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I'm here in Patagonia in the southern
part of South America because,
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a few years ago, a man looking
for one of his lost sheep found
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a simply gigantic bone
sticking out of a rock -
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a bone that was going
to astonish science.
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That first bone led to the
discovery of over 200 others.
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They were all huge - so big that they
could only have come from a dinosaur.
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And what a dinosaur it
would turn out to be!
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One that seems to defy
the laws of nature.
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These bones are part of a
skeleton that has remained hidden
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and marvellously preserved
for 100 million years.
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An international team of
scientists assembled to try
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and work out what sort of
dinosaur it belonged to.
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00:01:15,171 --> 00:01:17,830
It's like a palaeontological
crime scene!
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Each bone is an important piece
of evidence that can give us
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information as to what the living
creature was actually like.
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We'll use the latest
forensic technology,
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we'll compare it with how
giant animals live today
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and we'll build a full-size skeleton
of this stupendous creature.
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And we will try and work out in detail
what it looked like when it was alive.
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Absolutely amazing!
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Could it really have been the biggest
animal ever to walk the earth?
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ATTENBOROUGH AND THE GIANT DINOSAUR
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Patagonia in southern Argentina.
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Like many detective stories,
this one began by chance.
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A shepherd stumbled across the tip of
a huge bone poking out of the ground.
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Experts from Patagonia's
premier palaeontological museum
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confirmed it was part of a dinosaur.
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But they didn't realise at the time what a
truly extraordinary one it would prove to be.
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Dinosaurs of many kinds roamed all over these
lands in the southern end of South America
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during what's known as
the Cretaceous period,
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between 66 and 145 million years ago.
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The largest were plant-eaters
known as sauropods.
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And the largest of them
were the titanosaurs.
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Giant titanosaur bones
are comparatively rare
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so very little is known
about these dinosaurs.
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This new discovery
could change all that.
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Like many people, young and old,
I'm fascinated by dinosaurs,
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so the chance to join this investigation
is just too good an opportunity to miss.
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Oh, I'd love to have a go!
- I'm sure they'd let you.
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Of course, it's the giants in particular
that capture the imagination.
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The first sauropods to appear on earth
were comparatively small creatures.
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This is the cast of the
thigh bone of one of them.
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It's not even as big as my thigh bone.
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But after about 20 million years,
some had become pretty big.
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This is a thigh bone from
one of those creatures.
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But then, after that...
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our giant appeared.
This is its thigh bone.
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It's the largest ever found.
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Coming across such a bone in your
back yard must be quite a shock.
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Just ask farm owner Alba Maio.
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I don't have many sheep
but I do have dinosaur
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We're surprised and shocked.
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Apparently it's a unique
specimen of its size.
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Before long, a whole team of fossil-hunting
scientists arrives and starts work.
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The thighbone proves to be eight feet,
2,4 metres long.
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It's preserved in extraordinary detail,
and detail will be
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critical to the forensic
examination that will follow.
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The research team soon turn
the site into a vast quarry.
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It proves to be one of the biggest
dinosaur finds of the century.
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Bone after bone emerge from the rocks.
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We just found another bone right here.
We weren't expecting it at all.
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We just start digging and find it.
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Until recently, giant titanosaurs have
only been known from a dozen bones
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and our team have already found
more than ten times as many.
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Dr Diego Pol is the chief palaeontologist
leading the investigation.
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If you really want to know what a really
gigantic dinosaur looked like, this quarry here
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has the potential to answer that question
and that's really exciting for us.
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It's really impressive. When you stand by
one of these bones, you really feel tiny.
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With so much new evidence,
there is a chance of discovering
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all kinds of new facts about
the mysterious titanosaurs.
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It's like a palaeontological
crime scene.
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It's a really unique thing that you will
not find anywhere else in the world.
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00:08:09,506 --> 00:08:13,539
Patagonia's harsh weather makes
uncovering the fossils exhausting,
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but it also endangers the
newly-exposed fossils.
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A lot of damage from the rain so we need
to protect the bones that are at risk.
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I'm really concerned that
this already has some cracks.
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If the bones aren't protected, tiny
details on their surface could be lost.
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To protect the bones,
they're covered with, of all things,
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wet toilet paper and plaster of Paris.
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It's like putting a plaster
cast on a broken leg.
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There's a rush to get them back to the museum
to begin examining them in minute detail.
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A new road has been specially
built to enable them
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to be transported
without too much jolting.
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Once at the museum laboratory,
the detailed detective work begins.
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It's a chance to start
putting flesh on bones.
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00:09:37,382 --> 00:09:40,790
Some really big muscle
was going in here.
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This animal was so big
that it certainly needed
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really powerful muscles and very
strong attachments into the bones.
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00:10:00,593 --> 00:10:06,735
This is a giant vertebra, one of the bones
of the spine, and it's a very important find.
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00:10:07,403 --> 00:10:10,408
That's because it's likely
to provide crucial evidence
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00:10:10,472 --> 00:10:13,899
for identifying the
species of our dinosaur.
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Despite weighing up to half a tonne,
these fossils are surprisingly fragile.
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It's all rather nerve-racking.
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00:10:32,056 --> 00:10:35,881
One bone like this has already
cracked in half without warning.
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00:10:54,939 --> 00:10:57,439
And so this is the
position as it was in life
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with the centre of the backbone there,
then this is the crest on the top.
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Right, right, and this belongs
to the middle part of the thorax.
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Right about here.
- About that. - Yeah, yeah.
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Many more weeks of detailed examination
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will be needed before the backbones
reveal all their secrets.
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00:11:20,088 --> 00:11:22,588
Surprisingly, perhaps,
one of the first things
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the team was able to deduce about
our titanosaur is its weight.
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That's because,
after finding the thigh bone,
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they discover another huge bone
from the front leg - a humerus.
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By measuring the circumference
of each of these leg bones,
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it's possible to estimate how
much weight they could support.
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Let's see how much.
We'll measure this.
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79.
- 79?
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I'm not sure how that
translates to body weight.
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00:12:06,819 --> 00:12:10,633
Yeah, around 70 tonnes or even more,
probably.
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That's really big.
- It's amazing.
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That evening, Dr Jose Luis
Carballido checks his calculations.
