PBS
That Time The Ocean Lost (Almost) All Its Oxygen
New ReviewThis is the story of how our planet rescued itself from extreme conditions in the Cretaceous Period, at the cost of essentially suffocating the oceans for half-a-million years.
PBS
The Second Time Sponges Took Over The World
New ReviewResearchers have discovered a piece of a weird, but critical, time in the deep past…a time when the first-ever mass extinction may have turned Planet Earth into Sponge World.
PBS
When The Atlantic Ripped Open A Supercontinent
New ReviewWhile the eruptions of the volcanoes along the Mid-Atlantic Ridge usually don't trouble us, their birth was once responsible for ripping a supercontinent apart and creating the Atlantic Ocean that we know today.
PBS
Why Wasn't There A Second Age of Reptiles?
New ReviewAn asteroid impact triggered the K-Pg mass extinction, wiping out the non-avian dinosaurs, ending the Age of Reptiles, and ushering in the Age of Mammals. But why was it the mammals who triumphed?
MinuteEarth
Why is the Number of Languages Increasing?
Lots of languages and species are going extinct, but because others keep getting found or described, the official counts of languages and species are still increasing.
SciShow Kids
The Very Big Story of the Dinosaurs | SciShow Kids Compilation
In this SciShow Kids compilation, Jessi and Squeaks learn all about dinosaurs—when they lived, how they died, and how we know so much about them.
MinuteEarth
How A Whale And A Bear Beat The System
While the rest of the world’s megafauna are still foundering in the anthropocene era, these two big animals have used little animal strategies to bounce back. Way back.
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: Ethical dilemma: What makes life worth living? | Douglas MacLean
Life on your planet depends entirely on Nuronium for normal cognition. Unfortunately, its source has been compromised and you are now at risk of extinction. Scientists have found an alternate energy source, Polixate, but it can't sustain...
PBS
How a Mass Extinction Event Created the Amazon
The Amazon rainforest of South America is a paradise for flowering plants. But long ago, the landscape that we now think of as the Amazon looked very different. And would you believe that the entire revolution of the Amazon began with...
PBS
Can We Survive the Destruction of the Earth? ft. Neal Stephenson
What do we do to protect ourselves from extinction level events? And what if some of those events are unavoidable? Can we survive adrift in space? Find out in this episode of Space Time.
PBS
When the Synapsids Struck Back
Synapsids were the world’s first-ever terrestrial megafauna but the vast majority of these giants were doomed to extinction. However some lived on, keeping a low profile among the dinosaurs. And now our world is the way it is because of...
PBS
When Lizards Took Over the World
Lizards are incredibly widespread and diverse but it took them a long time to get to where they are now. Because they used to face some pretty stiff competition from a group of lizard look-alikes.
PBS
When Ichthyosaurs Led a Revolution in the Seas
The marine reptiles Ichthyosaurs arose after The Great Dying, which wiped out at least 90 percent of life in the oceans, changing the seas forever and triggering a new evolutionary arms race between predator and prey.
PBS
The Sudden Rise of the First Colossal Animal
A truly enormous ichthyosaur around the size of a modern sperm whale, reached its size within just a few million years of taking to the water - a blink of an eye in evolutionary time.
PBS
The Giant Bird That Got Lost in Time
The California condor is the biggest flying bird in North America, a title that it has held since the Late Pleistocene Epoch. It's just one example of an organism that we share the planet with today that seems lost in time, out of place...
PBS
How South America Made the Marsupials
Throughout the Cenozoic Era -- the era we’re in now -- marsupials and their metatherian relatives flourished all over South America, filling all kinds of ecological niches and radiating into forms that still thrive on other continents.
PBS
How Ancient Art Captured Australian Megafauna
Beneath layers of rock art are drawings of animals SO strange that, for a long time, some anthropologists thought they could only have been imagined. But what if these animals really had existed, after all?
Curated Video
How (Some) Plants Survived The K-Pg Extinction
Perhaps for plants in times of great stress and ecological upheaval, the more DNA the better.
PBS
Why The Paleo Diet Couldn't Save The Neanderthals
These relatives of ours lived in Eurasia for more than 300,000 years. They were expert toolmakers, using materials like stone, wood, and animal bone. They were also skilled hunters and foragers, and may even have created cave art. So...
PBS
When the Rainforests Collapsed
The Carboniferous Rainforest Collapse set the stage for a takeover that would be a crucial turning point in the history of terrestrial animal life. If it weren’t for that time when the rainforests collapsed - in an extinction event that...
PBS
When Giant Deer Roamed Eurasia
Megaloceros was one of the largest members of the deer family ever to walk the Earth. The archaeological record is full of evidence that our ancestors lived alongside and interacted with these giant mammals for millennia. But what...
PBS
The Real Story Of The Dodo Bird's (Current) Extinction
What’s the real story of the dodo? How did such a unique bird even evolve in the first place? And are we really responsible for its extinction?
PBS
The Creature That Stumped Darwin
Toxodon was one of the last members of a lineage that vanished 11,000 years ago after thriving in isolation for millions of years. And its fossils would inspire a revolutionary thinker to tackle a bigger mystery than Toxodon itself:...