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Transcript
00:00The National Science Foundation, where discoveries begin!
00:30Beneath the earth we know, lie other worlds, hidden from sight, lost in time.
00:51But sometimes we can glimpse a lost world through remnants of the past.
00:57We've definitely got a skull. Lower right, what do you think?
01:01It's hard to say.
01:03This story begins with the discovery of unidentified bones.
01:09A team of paleontologists will try to figure out whose bones they are, and what world they came from.
01:15So we've got a time frame. That's a start.
01:19They were discovered in Kansas, mostly farmland today.
01:27But once, Kansas lay beneath a vast sea.
01:32It was 82 million years ago, during the age of the dinosaurs.
01:38It was 82 million years ago, during the age of the dinosaurs.
02:09But there was another world of giants on earth.
02:17A submerged world, where enormous reptiles ruled seas filled with incredible creatures.
02:23These were the most dangerous seas of all time.
02:29No living thing lived there.
02:33These were the most dangerous seas of all time.
02:52No living thing was safe.
03:22The great marine reptiles disappeared long ago, and time has buried their world.
03:37But any of us might still encounter a sea monster.
03:49As if from nowhere, the distant past returns.
04:19The scientists hope to find not just the fossil of an ancient creature, but a story recorded in its bones.
04:32The scientists hope to find not just the fossil of an ancient creature, but a story recorded in its bones.
04:39Grab your tools.
04:48Rain washed some of the chalk away and exposed it.
04:52This is great.
04:55They recognize it as something special.
04:59A rare Dolly Carinthops, a dolly for short.
05:08It was a marine reptile of the late Cretaceous, a little bigger than a dolphin, and a fast swimmer.
05:20To unravel any story the bones may tell, the investigators will draw on everything they know about marine reptiles.
05:31Their fossils have been found around the world over decades.
05:41These finds will help the team piece together the story of the dolly
05:49and picture the moment in time when it swam in the sea.
05:56In many ways, the dolly's world was far different from ours.
06:01The climate was warmer, sea levels were higher, and more of Earth was submerged.
06:07This dolly would have lived in a vast inland sea that cut North America in two.
06:13Marine reptiles were also found in the waters around Europe, which was a scattering of islands, and throughout the world's oceans.
06:22In time they died out and sea levels retreated, exposing vast areas of seabed.
06:29Fossils from the ancient oceans turned up on every continent.
06:40A discovery in the Australian outback offers clues to how the dolly's life may have begun.
06:53So many small bones in one area suggest that marine reptiles gathered in protected shallows to give birth.
07:03In North America, that's how the story of this dolly begins to unfold.
07:10Imagine that one of the creatures in the shallows is a pregnant dolly carinthops.
07:18She gives birth to a male, 18 inches long and colored like his mother.
07:30And a female, darker in color, with light patches below her eyes.
07:38And it's her life you begin to follow.
07:43She and her brother are air breathers. Instinct tells them what they have to do in their first minute alive.
08:00From the beginning, the little female and her brother practice skills they'll need one day,
08:05when they'll have to leave the safety of the shallows for the dangerous seas beyond.
08:15If she survives the perils to come, she'll return here one day and have young of her own.
08:24Already, she finds competition for food.
08:30There's the Hesperornis, a bird that can't fly and has a beak full of sharp teeth.
08:44And the Styxosaurus, a distant cousin of the dollies, with a supersized neck.
08:59An adult can reach 35 feet in length.
09:07More than half of it, neck.
09:16Its shape makes it a slower swimmer, but it's great for catching fish.
09:46The little dolly soon comes across creatures that move by pumping jets of water from their shells.
09:57They're called ammonites, and they thrive in the ancient sea.
10:10They have rock-hard armor and, perhaps another defense, swim too close like the little female and get a face full of ink.
10:26But that doesn't stop a young platycarpus when it wants a snack.
10:34Ammonites were once abundant, and their fossils have been uncovered often, even by a road crew in Texas.
10:44There were many kinds of ammonites, and we know when most of them lived.
10:52So their fossils are like markers in time.
11:00Identify an ammonite, and you can date other, less common fossils nearby.
11:08That helps place dollies in the long history of marine reptiles.
11:16It began some 250 million years ago in the Triassic period, with land reptiles that moved into the sea.
11:26They developed webbed feet, then flippers.
11:34Some had elaborate armor.
11:42Into the Jurassic, they continued to evolve.
11:48To see at great depths, some had eyes the size of dinner plates.
11:54Top predators grew immense and powerful, reaching their peak in the late Cretaceous, near the end of the dinosaur age.
12:06The very time when the dolly corinthops lived.
12:14Months have passed, and the female and her brother are now juveniles.