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I've been calculating how
heavy the dinosaur was.
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It weighted more than Argentinosaurus!
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Until now, Argentinosaurus was
the heaviest known dinosaur.
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Ours already looks bigger.
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Could this mean it was the largest
animal ever to walk the earth?
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Could it also be a new species?
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00:13:05,832 --> 00:13:08,372
We can't be sure... yet.
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The rocks of Patagonia,
so bare of vegetation,
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also contain astonishing evidence of
how titanosaurs began their lives.
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I've now come nearly 500 miles north
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from our Patagonian dinosaur excavation
to a place called Auca Mahuevo.
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This is the largest dinosaur
nesting ground yet discovered.
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00:13:37,485 --> 00:13:42,297
The remains of their eggs and
their nests are wherever I look.
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In fact, it's quite difficult for me
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to take a step without walking
on a dinosaur eggshell.
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Over thousands of years, the wind and
the rain have cleared away the soft rock
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that once enclosed these fragments
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and they can tell us quite a lot
about how titanosaurs reproduced.
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Careful excavation has
shown that these dinosaurs
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laid eggs in clutches of
up to 30 or 40 at a time.
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They would have looked
rather like these replicas
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because they lay on the
surface of the ground,
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not covered by soil,
but in a shallow depression.
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00:14:28,483 --> 00:14:32,745
Sometimes, though, remains of vegetation
have been found in some nests,
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which suggests that the dinosaurs might have
used rotting leaves to help with the incubation.
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00:14:38,395 --> 00:14:42,770
The dinosaur that laid these
eggs here were medium-sized.
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Our dinosaur that we're excavating,
probably laid eggs as big as that.
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I'm shown around by Dr Luis Chiappe who, with
his team, discovered this remarkable site.
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Dinosaur eggs here were
laid on an old river plain.
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Then the river flooded and covered the
unhatched eggs, preserving them in mud.
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You see, you know, many eggs...
- There.
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for kilometres and kilometres.
Here's a nice one.
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Oh, that's a huge piece!
- Yup.
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And this is the actual surface of the egg?
- Yes.- Astounding.
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Do you suppose they could have
been coloured like birds' eggs?
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They may. Maybe they were off-white.
We can't tell really. - Yeah.
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Well, we can see all the
tiny pores on the surface.
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And the texture.
- Yeah. What a beautiful piece.
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You must admit it's pretty romantic.
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I think it's incredible.
- I think it's absolutely extraordinary
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and I must put it back where I found it.
- Thank you.
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The fragments could tell us quite a
lot about how the dinosaurs nested.
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But some, amazingly,
can do even more than that.
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All these examples have
something quite special.
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This one is my favourite.
And what you can see
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is a very large patch
of baby dinosaur skin.
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How wonderful! It's extraordinary.
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And this is not just an impression,
this is the mineralised skin. - It is.
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Yeah. Astounding.
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The eggs were not just
preserving the bones,
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they were also preserving
the skin of these babies. - Yeah.
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This was just on the surface. I remember
picking this up and brushing it a little bit
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and then using my hand lens and
looking at this exact patch of skin
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and I realised that
we had found something
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that no person had ever seen before.
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You are the first human being
ever to see a baby dinosaur's skin. - Yes.
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It was just an amazing...
amazing moment.
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It must have been very
close to hatching.
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It's almost complete, this thing.
- Yes, that's what we believe.
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And then a flood...
- Killed them all.
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Unfortunately for them, good for us.
- Yes.
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Luis Chiappe has dozens of
complete eggs in his museum and
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he allows me to examine some of his
most precious specimens for myself.
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There are many other remarkable things
in these astonishing time capsules.
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This one has got,
perfectly clearly, the limb bones.
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Here is a skull.
That's the orbit of the eye,
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there's the lower jaw,
there's the snout.
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00:18:06,432 --> 00:18:08,932
This one also has a skull,
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but on the tip of the snout you can
see a little spike which is like the
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egg tooth that a bird embryo has to
help it crack itself out of a shell.
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And here is a replica
of what the complete,
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un-crushed shell must have looked like.
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With all these details, it is possible to
imagine how a baby titanosaur entered the world.
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To get an idea of how these
youngsters might have lived,
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we can compare them with their
closest living relatives - birds.
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Rather like baby ostriches,
a young titanosaur
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would have been able to
walk soon after hatching.
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They may well have gathered
into groups to give some safety
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from predators, as young ostriches do.
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00:19:33,352 --> 00:19:39,100
Microscopic analysis of dinosaur leg
bones show rings, rather like tree rings,
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00:19:39,230 --> 00:19:44,760
and these indicate that titanosaurs
grew very swiftly early in their lives
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and they could have lived for some 50
years, plenty of time to become enormous.
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The team now has 150
bones of our titanosaur,
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enough to get an idea, not only of its
weight, but also its height and length.
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00:20:02,004 --> 00:20:07,068
Now, the plan is to build a life-size
reproduction of the complete skeleton.
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00:20:23,407 --> 00:20:27,447
It's a challenge to find a place
big enough to house an animal that's
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00:20:27,625 --> 00:20:31,527
four times longer than a London
bus and nearly twice its height.
200
00:20:32,244 --> 00:20:37,168
But Diego thinks he's found one.
It's an old wool warehouse.
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One, two, three, four,
five, six, seven...
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We have been looking for a place that
is big enough to fit our dinosaur.
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00:20:57,125 --> 00:21:00,098
This seems to be it.
This is a warehouse that we could use,
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not only in terms of the length,
this is 70 metres long,
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but also it's very important
in terms of the height.
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So we need a place not only long,
but really high.
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It really needs a little bit of
decoration, but I think it will do it.
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It's going to be awesome!
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Putting the skeleton
together will help us
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understand the particular
challenges of being such a giant.
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So, next, an international team
of skeleton builders arrive
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00:21:35,681 --> 00:21:40,591
to scan the bones ready to make a
3-D computer model of each of them.
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00:21:48,273 --> 00:21:53,301
3-D scanning,
accurate to 0.01 of a millimetre,
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00:21:53,833 --> 00:21:58,235
allows images of the bones to be
placed in a virtual reality world
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00:21:59,072 --> 00:22:02,249
so that they can now be
examined from all points of view
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00:22:02,965 --> 00:22:05,505
without needing eight
people to lift them.
