All language subtitles for Dinosaur.with.Stephen.Fry.S01E01.1080p.AMZN.WEB-DL.DDP2.0.H.264-RAWR_track4_[eng]

STEPHEN FRY: 'Dinosaurs.
Prehistoric monsters.

'Huge, terrifying.

'I've always loved them,
always been fascinated by them.

'What's mind-boggling is that
these extraordinary creatures

'roamed where we walk today.

'But what if I could go back in
time millions of years into the
past,

'to the magical, dangerous
world they lived in?

'I wonder...
what would I make of them?

'Face-to-face.'

Oh, you can just pull up here.
Thanks.

Imagine being able to explore
their world and move with them.

CHUCKLESIt's just a dream, I
suppose, but...

Well, I must get on with my
life. ROARING

Mind you, you never know.

ROARS

ROARS

For 180 million years,
dinosaurs dominated our planet.

In this series, I'm going to be
transported back

to the different eras of these
awe-inspiring creatures...

..to immerse myself in their
amazing, magical world.

DINOSAUR GROWLS
Hey! Don't do that.

With the help of experts and
the latest scientific
discoveries

from our time...
DINOSAUR ROARS

..we'll put their power
and strength to the test.

Unravel their remarkable story,
from humble origins

of the dawn of the dinosaurs,

to see how they evolved a
dazzling, bizarre array of
forms

to become giants...

DINOSAUR ROARS

..and produce some
of the scariest predators

ever to have stalked the Earth.

Until their ultimate demise.

Wiped from the face of the
planet

in a single catastrophe
of unimaginable power.

Come with me as I travel back
in time to encounter the
dinosaur.

Reverse back time,

and the Earth we know today
looked very different indeed.

The land squashed together into
one giant mass called Pangea,

which covered a third of the
planet.

And as the Earth changed,
so did the conditions.

New and distinct worlds formed,

and each was home to its own
class of unique characters.

In this series,
I'm going to travel back

to the three eras of the
dinosaurs.

The Triassic, Jurassic,
and Cretaceous.

But where did it all begin?

Tonight, I'm venturing to the
dawn of the dinosaurs, to
Pangea itself,

to meet some of the earliest
of their kind,

to see how and why
they evolved into giants.

I'm in a time when the
dinosaurs really came into
their own.

Their first golden age,
the Jurassic period.

Now, which might put you in
mind of a certain movie
franchise.

I'm on the western side of
Pangea

in an area that will one day
become North America.

DISTANT ROARING

There are some familiar sights
here, like these ferns

and these towering conifers.

But there are no flowers,
they haven't evolved yet.

And no grass, which might
disappoint gardeners.

But the dinosaurs are thriving.

And the late Jurassic,
around 155 million years ago,

saw the arrival of one
of the most iconic dinosaurs.

Indeed, one of the largest
animals ever to walk the Earth.

DINOSAUR GROWLS

DINOSAUR ROARS

This is Diplodocus.

Ho-ho!

She's, um, female.
Don't ask me how I know.

But she is absolutely massive.

You know, it's only when
you're standing next to one

that you get a real sense of
just how huge these creatures
are.

I'm pretty tall,
but she is six metres high,

that's like a two-storey house!

And from tail to nose, 26
metres!

That's like three double-decker
buses, only longer.

DIPLODOCUS ROARS

That is seriously bad breath.

Diplodocus was just one
of 250 species

that thrived during the
Jurassic.

We know about them because
their fossilised remains

have been found embedded
in rocks across the world.

In prehistoric Germany,
there was Archaeopteryx,

a small, feathered meat eater
and ancestor of today's birds.

In what would become China,
the Guanlong,

which sported a huge,
colourful head crest.

While what is today North
America

was home to the magnificent
armour-plated Stegosaurus.

And right on our very own
doorstep, relatives of
Diplodocus.

Our Diplodocus here
is truly enormous.

But I'm curious,

where did these huge beasts
come from in the first place?

Palaeobiologist Paul Barrett

at the Natural History Museum
in London has some ideas.

Dinosaurs began
their evolutionary journey

as relatively rare,
insignificant parts of their
ecosystems.

But they wouldn't stay
insignificant for long.

