The glaciers grew into ice sheets. And that helped drive the temperature of the entire world to be much cooler. Now, this was a long-term trend then that continued to happen for many tens of millions the Jurassic period about 150 million years ago, this was the fossil of a bird. It had wings,
that time, Tyrannosaurs were not very special. They just simply weren't. For most of that time, Tyrannosaurs were basically my size. Now, the very first Tyrannosaurs we see are from the middle part of the Jurassic period . We have a few very scrappy, very tantalizing fossils, a little bit of a foot, one tailbone, a few teeth that my crew has found on the Isle of Sky in Scotland, where we do a lot of our fieldwork. But there are better fossils of that age from China. And these very first Tyrannosaurus, like Guanlong from China, these lived about 165 to 170 million years
ideas, but it's really hard to know. And so about 200 million years ago, the extinction happens, the volcanoes erupt, global warming causes a lot of species to die. Dinosaurs make it through. Now, the Triassic period transitions into the Jurassic period . And there's a reason why the book, the film, is Jurassic Park, or the new ones that I work on are Jurassic World. And that's because it's in the Jurassic that dinosaurs truly become the stupendous, spectacular, sublime creatures
right now. They're trying to get the passenger pigeon back. Birds evolved back in the Jurassic period , long before the extinction.
lot of change is right around the origin of true mammals. The very first true mammals were around late in the Triassic period and then early in the Jurassic period . And we see the first fossils of true dinosaurs about 230 million years ago, the first fossils of true mammals are their closest relatives around the same time. But if we look from the Triassic onwards, from that moment that the first mammals and dinosaurs entered the scene, dinosaurs and mammals would be living
just sailed right on through that extinction. They were the great survivors of that extinction. They were the success stories. And because they passed through that extinction, they had the opportunity to diversify in this largely empty world in the next interval of time, the Jurassic period . Now, I wish I could tell you exactly why dinosaurs survived. But the truth is, I don't know the answer. Nobody really knows the answer. The answer must be out there. There's lots of different ideas that have been proposed. Maybe the dinosaurs could move faster, maybe they were more intelligent,
that we all know and love. Giant meat eaters the size of buses, long-neck dinosaurs that got as big as Boeing 737 airplanes, the ones with horns and spikes and duck bills and dome heads and armor and all of those fantastic things that make dinosaurs so engaging. This is happening in the Jurassic period . And dinosaurs are diversifying so much in the Jurassic period , really for two reasons. First of all, they survived that extinction that killed off a lot of their competitors. So the playing field was largely empty. And dinosaurs had an opportunity. They were pioneers. They
It doesn't matter what the dog says. It's just the fact that he can talk is amazing. I feel like the talking dinosaur. I've been around since the Jurassic Period . I hope I have something of interest to say. Two things.
many bits and pieces. And the dinosaurs were along for the ride. And as these different continents, butted off, broke off, spun off of Pangea, the dinosaurs adapted and changed as their environments changed. And from that, by the end of the Jurassic period , we had a whole stunning array of dinosaurs living all over the world. Different species in different places, including some of the most famous dinosaurs of all, like Brontosaurus, Brachiosaurus, Stegosaurus, Allosaurus,