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00:22:08,439 --> 00:22:11,108
One of the mysteries
surrounding our dinosaur is,
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00:22:11,172 --> 00:22:15,584
how could an animal as big as
it was actually move about?
219
00:22:18,333 --> 00:22:24,166
The computer data allows us to put
our dinosaur leg bones together in 3-D
220
00:22:24,251 --> 00:22:29,180
and then compare the arrangement with
what we know about living animals.
221
00:22:39,387 --> 00:22:43,306
Elephants are the largest
land animal alive today.
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00:22:46,371 --> 00:22:50,648
They, like titanosaurs,
have to move their massive bodies around
223
00:22:51,242 --> 00:22:54,355
without their bones shattering
under the enormous weight.
224
00:23:01,298 --> 00:23:07,300
I've come to meet Professor John
Hutchinson here at ZSL Whipsnade Zoo.
225
00:23:08,577 --> 00:23:11,910
He's studied elephants for many
years and has joined the team
226
00:23:11,974 --> 00:23:15,716
that's investigating the internal
workings of our titanosaur.
227
00:23:16,098 --> 00:23:19,458
We have about a one-metre long
pressure sensitive mat out there
228
00:23:19,522 --> 00:23:22,634
with several thousand sensors in
it and it's telling us, in very
229
00:23:22,698 --> 00:23:26,408
high resolution, what the pressure
on an elephant's foot is like.
230
00:23:27,479 --> 00:23:29,979
We can see on the
elephant's foot here...
231
00:23:30,043 --> 00:23:34,538
Here she goes... - Yeah! Great.
- That was a perfect one! - Bull's-eye!
232
00:23:35,946 --> 00:23:41,749
The pressure hits the ground, rolls over
and then pushes off with its toenails.
233
00:23:43,252 --> 00:23:47,382
So we can see there some hot colours,
or reds and oranges,
234
00:23:47,446 --> 00:23:51,759
on the toenails of Melvin's
foot indicating high pressure.
235
00:23:51,823 --> 00:23:58,431
And then some cooler colours back towards
the heel pad in the greens and light blue.
236
00:23:58,495 --> 00:24:03,666
That's low pressure. So elephants are supporting
most of their weight on their toenails.
237
00:24:03,871 --> 00:24:06,921
That pressure gets transmitted
up to their toe bones
238
00:24:07,222 --> 00:24:11,131
and then up to their wrists
and ankles and so forth.
239
00:24:14,037 --> 00:24:19,932
John's analysis suggests that our
titanosaur's legs, like those of an elephant,
240
00:24:20,043 --> 00:24:24,973
were placed vertically beneath the
body like strong, massive columns.
241
00:24:27,822 --> 00:24:31,005
This arrangement transmits
the weight to the toes
242
00:24:31,069 --> 00:24:37,035
and then spreads the force, using fatty
pads in the back feet, as shock absorbers.
243
00:24:39,038 --> 00:24:45,252
But our titanosaur had one other adaptation
to help them walk - one that elephants lack.
244
00:24:49,392 --> 00:24:53,021
A clue to this can be seen
on the giant thighbone.
245
00:24:54,066 --> 00:24:56,566
How's it going?
- Good, good.
246
00:24:56,630 --> 00:25:00,959
Ben Garrod specialises in
reconstructing skeletons
247
00:25:01,084 --> 00:25:04,379
and he's joining the team to
look at the bones in detail.
248
00:25:05,959 --> 00:25:09,134
Marks on them show clearly
where the muscles were attached.
249
00:25:10,485 --> 00:25:12,985
That's halfway down the femur,
isn't it, that big lump there... - Yes.
250
00:25:13,049 --> 00:25:15,925
for these massive muscle and,
I guess, tendon attachments?
251
00:25:17,413 --> 00:25:21,831
This lump is where a huge muscle
was attached to the femur.
252
00:25:23,161 --> 00:25:27,956
The other end of this muscle was
connected to bones like these in the tail.
253
00:25:28,801 --> 00:25:32,258
It's this connection that
helped our dinosaur to walk.
254
00:25:33,022 --> 00:25:35,919
They've got so much strength
and so much rigidity up there.
255
00:25:36,105 --> 00:25:40,088
They actually used their tails to
help move, to help their propulsion.
256
00:25:40,379 --> 00:25:44,552
So they had massive muscles and tendons from...
- Help...?
257
00:25:44,628 --> 00:25:48,157
Yes, so the movement of the tail
actually pulled the hind legs
258
00:25:48,221 --> 00:25:50,761
backwards and then raised them forwards.
- I see.
259
00:25:52,251 --> 00:25:54,791
I must try that sometime!
260
00:25:58,637 --> 00:26:05,205
The largest lizard alive today, the
Komodo dragon, has a similar adaptation.
261
00:26:06,591 --> 00:26:11,003
The swing of their tail helps their
back legs move more efficiently.
262
00:26:15,452 --> 00:26:17,952
Of course, our dinosaur was different,
263
00:26:18,016 --> 00:26:21,197
not least because it
weighed over 500 times more.
264
00:26:22,562 --> 00:26:25,904
And that makes John Hutchinson
suspect that it would have
265
00:26:25,968 --> 00:26:28,508
had to deal with another problem -
266
00:26:28,893 --> 00:26:32,665
one also faced by passengers
on long-haul flights.
267
00:26:33,765 --> 00:26:37,585
Pressure in the legs of big
animals is a really big problem.
268
00:26:37,816 --> 00:26:41,774
If blood stays down there too long,
it's going to pool and clot.
269
00:26:42,531 --> 00:26:46,412
Much like airline socks that humans use,
large animals,
270
00:26:46,522 --> 00:26:50,695
again and again,
have evolved very thick elastic skin
271
00:26:50,759 --> 00:26:55,275
around their lower limb that helps
to keep that pressure very high.
272
00:26:55,380 --> 00:27:00,652
Actually, I can empathise. I have to wear
those same kind of stockings to get my blood
273
00:27:00,716 --> 00:27:03,256
back up my long legs!
274
00:27:03,407 --> 00:27:07,739
Time to thank our helpful elephant.
You're a lovely thing. Yes, you...