The world was about to change

and present them with an
opportunity to take over the
planet.

So, around the time that the
first dinosaur fossils are
found,

we see evidence for a major
transition in global
environments.

For most of the Triassic,

the climate of the Earth
is hot and arid.

But for a short interval,
this aridity gives way

to a slightly wetter, lusher
period with more vegetation,

and it's thought that this may
have kick-started the
dinosaurs.

At the time, vast volcanic
eruptions covered swathes of
the Earth in lava

and sent carbon dioxide levels
in the atmosphere skyrocketing.

The resultant greenhouse effect
caused mega-monsoon rains to
pour

and turn the world from arid
scrub into a vast wetland.

This new climate
produced the first conifers,

vast forests of towering trees,

a food source that the dominant
animals were too slow to adapt
to,

causing mass extinctions.

But those early dinosaurs
survived.

This wetter interval is when
we see the first body fossils
of dinosaurs

and also of mammals.

And it's suggested that
these nicer climatic conditions

may have fostered the
conditions for those two
groups to have evolved.

And they emerged
as the most abundant

and most diverse animals on
land for the next 140 million
years.

DINOSAURS SCREECH

Well, our Diplodocus
seems supremely well adapted

to life in the conifer forests
that flourished

after those volcanoes
devastated the Earth's climate.

But her sheer size
does have its drawbacks.

She's basically 15 tonnes
of prime Jurassic steak.

And there are others here
who'd love to take a bite -

like this.

This is an Allosaurus, one of
the deadliest predators of the
Jurassic.

Kind of T-rex of the period.

ALLOSAURUS ROARS

It's longer than a pick-up
truck and weighs in at two and
a half tonnes.

But unlike our
four-footed Diplodocus,

this scary monster goes around
on just two hind legs,

leaving its forelegs, its arms,
free to grab hold of its prey.

And it looks like
he might have found a target

in our Diplodocus over there.

Well, now, this could turn out
to be ugly.

I've travelled back in time to
a magical and mysterious world.

To an era when dinosaurs
were evolving into giants.

This amazing place is what
today you'd know better as
North America.

We're in the Jurassic period,
about 155 million years ago,

and this Allosaurus

has been stalking our rather
majestic Diplodocus over there.

But Diplodocus
is intimidatingly large,

the size alone is a great
defence.

So how can an Allosaurus
take on a Diplodocus?

What's it got in its armoury?

Palaeobiologist
Stephan Lautenschlager

has been studying its
biomechanics

to try to discover
how Allosaurus fed.

This is a full-sized replica
of the fossilised skeleton

of an actual Allosaurus.

But at just a fifth of the size
of a Diplodocus,

is its choice of prey a case of
biting off more than it could
chew?

Or is there something else
going on?

It's certainly well armed,
with 34 teeth,

each one a 10cm long,
razor-sharp weapon.

The teeth had little serrations
along the edges,

similar to a steak knife,

and ideally suited to cut
through flesh, through muscle
fibre.

But the most recent
cutting-edge research

into its massive head
reveals a problem.

The simulation here shows
stresses during hunting.

Everything in the blue colour
is lightly stressed.

Even when biting down, most of
the skull experiences little
pressure.

In other words, Allosaurus had
a very soft bite,

generating a force of just
under 800 pounds per square
inch,

compared to over 13,000 for the
ultimate dino predator, T-rex.

There must be some other
feature

to make this dinosaur
a successful killer.

And the answer lies
in those jaw muscles.

We see here, jaw is extending,
and during that extension,

the muscles are being
stretched.

However, muscles can only
stretch to a certain amount

until they reach a critical
limit.

Then the jaw stops extending.

What Stephan's controversial
new research reveals

is that those weak jaw muscles

actually acted
to the Allosaurus' advantage -

they gave it a huge gape.

It could open its mouth
to an incredible 79 degrees...

ALLOSAURUS ROARS

..which gives clues
as to how it might have hunted.

Allosaurus would use the skull,
the upper row of the teeth,

hatchet-like, and bringing it
down onto the prey, animal,

to inflict large wounds
or bite larger chunks of meat.

ALLOSAURUS ROARS

So, Allosaurus would
open its mouth wide,

and slash down on its prey with
its upper jaw like a meat
cleaver...