12:22But they're still in the safety of the shallows, and unaware of the huge predators in the sea beyond.
12:30For now, they're mastering the art of catching their favorite prey, herring-like fish called encotus.
13:00Then one day, everything changes for the dollies.
13:20Perhaps it's a change of seasons that causes the encotus to head out to sea on a migration.
13:28The dollies must follow their main source of food.
13:34And that means the young female and her brother must now set out on the journey of their lives.
13:42Trailing their mother from the shallows, out into the western interior sea.
13:50It's about the size of the Mediterranean, and only a few hundred feet deep.
13:58But somewhere ahead are enormous predators.
14:10Because where those predators once swam, the layered earth holds their remains as if a vast graveyard.
14:20Exposed to wind and rain, it gradually reveals what's within.
14:30A remarkable discovery was made by Charles Sternberg and his sons, pioneering fossil collectors in the American Midwest.
14:54It was a creature like this the dollies might encounter in deeper waters.
15:02Waters filled with dangers.
15:14The Tusotuthis was a massive hunter, like the giant squid of today.
15:22It was up to 30 feet long and abundant in the inland sea.
15:38Too big to be attacked by the platycarpus, who settles for smaller prey.
15:52The platycarpus itself was fierce.
15:58But not in the same league as its larger relative, the creature the Sternbergs had found.
16:12Few ocean predators ever would compare with the beast they were uncovering.
16:20Think I've got some tail vertebrae over here.
16:23Could be lower limb bones, part of a paddle.
16:26Skull here, paddle there.
16:29Tail vertebrae over there.
16:32This fella could be giant-sized.
16:37It was a giant with no enemy.
16:45A great reptile called Tylosaurus.
16:52One of the largest and most ferocious creatures of any age.
17:00A fossil of a closely related beast tells us more.
17:13Its eyes were as big as grapefruits.
17:17Cone-shaped teeth filled its jaws and the roof of its mouth.
17:21Perfect for seizing prey.
17:41The Tylosaurs were out there.
17:45But there were other predators more easily spotted.
17:57As fish go, Xiphactinus was gigantic.
18:01Up to 17 feet long.
18:18More than twice the size of the little female Dolly.
18:21It was a hundred that could kill quickly.
18:25One did.
18:37We know what happened from a fossil excavated in the badlands of Kansas
18:41by Charles Sternberg's son, George.
18:44Mr. Sternberg, I called from the newspaper.
18:48There's a lot of talk about what you found out here.
18:50Glad you could come.
18:52Caught a pretty big fish here.
18:54What is it exactly?
18:56This is a 13-foot Xiphactinus.
18:58But there's more to it.
19:00As I went through digging out the fossil,
19:03I noticed something beneath the ribs.
19:05I found some vertebrae.
19:07Kept on going.
19:09Turned out to be an entire animal inside.
19:28The victim was a six-foot fish called Agillicus.
19:32Such a mouthful that swallowing it killed the Xiphactinus,
19:37a prehistoric victim of gluttony.
19:59Weeks pass, and the dollies are now far from any shore,
20:04venturing into a sea turned magical by night.
20:10Microscopic plankton give off an eerie glow.
20:22Under cover of darkness, the encoders rest,
20:27not quite sleeping.
20:53Below, there's a mass spawning of straight-shelled ammonites.
21:22The dollies keep their eyes trained for predators,
21:27and one is about to change their lives.
21:41There's hundreds of shark's teeth here.
21:43After a long day hunting fossils,
21:46two amateur collectors unearth the wealth of shark's teeth.
21:59So many have been found around the world
22:02that it's clear sharks were thriving
22:04during the age of the sea monsters.
22:09The Kratoxyrhina is as big and lethal
22:12as the great white abarde.
22:20It slices its victims into bite-sized chunks
22:23using razor-sharp teeth.
22:36There is evidence from a Dutch quarry
22:38that ancient sharks fed on even the largest marine reptiles,
22:43leaving tooth marks on their bones.
23:02The female and her brother are being watched.
23:12But it's their mother who becomes the target.
23:26Their mother is gone, but it isn't over.
23:31Another shark goes after the young female.
23:35She's wounded, but she survives the initial charge.
23:50Perhaps the shark was not as lucky.
23:59Her injury will heal,
24:01though she'll always carry a shark's tooth
24:03embedded in her flipper.
24:09The two youngsters must now continue on their own.
24:29If the female and her brother are going to survive,
24:32they'll have to find food and their way
24:35in this vast inland sea.
24:54Finally, they see something familiar.
24:59A young codis, trailed by other dolphins
25:23and a weightless Hesperornis.
25:33But nearly anything in the sea
25:38can be a meal for a Tylosaur.