275
00:27:07,838 --> 00:27:14,052
Oh, you want one! OK, in you go.
Thanks. Thanks, pal.
276
00:27:15,705 --> 00:27:18,245
That's all I've got!
277
00:27:19,272 --> 00:27:25,337
A giant animal like an elephant also needs
a huge heart to pump blood around its body.
278
00:27:25,697 --> 00:27:28,237
And so did our titanosaur.
279
00:27:43,553 --> 00:27:46,323
Its heart must have been immense.
280
00:27:49,447 --> 00:27:53,063
From our new, detailed knowledge
of the skeleton, John Hutchinson
281
00:27:53,127 --> 00:27:57,477
has calculated that it was more
than six feet in circumference.
282
00:28:03,606 --> 00:28:07,117
It probably weighed 230 kilos
283
00:28:07,261 --> 00:28:12,303
and would have had to shift 90
litres of blood with a single beat.
284
00:28:12,818 --> 00:28:15,358
There's one!
285
00:28:17,976 --> 00:28:22,596
And it would have had to repeat
that beat every five seconds.
286
00:28:23,137 --> 00:28:25,677
There it goes again.
287
00:28:29,100 --> 00:28:31,640
Weighing more than three grown men,
288
00:28:31,770 --> 00:28:34,582
it would have been
extraordinarily powerful.
289
00:28:40,107 --> 00:28:44,085
And in order to pump blood
around the body at high pressure
290
00:28:44,353 --> 00:28:47,892
and then into the delicate
lungs at a lower pressure,
291
00:28:48,868 --> 00:28:52,915
it's thought that our titanosaur's
heart had four chambers -
292
00:28:53,637 --> 00:28:56,218
more like that of a bird than a reptile.
293
00:29:01,037 --> 00:29:05,521
So, a powerful heart pumped the
blood to the extremities of the body,
294
00:29:06,514 --> 00:29:09,054
but how did the blood get back?
295
00:29:12,151 --> 00:29:16,357
As in an elephant,
a combination of fatty footpads
296
00:29:16,421 --> 00:29:20,947
and tight skin are thought to have
forced the blood from its legs...
297
00:29:22,292 --> 00:29:24,832
all the way back to its heart.
298
00:29:39,169 --> 00:29:44,882
Toronto, Canada, and the world's
biggest dinosaur-making factory.
299
00:29:52,772 --> 00:29:56,609
The team is building a life-size
skeleton of this vast creature
300
00:29:57,436 --> 00:30:02,879
to be unveiled in Diego's warehouse
in Argentina in six months' time.
301
00:30:05,627 --> 00:30:12,121
First, they have to turn all the information
from the 3-D scans into each individual bone.
302
00:30:15,663 --> 00:30:19,047
State-of-the-art robots
carve moulds from polystyrene
303
00:30:19,337 --> 00:30:22,594
so that the bones can
be cast in fibreglass.
304
00:30:38,400 --> 00:30:42,575
Up until now, the fossil bones
have been the main focus of the dig
305
00:30:43,024 --> 00:30:47,741
but the rock that surrounds the fossils
also holds important information.
306
00:30:48,442 --> 00:30:53,170
The nature of the layers of rock in
which these fossils lie can tell us
307
00:30:53,234 --> 00:30:58,606
a great deal about how they got to be
where they are and how old they are.
308
00:30:58,745 --> 00:31:02,916
Some of these layers are
volcanic ash which must have come
309
00:31:02,980 --> 00:31:07,654
from a volcano erupting every now and
then somewhere in the neighbourhood.
310
00:31:11,962 --> 00:31:17,169
And this ash around the bones can
tell us how old the fossils are.
311
00:31:18,288 --> 00:31:20,788
Scientists worked out
that all these fossils
312
00:31:20,852 --> 00:31:25,226
dated from the Cretaceous
period but better than that,
313
00:31:25,306 --> 00:31:33,294
they dated them precisely
to 101,6 million years old.
314
00:31:39,963 --> 00:31:46,300
By a detailed forensic examination
and comparisons with living creatures,
315
00:31:46,364 --> 00:31:50,932
the team have deduced a great deal
about the life of our titanosaur.
316
00:31:55,118 --> 00:31:59,434
We now know when it lived,
how big it was,
317
00:31:59,587 --> 00:32:04,226
how it moved and what its
young might have looked like.
318
00:32:04,555 --> 00:32:07,608
We've even calculated its heart rate.
319
00:32:14,534 --> 00:32:18,672
In an investigation of this scale,
sometimes the most important
320
00:32:18,736 --> 00:32:25,334
information comes not from the most eye-catching
evidence but from quite tiny details.
321
00:32:29,248 --> 00:32:34,794
Here is something that I really hoped
the excavation was going to find.
322
00:32:37,591 --> 00:32:40,131
It's a tooth.
323
00:32:40,285 --> 00:32:47,044
And it's tiny compared with the size
of the huge animals from which it came.
324
00:32:47,840 --> 00:32:51,976
Teeth can tell you a huge
amount about an animal.
325
00:32:52,439 --> 00:32:56,054
And if you look at the tip,
you can see that it has been
326
00:32:56,118 --> 00:33:00,499
worn into two facets on either side.
327
00:33:00,961 --> 00:33:05,902
And that tells us that this tooth
engaged with the teeth on the other
328
00:33:05,966 --> 00:33:11,511
side in an alternate way like that,
not head-on but one on either side.
329
00:33:11,910 --> 00:33:14,410
So this animal, like a pair of scissors,
330
00:33:14,474 --> 00:33:18,944
just nipped off the vegetation
on which it was feeding.
331
00:33:19,128 --> 00:33:26,019
Enormous though it was, just nipped
off little leaves and here are fossils
332
00:33:26,113 --> 00:33:29,571
of some of the different kinds of
plants on which it might have fed...
333
00:33:31,313 --> 00:33:36,200
cycads, ferns and conifers.
334
00:33:45,115 --> 00:33:47,615
One thing these plants have in common
335
00:33:47,679 --> 00:33:51,973
is that they're all very
fibrous and hard to digest.
336
00:33:53,059 --> 00:33:56,518
To get enough nutrients
from such poor quality foods
337
00:33:57,118 --> 00:34:01,220
our titanosaur would have had
to eat them in vast quantities.