..inflicting a wound
and perhaps backing away

and waiting for its victim
to weaken or die.

I wonder if I can get close
enough to check out that jaw in
action.

ALLOSAURUS ROARS

Hah! It really is an enormous
gape, isn't it?

It's a bit like a snake when
it's about to swallow its prey.

But can it really use
the top half of that jaw

to hack away
at the much larger Diplodocus?

Engineer Adam Wojcik
of University College London

is an expert
on all things mechanical.

His team built a set of robo
jaws to test how Allosaurus
attacked.

Joining him
is palaeontologist Joe Bonsor

from London's
Natural History Museum.

So, you've got a motor here
and a cam action

that interfaces with the arm

that represents the top jaw
of the Allosaurus.

The robo jaw is lined
with steel teeth,

the exact size, shape and
sharpness of fossilised
Allosaurus teeth.

So, we can see here on the
tooth, we've got these sharp
curves,

crown of the tooth.

So, these would act a bit more
like a kitchen knife

than a kind of chisel.

And what we've tried
to do here is emulate

a mouth opening like this,
sort of large gape,

and then applying a kind of
swinging action into the
target.

And that's kind of how we
believe

the animal would've
attacked its prey.

Slicing through perhaps
the flank of a Diplodocus,

or something like that.

They should be able to cut
right into this now, then.

Will the lower jaw swing clear

and allow the upper jaw
to deliver a clean bite?

Three, two, one.

Fantastic.
Wow.

The serrated metal teeth
hack away huge chunks of melon,

leaving the lower jaw
totally clear of the prey.

Straight into the top
watermelon, and absolutely
ripped it to pieces.

A similar wound
in the flank of a Diplodocus

may not have proved fatal,

but maybe that was Allosaurus'
modus operandi.

Instead of the big crunching
bite that a T-rex had

that would have just
instantly killed something,

maybe Allosaurus came in with
these smaller attacks

that would have gradually worn
down

one of these massive sauropod
dinosaurs.

Well, I think we might be about
to witness Allosaurus

bringing that hatchet-like jaw
into action.

ALLOSAURUS ROARS

And I've asked dinosaur expert

and curator of the Natural
History Museum in London

Dr Susie Maidment

to help shed light on how the
attack might go down.

Well, battle might soon be
joined.

But how does a docile dumbo
like a Diplodocus...

That's very unfair
to call it a dumbo.

..how does it defend itself
against this kind of slashing
machine?

Well, I think primarily
by just being really enormous.

So, this is an animal
that's maybe 30 or 40 tonnes...

DIPLODOCUS GROWLING

..whereas our Allosaurus here
is maybe more like 15 tonnes.

So it's gonna be really hard

for it to take down
an adult Diplodocus like this.

And does it have
any other magic gifts?

It's presumably not very fast.

Actually, Diplodocus does have
one thing that's quite unique,

and that is a claw on its
forelimbs.

It's possible that it could
rear up onto its hind limbs,

and then actually use this
claw as some sort of defensive
structure.

And, of course, the tail is
another thing that it might
have used

to defend itself against
predators.

Yes, I always think that when I
get close to a dinosaur -

that one of the things
you ought to look out for,

a bit like a horse,
is going behind it,

cos this huge tail
can thrash around,

and it could kill a human,
obviously.

And as far as the Allosaurus
goes, this jaw that I've been
admiring,

this amazing, gaping jaw...
ALLOSAURUS ROARS

..it could presumably...

get... sort of get a lot
of flesh off an animal,

even if it doesn't kill it.

We see skeletons that have
breaks and traumas that have
healed,

so we know that, sometimes,
when these animals

were presumably being attacked
by predators, they didn't
always die.

So, your general feeling
is that maybe

this Diplodocus being
a full-grown adult

might not be a victim
of this Allosaurus.

My money's on the Diplodocus
over there.

Ooh, he's off.

ROARING

Ooh!

ROARING

ROARING

Phew.

Well, that was quite something,
wasn't it,

to see such a monumental battle
up close.

Absolutely terrifying.

But at least it looks as if
they'll each live

to fight another day.

So, honours even.

