PBS
When Bats Took Flight
Bats pretty much appear in the fossil record as recognizable, full-on, flying bats. And they show up on all of the continents, except Antarctica, around the same time. So where did bats come from? And which of the many weird features...
PBS
When a Giant Pterosaur Ruled the European Islands
The ecological niche of apex predators was empty on Hateg Island, waiting to be occupied by something large, mobile, and powerful enough to fill it.
PBS
We Can “Bring Back” The Woolly Mammoth. Should We?
In the quest to understand how evolution basically built the woolly mammoth, we may have found the blueprints for building them ourselves.
Curated Video
The Mystery Behind the Biggest Bears of All Time
The short-faced bears turned out to be remarkably adaptable, undergoing radical changes to meet the demands of two changing continents. And yet, for reasons we don’t quite understand, their adaptability wasn’t enough to keep them from...
PBS
The Curious Case of the Cave Lion
A mysterious, large feline roamed Eurasia during the last ice age. Its fossils have been found across the continent, and it’s been the subject of ancient artwork. So what exactly were these big cats?
PBS
The Bear-Sized Beaver That Couldn’t Build A Dam
It’s important to us that you understand how big this beaver was. Just like modern beavers, it was semiaquatic -- it lived both on the land and in the water. The difference is that today’s beavers do a pretty special thing - one that the...
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The 40 Million-Year-Old Ecosystem In Your Mouth
The hardened residue scraped off your teeth at the dentist is called your dental calculus, and your dental calculus is the only part of your body that actually fossilizes while you’re alive! And scientists have figured out how to study &...
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How Whale Evolution Kind Of Sucked
Mystacodon is the earliest known mysticete, the group that, today, we call the baleen whales. But if this was a baleen whale, where was its baleen? Where did baleen come from? And how did it live without it?
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How the Andes Mountains Might Have Killed a Bunch of Whales
At a site known as Cerro Ballena or Whale Hill, there are more than 40 skeletons of marine mammals -- a graveyard of ocean life dating back 6.5 million to 9 million years ago, in the Late Miocene Epoch. But the identity of the killer...
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How Earth's First, Unkillable Animals Saved the World
They have survived every catastrophe and every mass extinction event that nature has thrown at them. And by being the little, filter-feeding, water-cleaning creatures that they are, sponges may have saved the world.
PBS
How Dogs (Eventually) Became Our Best Friends
We’re still figuring out the details, but most scientists agree that it took thousands of years of interactions to develop our deep bond with dogs. When did they first become domesticated? Where did this happen? And what did the process...
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How Ancient Whales May Have Changed the Deep Ocean
It looks like the evolution of ocean-going whales like Borealodon may have affected communities found in the deep ocean, like the ones found around geothermal vents. And it turns out that when a whale dies, that’s just the beginning of...
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?
PBS
How a Mass Extinction Changed Our Brains
During one of the most pivotal moments in our evolutionary story our brains actually shrank relative to our bodies.
PBS
How a Hot Planet Created the World's Biggest Snake
About 59 million years ago, the largest animal lurking in the ancient forests of Colombia by far was Titanoboa - the largest snake ever known. It’s only been in the past few years that we’ve put together the many pieces of this puzzling...
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
Giant Viruses Blur The Line Between Alive and Not
In 2003, microbiologists made a huge discovery. One that would force us to reconsider a lot of what we thought we knew about the evolution of microbial life: giant viruses.
PBS
Did These Giant Sloths Poop Themselves to Death?
At Tanque Loma, at least 22 giant ground sloths in the genus Eremotherium met their end. Of the five hypotheses that researchers proposed for what killed the sloths, the best supported one right now is that they died surrounded by their...
PBS
Darwin Missed An Example of Evolution Right Under His Nose
Charles Darwin encountered a tiny fox-like creature during his famous voyage but instead of discovering its fascinating evolutionary story, he just knocked it on the head with his geology hammer.
PBS
Cordyceps Turned These Ants Into Zombies
This fungus was actually manipulating ants’ movements, forcing them to do something they’d never ordinarily do, something strange, yet specific…
PBS
A Natural History of Mars
While Earth’s natural history has been playing out over the last few billion years, another epic planetary saga has also been unfolding right next door.
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...
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When Trees Took Over the World
420 million years ago, the forest floor of what's now New York was covered with a plant that didn’t look like a tree at all, except its roots were made of wood. Instead of looking up to learn about the evolution of trees, it turns out...
PBS
There’s Something Weird About Neandertal DNA And It Might Be Our Fault
Maybe it’s a little self-centered that we can be pretty focused on the DNA that we got from Neanderthals – but we shouldn’t forget that gene flow goes both ways.