338
00:34:05,089 --> 00:34:09,742
A descendent of one of these plants
still grows in Patagonia today.
339
00:34:13,291 --> 00:34:17,862
200 million years ago when
South America, Australia
340
00:34:17,926 --> 00:34:23,583
and Antarctica were all joined together
to form a supercontinent called Gondwana,
341
00:34:23,872 --> 00:34:28,927
a particular kind of vegetation
was dominant - they were conifers.
342
00:34:29,466 --> 00:34:32,532
They continued to survive
to 100 million years ago
343
00:34:32,600 --> 00:34:36,648
when our titanosaurs were
roaming the land and a few still
344
00:34:36,753 --> 00:34:42,246
survive today. Here in the foothills
of the Andes is one of them.
345
00:34:42,534 --> 00:34:46,127
The monkey puzzle tree called araucaria.
346
00:34:51,042 --> 00:34:56,453
Trees, like araucaria, show that the
dinosaurs must have had another problem.
347
00:34:58,026 --> 00:35:04,530
These conifers, apart from being poor-quality
fodder, can grow to over 130 feet in height.
348
00:35:06,508 --> 00:35:11,638
They would have been out of reach for
many animals but not our titanosaur.
349
00:35:16,750 --> 00:35:19,290
Here, boys, come on.
350
00:35:22,154 --> 00:35:27,647
It's pretty clear why a long neck
is useful for a land-living animal.
351
00:35:29,035 --> 00:35:33,055
It enables it to reach vegetation
which is growing high up
352
00:35:33,119 --> 00:35:37,402
at the top trees that other
ground-based animals couldn't reach
353
00:35:37,933 --> 00:35:40,977
and it must have been much
the same for titanosaur,
354
00:35:41,789 --> 00:35:47,015
except we know from the fossils that
titanosaur's neck was very, very much longer.
355
00:35:48,920 --> 00:35:53,340
And that enabled it to sweep
its head in a great wide arc
356
00:35:53,475 --> 00:35:57,317
and even to reach between two
tree trunks that happened to be
357
00:35:57,385 --> 00:36:00,725
growing close together
to get other vegetation.
358
00:36:01,131 --> 00:36:03,671
What about that?
359
00:36:05,451 --> 00:36:09,672
This enormous reach would have saved
our titanosaur a lot of energy.
360
00:36:10,663 --> 00:36:14,393
It only needed to move its neck to feed,
not its whole body.
361
00:36:18,292 --> 00:36:22,264
But how did it eat enough of this
poor-quality food to survive?
362
00:36:23,462 --> 00:36:26,904
Elephants face a
similar challenge today.
363
00:36:27,456 --> 00:36:32,374
An elephant can collect
and chew about 130 kilos -
364
00:36:32,438 --> 00:36:35,780
that's 300 pounds of
vegetation in a day.
365
00:36:36,700 --> 00:36:41,305
But our titanosaur could have
eaten five times that amount.
366
00:36:42,388 --> 00:36:46,273
It's been estimated that a large
titanosaur would eat enough
367
00:36:46,337 --> 00:36:49,801
plant material to fill
a skip in a single day.
368
00:36:50,739 --> 00:36:53,279
So how did they digest it all?
369
00:36:53,696 --> 00:36:56,392
Elephants solved the
problem by giving their food
370
00:36:56,499 --> 00:37:01,192
long preparatory chews but
titanosaurs didn't bother.
371
00:37:02,618 --> 00:37:08,389
They simply gathered leaves by nipping
them off and then swallowing them whole.
372
00:37:10,281 --> 00:37:13,342
But that in turn would mean
that they needed a bigger
373
00:37:13,427 --> 00:37:17,289
and longer gut to digest
all that unchewed food.
374
00:37:18,890 --> 00:37:23,390
And it might well have taken ten days
for food to pass through their system.
375
00:37:25,522 --> 00:37:31,422
A bigger gut needs a bigger body so
titanosaurs grew bigger and bigger
376
00:37:31,486 --> 00:37:35,787
until they approached the limits
of what their bones could support.
377
00:37:45,299 --> 00:37:50,016
Two years after the dig began,
a strange cargo arrives,
378
00:37:50,080 --> 00:37:53,392
having made a 7,000 mile
journey from Canada.
379
00:38:00,794 --> 00:38:06,912
Dozens of packing cases later and all the
bones are finally in Diego's warehouse.
380
00:38:15,507 --> 00:38:18,697
Assembling the skeleton
can finally begin.
381
00:38:22,050 --> 00:38:28,238
The 3-D data used to make the skeleton has
also been used to create a computer model.
382
00:38:29,662 --> 00:38:34,117
It means I can get a preview of what
the final skeleton will look like.
383
00:38:34,193 --> 00:38:37,122
The first thing is these very,
very lovely legs.
384
00:38:37,186 --> 00:38:41,279
If we turn it around, they are very, very
column-like and this is like elephants
385
00:38:41,343 --> 00:38:45,852
but interestingly this titanosaur
had slightly splayed legs,
386
00:38:45,916 --> 00:38:50,267
at an angle of about five degrees
and this slight change would have
387
00:38:50,331 --> 00:38:53,653
really increased the ability
to take all that extra weight.
388
00:38:53,918 --> 00:38:58,298
You see the splay because of the joint or
because of the shape of the bone? - Both.
389
00:38:58,362 --> 00:39:00,665
You can tell from the shape of
the bone and from where certain
390
00:39:00,729 --> 00:39:04,404
parts of the bones form and how
they sit and then how the bones fit
391
00:39:04,468 --> 00:39:07,577
with one another you can really tell
how it would have sat in real life.
392
00:39:07,657 --> 00:39:11,101
Another thing you can see is a very,
very long neck.
393
00:39:11,212 --> 00:39:14,984
And we just found out that
ours had 15 bones in its neck.
394
00:39:15,048 --> 00:39:19,483
Interestingly, some of them were five
or six times longer than they were wide.
395
00:39:19,547 --> 00:39:24,521
These incredibly long vertebrae and there's lots
of them. - Why does it have such a long tail?
396
00:39:25,285 --> 00:39:28,094
Well, a couple of reasons.