The Diplodocus seemed to be
deploying its tail

and just the sheer weight
and mass of its body

as it turned and twisted,

which is a pretty sound
defence, really, isn't it?

Yeah, absolutely.

I mean, the huge size
of this animal alone,

really, I think,
is its best defence.

It must have made the Earth
tremble to see this.

As well as claws
and that huge tail,

the Diplodocus had another
neat, strategic trick up its
sleeve.

This was more to do with eating
than self-defence, however.

And in order to see it
properly,

I need to get up high,
into those extraordinary trees,

to witness a rather magical
trick by the Diplodocus.

I've gone back 155 million
years

to the Jurassic period,

an incredible time when ferns
and huge conifer trees

dominated the landscape.

Food that one of the largest
animals ever to walk the Earth

has become
supremely well adapted to.

Our giant friend is happily
feeding on ferns down there.

But scientists tell us

that she had an amazing way
of expanding her menu options.

Let's see
if I can get her to show us.

HE CLICKS TONGUE,
WHISTLES

Got a treat! Come on!

Ah, there you are.

Look at that, fresh hay! Fresh
hay!

Look at it.

You know you want it. Come on.

No?

HEAVY THUD

Ah. Can't tempt her.

Oh, she's coming up again. Oh.

No? You prefer those, do you?
Your conifer needles.

HEAVY THUD

Wow!

That was something, isn't it,
the way she used her tail
there.

It was like a sort of extra
leg, like the leg of a tripod.

And that way, of course, she
can really build up her diet.

But there remains the mystery
of how she can ever eat enough
food

to fuel and build that huge
body.

It's common enough
for plant-eaters

to be bigger than predators -
just look at the gorilla.

But even the largest land
animal on Earth today, the
elephant,

has to eat 150kg each day
to sustain itself.

Well, a Diplodocus is five
times the size of an elephant,

so scaling that up,

it would have to eat...

three quarters of a tonne daily
just to stay alive.

That seems almost impossible,
given how small its head is.

So... what's its secret?

Well, firstly, she didn't
really chew her food.

Instead, she had a really long
gut

and friendly microbes
to break it down for her,

so little energy
wasted on digestion.

But her second and biggest
energy saver

lies with another ingredient
vital for life:

oxygen.

And to see that, we need to
look inside our Diplodocus.

Mammals like you and me

breathe air in and out
by inflating our lungs.

Not so Diplodocus.

She has a one-way system for
air,

thanks to some unique organs
beside her lungs.

Air sacs.

When she breathes in, air goes
into the sacs at the back of
her body.

When she then exhales,

the rear sacs flood her lungs
with fresh air.

When she breathes in once more,

spent air from her lungs is
passed into the sacs at the
front.

When she then exhales,

the front sacs empty stale air
from the body.

So fresh air enters her lungs
every time she breathes in AND
out.

That means she can extract
oxygen when inhaling AND
exhaling.

That's twice what we can do.

And it's not unique.

Many dinosaurs did this sort of
circular breathing.

And birds inherited the system
too,

which allows them to fly
at high altitude today,

where oxygen is scarce.

Amazing.

So far, the Diplodocus behind
me has survived a spectacular
attack

and eaten a hell of a lot of
food.

So while she's grazing
peacefully,

let's try and find out
how those small early dinosaurs

evolved into these giant
creatures.

Clues lie in the basement
vaults of the Natural History
Museum

in London, where resident
palaeobiologist Paul Barrett

has been studying
a trivial-looking fossil

that's languished unseen
for the last 90 years.

We often find ourselves
going through the drawers

and seeing things
we haven't seen before.

So, we've had a large number
of surprises here in the
basement.

Surprises like this.

Long assumed to be little more
than the remains of a reptile,

these unassuming bones

turned out to be something
very special indeed.

This rather
insignificant-looking specimen

is actually the only evidence
that we have

for this enormous great group
of animals,

the dinosaurs,
first appearing on Earth.

These are the remains

of the earliest dinosaur
yet discovered.

But how do we know
it WAS a dinosaur?

The biggest clue actually
comes from this bone here.

This bone is called a humerus.
It's the upper arm bone.

And what makes it a dinosaur

is this huge flap of bone
along one of its edges.

