Palaeontology

Journey through the long-vanished corners of prehistoric North America, beginning when man first entered the vast, unspoiled continent some 14,000 years ago, in this appealing BBC documentary. Witness ancient beasts, mammoths, mastodons, giant bears, and sabre-toothed cats, and see the legacies each has passed to their modern successors. Computer animation and digital effects bring to life mammoths, saber-toothed cats, giant ground sloths, short-faced bears, glyptodonts, and a plethora of smaller animals in a lush Ice Age mosaic.

In the last episode, Austroposeidon level trees in search of fresh foliage. A herd of Triceratops journey through a cave to find an underground clay lick. A male Carnotaurus sets the stage for an extravagant display. A female Qianzhousaurus uses an autumn storm to her advantage while hunting Corythoraptor.
A family of Edmontosaurus evade a forest fire, while an Atrociraptor and Ankylosaur reap its rewards. Juvenile Therizinosaurus attempt to climb up to a bee nest. Hatzegopteryx hunts Zalmoxes, and patrols the dense undergrowth and seaspray-battered coastline.

Experts suspect that the dinosaurs were wiped out after a city-sized asteroid smashed into the Gulf of Mexico causing a huge crater. But until now, they haven't had any proof. In a world first, evolutionary biologist Ben Garrod joins a multi-million pound drilling expedition into the exact spot the asteroid hit to get hard evidence of the link. The team overcomes huge obstacles as it attempts to drill 1,500 metres beneath sea level to pull up rock from the Chicxulub crater. Meanwhile, paleopathologist Professor Alice Roberts travels the globe meeting top scientists and gaining exclusive access to a mass fossil graveyard in New Jersey - believed to date from the same time the asteroid hit. Alice also treks by horseback across the remote plains of Patagonia, to see if the effects of the asteroid impact could have wiped out dinosaurs across the world - almost immediately.

The series takes place after the extinction of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago and recreates animals of the Cenozoic with computer-generated imagery and animatronics. The first episode starts 49 million years ago, when Earth has fully recovered from the dinosaur extinction and is covered in a mysterious forest. This is a time that the world has almost forgotten - Germany was a hot sweaty jungle, birds ruled the earth and preyed on miniature horses and whales walked on land.

Journey through the long-vanished corners of prehistoric North America, beginning when man first entered the vast, unspoiled continent some 14,000 years ago, in this appealing BBC documentary. Witness ancient beasts, mammoths, mastodons, giant bears, and sabre-toothed cats, and see the legacies each has passed to their modern successors. Computer animation and digital effects bring to life mammoths, saber-toothed cats, giant ground sloths, short-faced bears, glyptodonts, and a plethora of smaller animals in a lush Ice Age mosaic. Discoveries from sites across America are the basis for the reconstructions.

Take a dino's-eye view of life in the prehistoric past as cutting-edge filming techniques and hard science. When White Tip, a female velociraptor, loses the rest of her pack, she must struggle to survive on her own. In time, she locates a new pack, as well as a mate, only to find that her hardships are just beginning in the harsh desert environment.