If you've got an animal this big with
397
00:39:28,158 --> 00:39:30,967
a neck this long, the last thing
you want to be is top-heavy.
398
00:39:31,053 --> 00:39:34,972
And CAN research has just shown
that the centre of gravity
399
00:39:35,036 --> 00:39:38,612
in this animal was somewhere right
in the middle of the chest cavity.
400
00:39:40,112 --> 00:39:45,290
So the heavy tail counterbalances
the exceedingly long neck.
401
00:39:45,503 --> 00:39:51,495
But judging from the size of the muscle
attachments, the tail was also immensely strong.
402
00:39:52,779 --> 00:39:57,719
It had huge muscles from around
here right down to about a third
403
00:39:57,783 --> 00:40:00,112
of the way down the tail,
somewhere around here.
404
00:40:00,176 --> 00:40:03,808
So that would be solid flesh?
- Yep, muscle tissue, other tissue,
405
00:40:03,872 --> 00:40:06,943
ligaments, tendons.
- Do you think they might have fought with it?
406
00:40:07,639 --> 00:40:11,000
Possibly. - Thrashing it about?
- It could've been used as a defence mechanism
407
00:40:11,064 --> 00:40:13,423
so you're walking up to that as
a predator, the last thing you
408
00:40:13,487 --> 00:40:16,027
want to be is on the receiving end.
- Don't put me into it!
409
00:40:19,704 --> 00:40:22,244
Yeah.
410
00:40:30,192 --> 00:40:34,999
The long and painstaking examination
of the backbone has now borne fruit
411
00:40:35,344 --> 00:40:38,136
and Ben has got some important news.
412
00:40:43,652 --> 00:40:48,473
This is a vertebrae here from right high up
in the back, right near the shoulder blades.
413
00:40:48,537 --> 00:40:53,856
And the most important thing is
this little ridge that ends in this
414
00:40:53,920 --> 00:40:57,149
big lump and this is only found
in this particular dinosaur
415
00:40:57,243 --> 00:41:01,055
so from that and a few
other physical differences,
416
00:41:01,119 --> 00:41:04,304
we think we have got a brand-new,
exciting species.
417
00:41:06,377 --> 00:41:13,276
So our titanosaur is not only a giant,
it is indeed a new species of dinosaur.
418
00:41:15,195 --> 00:41:21,827
Examining the spinal bones also reveal something
about how it coped with life as a giant.
419
00:41:24,067 --> 00:41:27,340
This is where the spinal
cord would have passed.
420
00:41:29,022 --> 00:41:31,851
So this hole straight through here?
- Mm-hm.
421
00:41:32,082 --> 00:41:34,590
The whole nerve centre,
as it were, - Yep
422
00:41:34,654 --> 00:41:37,386
the cable carrying all the nerves.
- From the base of the tail
423
00:41:37,457 --> 00:41:40,386
right to the skull. - It's very small.
- It is, yeah. - Ours is what?
424
00:41:40,574 --> 00:41:44,269
About thumb width.
- So it's not all that much bigger. - No.
425
00:41:46,683 --> 00:41:49,818
This cord was well over 100 feet long.
426
00:41:51,657 --> 00:41:57,689
It would have taken about a second for a nerve
impulse to go from its tail to its brain.
427
00:41:59,142 --> 00:42:02,512
And what's more,
the spine has revealed another surprise.
428
00:42:03,604 --> 00:42:07,383
It is full of holes,
rather like a Swiss cheese.
429
00:42:09,741 --> 00:42:13,729
The neck bones of titanosaurs
contain so many holes
430
00:42:13,838 --> 00:42:18,214
and spaces that they
weighed around 35% less than
431
00:42:18,278 --> 00:42:21,298
they would have done had
they been made of solid bone.
432
00:42:21,965 --> 00:42:24,938
The leg bones of modern
birds are much the same.
433
00:42:25,573 --> 00:42:29,700
And those spaces serve another
very important function.
434
00:42:30,002 --> 00:42:32,542
They contained air sacs.
435
00:42:35,161 --> 00:42:38,898
These air sacs were
connected with the lungs.
436
00:42:42,263 --> 00:42:45,720
So what was their function
and how did they work?
437
00:42:45,933 --> 00:42:49,983
They occupied much of the chest
and ran along the whole length
438
00:42:50,047 --> 00:42:52,511
of the body along the backbone
439
00:42:52,575 --> 00:42:57,065
to the 17-metre-long neck
and then to the head.
440
00:42:59,568 --> 00:43:05,333
It's thought the balloon-like sacs
had thin but strong membranes.
441
00:43:07,172 --> 00:43:13,077
These sacs acted like bellows,
forcing air into the lungs.
442
00:43:14,091 --> 00:43:18,226
When we breathe in,
air flows down into our lungs,
443
00:43:18,539 --> 00:43:23,081
oxygen is absorbed in exchange
for carbon dioxide which is then
444
00:43:23,145 --> 00:43:25,618
got rid of when we breathe out.
445
00:43:25,682 --> 00:43:31,496
The air sac system is very much more
complex but very much more efficient.
446
00:43:33,215 --> 00:43:37,343
It enabled a titanosaur to
take in oxygen continuously,
447
00:43:37,859 --> 00:43:41,882
not just when breathing in
but also when breathing out.
448
00:44:05,745 --> 00:44:09,826
Our titanosaur wasn't the
only giant living around here.
449
00:44:14,886 --> 00:44:20,924
This was a dangerous world,
where meat-eaters were giants too.
450
00:44:24,809 --> 00:44:30,432
New evidence from the dig site shows that
carnivorous dinosaurs were here as well.
451
00:44:34,853 --> 00:44:39,848
So these are some of the over 80
teeth we found on the dig site.
452
00:44:39,919 --> 00:44:43,761
And you can feel how sharp they are.
453
00:44:46,284 --> 00:44:49,808
Yes, it's serrated, just like a shark's tooth,
in fact. - Absolutely.
454
00:44:49,872 --> 00:44:54,102
They actually belong to a family
known as a shark-toothed dinosaurs.
455
00:44:54,901 --> 00:44:57,698
We can identify the teeth
at the family level.
456
00:44:57,763 --> 00:45:01,559
We know of one species that
belonged to that family,
457
00:45:01,779 --> 00:45:07,674
it's called Tyrannotitan chubutensis.