Other reptiles
that live alongside dinosaurs,

crocodiles and their relatives,
lack this feature,

so we are looking, almost
certainly, at the earliest
dinosaur.

They were found on an
expedition to Tanzania 90 years
ago,

and they're from an animal
called Nyasasaurus,

after the lake
it was discovered near.

So, once we'd identified those
key features of the skeleton

as dinosaur features,

our idea that this is
something to do with the
origin of dinosaurs

actually started to come
together pretty quickly.

With just an upper arm
and six vertebrae to work from,

Nyasasaurus was rebuilt.

And it wasn't the super-sized
monster we're accustomed to.

At a mere two metres long,
a metre high, and just 60kg,

it was smaller than a man.

But Nyasasaurus
did have one advantage

over the reptiles
it shared the world with.

It was two-legged.

One of the key things
about dinosaurs

that distinguishes them
from all other reptile groups

is that they went walking
on two legs only

very early
in their evolutionary history.

A bit like this animal here,
Allosaurus,

one of the meat-eating
dinosaurs.

And this really opened up a
huge variety of new ways of
life

that were previously
inaccessible to the other
four-legged reptiles.

These included things like
being able to support greater
weight,

being able to move faster,

and being able to move
more efficiently.

And this might be
one of the key features

that dinosaurs became so
successful.

And with success came
a great opportunity for growth.

Because Nyasasaurus
may have been small,

but, as they say, from little
acorns giant oak trees grow.

So, on the floor in front of me
is the thighbone

of a sauropod dinosaur
from the Jurassic period.

So one of the much later
dinosaurs,

and, we can already see,
much, much bigger

than the very early dinosaurs
like Nyasasaurus.

And they reached
those quite large body sizes

only a few million years

after they started
to take over the Earth.

Incredible to think
that these two huge beasts,

so different in size and
appearance,

both evolved from those
small ancestral Nyasasauruses,

way back in the Triassic,
100 million years ago,

before the Jurassic I'm now in,

with our Diplodocus
and Allosaurus friends.

And even after defeat
in that fierce fight,

Allosaurus seems hungry
for round two.

But it looks like
the cavalry has arrived.

Will they be able to scare off
this deadly predator once and
for all?

Oh, he's off into the woods.

No doubt somewhat intimidated
by the herd.

Well, maybe our
palaeontologist, Susie
Maidment,

can tell us whether Diplodocus
really lived together

in groups like this.

I think it's extremely unlikely

that these animals could really
run away from predators.

We think that these animals
probably herded.

There's a lot of evidence
from their trackways

that they lived together in
groups.

Yeah, I suppose that makes
sense.

Lots of plant-eaters today
move around en masse.

Safety in numbers.

We can think of a herd of
wildebeest

defending itself against the
lions or the leopards

that are circling the herd.
Yeah, absolutely, yeah.

There is more direct evidence

that these giant beasts
really did live in herds,

and it's right on our doorstep,
on the Isle of Skye,

off the west coast of Scotland.

During the middle part
of the Jurassic,

Skye was totally different
from today.

It would have been subtropical.

More like the Canary Islands
or Florida.

And it was this paradise.

World-leading expert Steve
Brusatte

and dinosaur researcher Paige
dePolo

are searching that paradise,

where dinosaurs
have left their mark.

Not their fossilised remains,
but footprints in rock.

The front foot looks like a
circle.

And this toe here
helps me understand

that these tracks were most
likely made by a Stegosaur.

It's equivalent to our thumb,
and the way that Stegosaurs
stand

pushes their thumbs into the
ground.

And some of the tracks
are simply enormous,

left by animals of a similar
size to our Diplodocus.

The diameter of this track
is about 50-60 cm.

That's about the size of a car
tyre.

So imagine that, an animal so
big,

every time its hand or foot
touched the ground,

it made a hole
the size of a car tyre.

And that tells us
that this sauropod dinosaur

was roughly the size of about
three elephants put together.

Eventually,
they would get even bigger,

and some of the descendants
of these long-necked dinosaurs

would one day become larger
than Boeing 737 aeroplanes.

And what's really remarkable
about the footprints on Skye

is that they're not just
from individual animals,

but hundreds of dinosaurs.