25:41This one died with a full stomach.
25:45Yeah, it looks like a Hesperornis.
25:48Big as a pelican.
25:49Maybe bigger.
25:52The stomach contents of a single Tylosaur
25:54reveal its enormous appetite.
25:56Yeah, I think so.
25:57This looks like the bone of a three to five foot long
25:59teleist fish.
26:01Got a bone here from a small Mosasaur,
26:03probably the size of an alligator.
26:06And it seems like he swallowed a shark.
26:12Big eater, this guy.
26:24For several weeks, the travelers push on.
26:30The female's flipper is slowly healing,
26:33the embedded tooth now surrounded by scar tissue.
27:03The young female is drawn away by a potential meal of squid.
27:17One escapes among a colony of crinoids,
27:21prehistoric relatives of sea stars,
27:24perhaps swept up from the bottom by currents.
27:54The female has put herself directly in the sights of a giant.
28:05Taking the exposed parts of the skeleton together,
28:08skull to tail,
28:10make the specimen about a 29 footer.
28:12Yeah.
28:19Something in the stomach.
28:30They had found the monster's last meal,
28:32entombed within its ribs.
28:40Because dollies are fast,
28:42Mosasaur's best bet is to catch one by surprise.
29:06The female escapes,
29:08but her brother doesn't see the danger coming.
29:17The Sternbergs had discovered a story locked in time
29:20of two ancient lives intersecting.
29:26But why did the predator die so soon after eating the dolly?
29:31Tilosaurs were likely territorial and aggressive,
29:34even with each other.
29:36Perhaps an older Tilosaur suddenly appeared.
29:53The younger Tilosaur is threatened and tiring,
29:56slowed down by the large meal in his stomach.
30:01The female dolly is forgotten.
30:30The younger Tilosaur is mortally wounded.
30:53But his story isn't over.
30:59His fate was recorded in stone.
31:06A shark's tooth lay near the fossil.
31:08Look at this!
31:19The female moves on with the others.
31:25Soon, the scavenging will begin.
31:56The young dolly has seen the deaths of her mother and brother,
32:00but she survived.
32:12Each year, marine reptiles gather again
32:14in the birthing grounds of the shallows.
32:18Among them is the dolly with the wounded flipper,
32:21now fully grown.
32:23She's completed her journey
32:25and returned to the waters of her birth.
32:28And after several seasons, she becomes a mother.
32:33Her young will grow larger and stronger,
32:36and one day set out on their own journeys
32:39through the inland sea.
32:42Day by day, month by month, life plays out.
32:52She sees several litters of her offspring
32:55mature and depart on lives of their own.
33:02Eventually, a year comes
33:04when the mother can't finish the migration.
33:08One quiet day,
33:10and old age has weakened her body.
33:13Her life comes to a gentle end.
33:33Millions of years' worth of days and nights and seasons pass
33:37as she lies undisturbed.
33:40Sea levels rise and fall.
33:49Around the world, continents shift.
33:53Volcanic activity changes the face of the Earth.
34:03New species appear, and old species vanish,
34:07including the last of the sea monsters.
34:21Beneath the shifting land,
34:23the remains of the great ocean reptiles
34:25are turned by time into rock
34:31and lie hidden until exposed,
34:35this time by a summer rain.
34:44How are we going to take it out?
34:45We may have to plaster the whole thing
34:47and take it out in a jacket.
34:50Hey, come check this out.
34:55There was something unusual about one of the rear flippers,
35:03a shark's tooth embedded between the bones.
35:33After 82 million years,
35:46the female Dolly Karinkaps has returned to tell her story.
35:55There are countless other creatures
35:57still buried within the layers of the Earth,
36:01waiting for us to find them,
36:05waiting to tell us stories of our world when it was theirs.
36:31Looking for clues, traces, and signs
36:45Scraping away the dirt and dust of time
36:57Digging out the mud that conceals
37:01Take it away and it reveals
37:04Hidden stories, hidden lies
37:12These are the marks and scars of time
37:16We're digging out the mud
37:20These are the fragments of the long gone days
37:24We're digging out the mud
37:32Opening stars of a different life
37:44Beneath the surface, the unknown lies
37:48Stripping away the mark and scars of time
38:00Scraping away what layers remain
38:04To touch the level that contains
38:07Different stories, different lives
38:16These are the marks and scars of time
38:19We're digging out the mud
38:23These are the fragments of the long gone days
38:27We're digging out the mud
38:35Opening stars of a different life
38:39These are the marks and scars of time
38:43We're digging out the mud
38:47These are the fragments of the long gone days
38:51We're digging out the mud
38:59Opening stars of a different life
39:07Of a different life