- Tyrannotitan? - Yeah.
458
00:45:07,738 --> 00:45:11,592
That means a ferocious giant, ferocious beast.
- Exactly. - Good name.
459
00:45:11,656 --> 00:45:14,561
Yeah. - Chubutensis is because
of the area it comes from?
460
00:45:14,686 --> 00:45:17,745
Yes, this is the Chubut province.
- Great.
461
00:45:19,187 --> 00:45:23,352
Tyrannotitan must have been
a ferocious-looking beast.
462
00:45:24,753 --> 00:45:28,336
With large eyes, sharp,
flesh-eating teeth...
463
00:45:30,321 --> 00:45:36,188
and strong legs, it was a fast,
alert, meat-eating dinosaur.
464
00:45:39,448 --> 00:45:43,224
And it was as big as T Rex.
- Really? Not as famous.
465
00:45:43,314 --> 00:45:45,854
Not as famous.
- Tell that to Hollywood.
466
00:45:47,351 --> 00:45:50,517
I have some bones over there
I would like to show you.
467
00:45:51,920 --> 00:45:56,121
So this is one of the tail
vertebrae we found at the dig site.
468
00:45:57,096 --> 00:46:00,338
There's something really interesting
here. You can see this groove?
469
00:46:00,979 --> 00:46:04,085
Well,
this groove was probably a bite mark
470
00:46:04,149 --> 00:46:06,611
made by one of the carnivores.
- By one of these teeth?
471
00:46:06,675 --> 00:46:09,805
Right.
- So it was... What do you mean? Like that?
472
00:46:09,895 --> 00:46:15,100
Exactly. Taking the flesh out of their tail.
- Really? - Yeah.
473
00:46:15,844 --> 00:46:18,384
The tender bits.
474
00:46:18,952 --> 00:46:21,608
They would be too.
- Yeah, absolutely.
475
00:46:21,722 --> 00:46:24,892
Can you determine whether it was
a scavenger or it was a hunter?
476
00:46:25,347 --> 00:46:28,789
We don't know if they were dead,
I mean, they were scavenging
477
00:46:28,853 --> 00:46:32,802
on the carcasses, or if they were
actually hunting and killing them.
478
00:46:33,861 --> 00:46:38,817
Well, it didn't make much
difference to the old dinosaur. - Yes.
479
00:46:40,969 --> 00:46:43,827
In a detective story, to close the case,
480
00:46:43,938 --> 00:46:47,601
you really want to know
how the victim met its end.
481
00:46:48,787 --> 00:46:54,784
If our titanosaur didn't perish in the
jaws of a Tyrannotitan, how did it die?
482
00:46:57,449 --> 00:47:01,692
Clues can be found by the
detailed three-dimensional mapping
483
00:47:01,835 --> 00:47:06,331
of the location of every fossil bone,
small and large.
484
00:47:09,325 --> 00:47:13,769
That shows that the dig site
contains the remains of not just one
485
00:47:13,833 --> 00:47:19,579
but seven different individuals.
All of the new species.
486
00:47:20,310 --> 00:47:24,728
And the first thing to notice is that
they are on three different levels.
487
00:47:28,368 --> 00:47:33,807
That's to say the animals must have come
here on at least three different occasions.
488
00:47:40,159 --> 00:47:42,699
But why should they have done that?
489
00:47:50,771 --> 00:47:54,352
There are several theories
as to why seven bodies
490
00:47:54,416 --> 00:47:58,086
should have all ended up at
this one particular place.
491
00:47:58,687 --> 00:48:03,884
The first is that this was a seasonal
climate and that as the dry season proceeded
492
00:48:03,948 --> 00:48:07,604
this was one of the last
remaining pools of water
493
00:48:07,750 --> 00:48:12,483
and when this went, the sauropods
that happened to be here died here.
494
00:48:15,306 --> 00:48:20,185
The second is that these bodies
were swept down by great rivers
495
00:48:20,477 --> 00:48:27,009
during the rainy season and then where the
land levelled out, so those bodies were dumped.
496
00:48:27,870 --> 00:48:32,265
Analysis of the sediments around the
bones shows that there were rivers
497
00:48:32,329 --> 00:48:36,158
gently flowing across this site
at the time of their death.
498
00:48:41,271 --> 00:48:43,811
There was no shortage of water to drink.
499
00:48:44,386 --> 00:48:49,321
What's more the rivers were not moving
fast enough to shift such huge bodies.
500
00:48:50,264 --> 00:48:53,901
So the corpses weren't washed
here by floodwaters either.
501
00:48:57,047 --> 00:49:02,849
Could there be another reason why they all
died in one place on three different occasions?
502
00:49:05,254 --> 00:49:08,821
We know from layers of ash
around the bones that there were
503
00:49:09,012 --> 00:49:11,512
volcanoes erupting in the neighbourhood
504
00:49:11,576 --> 00:49:14,851
so doubtless there were
areas where the ground was
505
00:49:14,915 --> 00:49:19,001
warmed by volcanic fumes,
just as they are here today.
506
00:49:19,402 --> 00:49:24,036
We also know that dinosaurs regularly
laid their eggs in such places,
507
00:49:24,100 --> 00:49:29,002
doubtless taking advantage of the volcanic
warmth to help incubate their eggs.
508
00:49:29,143 --> 00:49:33,817
So maybe that was the reason why they
kept returning to the same place.
509
00:49:40,161 --> 00:49:45,946
Certainly the excavation of the
dinosaur egg site seems to support this.
510
00:49:47,644 --> 00:49:54,620
Nests like these have been found at four
quite widely separated layers in the rocks,
511
00:49:54,684 --> 00:49:59,363
showing that dinosaurs came back
to this particular site again
512
00:49:59,427 --> 00:50:03,737
and again and again over
a long period of time.
513
00:50:13,133 --> 00:50:17,599
Ash from a volcanic eruption can
sometimes fall in such quantities
514
00:50:17,663 --> 00:50:21,932
that the whole vegetation is
blanketed by it and killed.
515
00:50:23,205 --> 00:50:28,164
So life in the aftermath of a big eruption
can be very difficult for a plant-eater.