ROARING

We've discovered a really great
diversity of dinosaurs here.

We have the long-necked
dinosaurs,

the Stegosaurs with the plates
on their backs.

We have meat-eating dinosaurs,

some of which
were early cousins of T-rex,

others early cousins
of Velociraptor.

Some were the size of jeeps,
some were the size of chickens.

And what this is showing us is
that dinosaurs were
diversifying

by the middle part
of the Jurassic period.

They were truly
spreading around the world,

diversifying and becoming
the dominant animals on land.

And it's so cool to realise

that you're standing in a place
where a dinosaur stood,

and that, at one point in
time, millions of millions of
years ago,

an animal alive passed across
the land that you're now
walking on.

Well, our herd of Diplodocus
seem to be leaving their mark
too.

And I suppose there were other
times they'd really need to get
together.

My word. There's some behaviour
going on here.Yeah.

What are they doing exactly?
I don't know.

They look quite keen on each
other.

Oh, you think they want to be
special friends?

The idea
of these two enormous creatures

in any way conjoining,

if I can put it delicately,
seems extraordinary.

Just the balance and care
that would be needed.

Yeah, it certainly does,
doesn't it?

We think they might have been
able to rear up onto their
hind limbs,

because their centre of mass
was really far back, over
their hips.

So presumably they needed
to do that to mate anyway.

Well, they're certainly
thrashing and waving their
tails around a lot.

Is that some sort of
signalling?

We know that there are other
animals that use their tails
to signal.

For example, peacocks.

And, of course, birds are the
direct descendants of
dinosaurs,

so it could be
that the dinosaurs here

were also using their tails

to actually signal to mates.
Right.

And of course, look, we can
see here the Diplodocuses'
tails are striped,

so maybe they are using them

as some sort of
visual signalling device.

There's a theory
that those colourful tails

didn't just delight the eye
of a potential mate -

they may have been used
to impress the ear as well.

In a factory in Seattle,

a dinosaur's tail is being
recreated

to test
a rather controversial theory

as to how they may have been
used.

A passion project
of multimillionaire inventor

Nathan Myhrvold.

I read this book that had
this one almost throwaway line,

saying he wondered if the
tails could have been like a
bullwhip.

And I thought, "Hey, we can
test that biomechanically."

For a dinosaur tail
to act like a whip,

it would have to
break the sound barrier.

Which means the tip
would have to swing

at over 360 metres per second.

Could that really be possible
for an animal so large?

Each vertebrae has several
parts.

The typically cylindrical part
of the vertebrae

is modelled here
by these flat plates.

Coming up from that is
something called the neural
spine.

That acts as a stiffener
for the tail,

because it has tendons
and ligaments

that run across the entire top.

After nine months of
construction,

it's time to see if the
robo-tail can break the sound
barrier.

CRACKING

They're using high-speed
cameras at over 6,000 frames
per second

to capture the action.

SWISHES, CRACKS

As it comes in,

it's going, going, going, and
whack. That's the point right
there,

when there's that
quick little snapping motion,

that it goes faster
than the speed of sound.

So this is going greater than
360 metres per second.

And it also makes
a very audible cracking noise.

CRACKING

The question is,
why would a dinosaur

need a tail
that makes such a noise?

Nathan has ideas about that
too.

I think it's very possible
that they would engage in
contests

where they would make this
cracking noise to attract a
mate.

Well, however they used
those giant tails of theirs,

something seems to have worked
well for our two lovebirds.

And I assume,
given their enormous size,

they don't need to ask the
question,

"Did the Earth move for you,
darling?"

But if all goes well,

our female
will soon be laying some eggs.

Now, scaling up from a chicken,

a Diplodocus egg must be the
size of a small car.

This, I must see.

I'm in the conifer forests
of the late Jurassic period,

155 million years ago.

A time of giants.

And our Diplodocus friend

has been getting rather
intimate with her herd.

Doing her bit to keep the
species going, I suppose.

So, how did they have their
young?

Dinosaurs, like modern reptiles
and birds, lay eggs,

rather than give birth
to live young like us mammals.

Well, it looks like our friend
here

is ready to produce
a clutch of her own.

And given her enormous size,
those eggs should be massive.

So I don't want to get
too close to the action.

