --> 00:40:08,531 It's a fascinating question, 809 00:40:08,698 --> 00:40:13,828 but for now, the mystery of Earth's prehistoric past 810 00:40:13,995 --> 00:40:15,955 and its magnificent creatures 811 00:40:16,122 --> 00:40:19,250 is yet to be uncovered. 812 00:40:20,418 --> 00:40:22,629 Now, it's fair to say that we're in a golden age 813 00:40:22,795 --> 00:40:26,841 of dinosaur research, because more people are looking 814 00:40:26,966 --> 00:40:30,053 for dinosaur fossils than ever before in the whole of history. 815 00:40:30,219 --> 00:40:33,014 But one thing that we always emphasize 816 00:40:33,181 --> 00:40:36,100 is that we are still just scratching the surface. 817 00:40:36,309 --> 00:40:39,479 There are thousands of dinosaur species 818 00:40:39,604 --> 00:40:42,857 yet to discover in all parts of the world. 819 00:40:43,858 --> 00:40:45,985 What I love about paleontology is the mystery. 820 00:40:46,152 --> 00:40:47,737 Looking at these fossil bones 821 00:40:47,946 --> 00:40:49,530 of these creatures that lived 822 00:40:49,697 --> 00:40:52,992 millions and millions of years ago, 823 00:40:53,159 --> 00:40:55,828 I love how it's this intersection between 824 00:40:55,995 --> 00:40:57,997 science and your imagination. 825 00:40:58,164 --> 00:40:59,791 You'll be like, "Okay, this is my best 826 00:40:59,958 --> 00:41:01,751 interpretation of the evidence," 827 00:41:01,918 --> 00:41:04,837 and then a few years later, a new fossil comes around, 828 00:41:05,004 --> 00:41:07,882 and it shows you that you were completely wrong. 829 00:41:08,007 --> 00:41:09,801 Evolution will produce something crazier 830 00:41:09,968 --> 00:41:11,636 than we could have imagined. 831 00:41:12,720 --> 00:41:14,889 Based on the fossil record, 832 00:41:15,056 --> 00:41:17,433 we know with certainty that dinosaurs 833 00:41:17,600 --> 00:41:19,852 walked the Earth millions of years ago. 834 00:41:20,019 --> 00:41:21,562 And in a very short time, we've been able 835 00:41:21,729 --> 00:41:26,150 to piece together an almost incomprehensible picture 836 00:41:26,317 --> 00:41:27,819 of a thriving planet 837 00:41:28,027 --> 00:41:32,532 that is unrecognizable to us today. 838 00:41:32,699 --> 00:41:36,577 Yet, the truth is, there are countless 839 00:41:36,786 --> 00:41:40,373 unanswered questions about Earth's prehistoric past. 840 00:41:40,540 --> 00:41:43,793 So, while new discoveries and modern technology 841 00:41:43,960 --> 00:41:45,670 may surprise us, 842 00:41:45,837 --> 00:41:47,672 it's not hard to believe that the mysteries 843 00:41:47,839 --> 00:41:52,218 of the dinosaurs will forever remain... 844 00:41:53,344 --> 00:41:55,013 ...unexplained. 845 00:41:55,179 --> 00:41:56,764 CAPTIONING PROVIDED BY A+E NETWORKS