516
00:50:30,847 --> 00:50:35,654
Whatever the explanation, individuals
over several generations came
517
00:50:35,770 --> 00:50:39,563
to this one place and died here.
518
00:50:41,676 --> 00:50:47,727
The dig is coming to an end and the team have
assembled a record-breaking number of bones
519
00:50:47,791 --> 00:50:52,819
but they're still hoping to find one
last piece of the puzzle - the skull.
520
00:50:52,925 --> 00:50:59,153
So what number's this, 203?
- Actually this is 223. - 23?
521
00:50:59,217 --> 00:51:01,479
Between the seven individuals?
- Yeah.
522
00:51:01,543 --> 00:51:03,974
Between all the seven
individuals we found here on this site.
523
00:51:04,339 --> 00:51:07,685
If these are neck vertebrae,
could they be leading towards a skull?
524
00:51:07,749 --> 00:51:12,894
Yes, that's what were hoping for. We just
found another neck vertebrae over there.
525
00:51:12,958 --> 00:51:15,166
That would be a great triumph if
you found a skull, wouldn't it?
526
00:51:15,230 --> 00:51:20,011
There are only three titanosaur
skulls known so far. - Really? - Yeah.
527
00:51:20,075 --> 00:51:22,981
So they're very rare.
- And that's because they're very fragile.
528
00:51:23,045 --> 00:51:26,146
They're very delicate bones
and they have
529
00:51:26,210 --> 00:51:29,738
very light sutures
between each of the bones.
530
00:51:30,085 --> 00:51:34,120
OK, well, let's hope you find number four.
- Yeah. - Could be under there.
531
00:51:34,184 --> 00:51:38,326
Could be. We're going for that.
- Wonderful.
532
00:51:41,796 --> 00:51:44,336
Alas, it was not to be.
533
00:51:49,497 --> 00:51:51,997
So I gather you haven't yet found the skull.
- Sadly not.
534
00:51:52,061 --> 00:51:55,386
The only thing we have found
out of the skull is his tooth.
535
00:51:58,732 --> 00:52:02,955
So to complete the skeleton,
the team have to reconstruct one...
536
00:52:03,469 --> 00:52:08,589
Take that piece out of there. - Basing it
on the three skulls of other titanosaur species
537
00:52:08,653 --> 00:52:12,518
to produce one which most suits
the single tooth that we have.
538
00:52:20,028 --> 00:52:25,322
The scientific team has discovered,
collected, cleaned,
539
00:52:25,386 --> 00:52:31,081
scanned and copied 220
bones of our giant.
540
00:52:31,145 --> 00:52:36,138
Soon it'll be possible to put those
copies together to get some idea
541
00:52:36,237 --> 00:52:38,934
of what the living animal
actually looked like.
542
00:52:39,415 --> 00:52:44,437
But the fossil bones themselves
still have many secrets
543
00:52:44,501 --> 00:52:47,041
that are waiting to be revealed.
544
00:52:54,971 --> 00:52:58,707
All the theory can now
be put to the test.
545
00:53:03,688 --> 00:53:09,793
We can finally get the most accurate estimate
of our dinosaur's weight and true size.
546
00:53:23,995 --> 00:53:29,029
It takes two weeks, working day and
night, to fit all the bones together.
547
00:53:47,283 --> 00:53:49,823
God!
548
00:53:51,315 --> 00:53:54,646
Absolutely amazing!
549
00:54:13,463 --> 00:54:16,003
Good gracious!
550
00:54:43,210 --> 00:54:47,204
Well, Diego, are you pleased with it?
- Yes, we are very pleased.
551
00:54:47,730 --> 00:54:52,708
It is been a lot of work, it has
taken 40,000 man-hours to get here
552
00:54:52,842 --> 00:54:55,342
but we're really, really happy with it.
553
00:54:55,406 --> 00:54:58,668
And does it answer some of your
questions about the animal?
554
00:54:58,783 --> 00:55:01,533
Yeah, absolutely.
It answers a lot of questions
555
00:55:01,631 --> 00:55:04,782
but the good thing is it
raises more questions.
556
00:55:04,846 --> 00:55:08,147
So we have a lot of research
to continue on this animal.
557
00:55:08,834 --> 00:55:11,334
It's clear that this thing
still wasn't fully grown.
558
00:55:11,398 --> 00:55:15,124
It's massive, but it still had room to go.
- You mean the structure of the bones looks as
559
00:55:15,188 --> 00:55:17,728
though they were still growing?
- Yeah.
560
00:55:18,188 --> 00:55:24,984
That raises the really big question,
is it the biggest so far discovered?
561
00:55:25,547 --> 00:55:31,447
Well, according to our estimate,
this animal weighed 70 metric tonnes.
562
00:55:31,767 --> 00:55:35,644
70 metric tonnes.
What would that compare with?
563
00:55:35,708 --> 00:55:40,554
That is like 15 African elephants.
- 15 African elephants?
564
00:55:41,356 --> 00:55:47,520
We are now sure that this animal
was 10% larger than Argentinosaurus.
565
00:55:47,584 --> 00:55:50,638
The previous record-holder?
- The previous record-holder. So, yes,
566
00:55:50,702 --> 00:55:55,799
we think we have the largest
dinosaur ever known. - Fantastic!
567
00:55:55,902 --> 00:55:58,402
I can quite believe it.
568
00:55:58,466 --> 00:56:03,198
Congratulations to you.
- Thank you. - Congratulations to he, she or it.
569
00:56:03,776 --> 00:56:06,316
Wonderful!
A marvellous, marvellous thing!
570
00:56:24,870 --> 00:56:29,871
Piecing this complex jigsaw puzzle
together has been a fascinating adventure.
571
00:56:32,660 --> 00:56:37,733
It all started with the discovery
of one enormous thighbone.
572
00:56:37,931 --> 00:56:42,874
And then a team of 40 worked
for over two years to excavate
573
00:56:42,938 --> 00:56:49,671
and put together the near-complete skeleton
of the largest land animal yet discovered.
574
00:56:50,203 --> 00:56:52,988
And so added one further marvel
575
00:56:53,260 --> 00:56:57,692
to the astonishing
history of life on earth.
576
00:57:05,069 --> 00:57:09,391
What a thrill it must have been
to see it when it was alive.
56112
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