Oh... Oh... Here goes.

I think one's on the way.

DINOSAUR GRUMBLES

Oh.

Is that it?

I thought,
given her gargantuan size,

it would be a bit bigger than
that.

Erm...

Well...

How can it produce so small an
egg?

And how could a creature so big

come from so small an egg?

An answer lies
in a surprising place -

on our very own South Coast.

With a set of fossils
so rare and valuable

that their exact location
has to be kept secret.

Some of the best preserved
dinosaur eggs ever discovered.

Looking after them
is Dr John Nudds,

the former curator of geology
at the Manchester University
Museum.

He's dissolved away
the hard calcite mineral

that's filled them
for millions of years,

to reveal something
astonishing.

Something that could tell us

not only how
dinosaurs raised their young,

but why their eggs are so
small.

This is what the eggs
would have looked like,

with no external suggestion
whatsoever

that they would have contained

such a beautifully-preserved
dinosaur embryo.

There's only a handful
across the globe,

so this collection
is extremely important.

One egg even contains

a perfectly-preserved
baby dinosaur head.

It's really quite remarkable
to look down the microscope

and see this little baby
dinosaur, 80 million years
old,

staring back at you.

This was the orbit, which
would have contained the eye.

And in the lower jaw here,

you can see
some of the little teeth.

And it's immediately obvious
that these are herbivorous
teeth.

They have a surface for
grinding down the vegetation.

This baby dinosaur would grow
into a huge, 5m-tall,

two-legged, plant-eating
monster - a Therizinosaur -

that stalked the plains of
Mongolia 80 million years ago.

And these preserved embryos
help answer

one of the biggest questions
in dinosaur biology.

There is this big debate

as to whether dinosaur
hatchlings were able to be
independent

or whether they required
parental care.

Several of the different bones
of the skull are fused.

This would mean that
the jaws and the skulls

would be able to withstand the
mechanical pressures of
feeding.

So, the evidence suggests that
this dinosaur, at least,

could be independent,

they could fend for themselves
pretty much on hatching.

But this embryo isn't a
Diplodocus.

To answer whether their babies
might have fended for
themselves

like Therizinosaurs did,
scientists turned to

another clutch of dino eggs
found in Argentina.

This time, laid by a
Titanosaur,

an enormous sauropod,
relative of Diplodocus.

The adults of these were some
of the very largest
long-necked dinosaurs

that ever existed.

And yet here we have
these tiny little skulls,

just a couple of centimetres.

We've been able to show that
they had stereoscopic vision,

which would have enabled them
to forage for food

immediately on hatching.

Most likely,
similar to modern-day turtles,

they would lay huge numbers of
eggs and then just leave them.

If you lay sufficient numbers,
then a certain number will
survive.

So, what about our Diplodocus?

What does our palaeontologist
Susie Maidment think?

We don't have any nests
from Diplodocus themselves,

but from other sauropods,

we know that they laid
quite large nests

with quite a lot of eggs in.

And, of course, the babies
had to grow up very quickly

because they had to
hatch out of an egg

and grow to something
that was 30 or 40 tonnes

in really quite a short
period of time.

And I suppose
if you're a firm muncher,

a browser and a grazer
like a Diplodocus,

you don't need to
teach your young anything.

Once they've learnt to eat,
that's all they do every day.

Whereas the predator
has to learn, really.

Yeah, that's a good point. And
we don't actually really know

whether the juveniles
lived with the adults

or whether they lived
in separate environments

or separate herds at all.

So we don't really have
a good idea of that.

So, it could be that,
actually, sauropods laid their
eggs and left

and did no childcare at all.

So, the evidence suggests
Diplodocus would lay lots of
eggs

and then abandon them
to look after themselves.

But actually, that makes sense.

Think what it would take
for her to have to forage

for her offspring
as well as for herself.

And burying them also helps
hide them from predators, of
course.

Maybe best if I leave her
to get on with it in peace.

Well, now we need to
travel through time

to tell a story of a new era
in this dinosaur planet

and to bid farewell to the
Jurassic.

In this epic story,

we will move 30 million years
into the future.

To a time when a dazzling array
of formidable new dinosaurs
appears,

including the fearsome raptor.