Original subtitles

(EXCITED VOICES SPEAK DUTCH)

it was in one of the galleries of St Peter's Mount,

at about 500 paces from the main entry

and at 90 feet below the surface,

that the quarrymen exposed part of the skull

of a large animal embedded in the stone.

They suspended their work to tell of their discovery to Dr Hoffmann,

who had for some years been collecting fossils from the quarries.

Dr Hoffman, observing the specimen to be the most important

that had yet been discovered,

took every precaution to preserve it in one piece.

After having succeeded in removing

a large block of stone surrounding it,

and reducing the mass to a proper condition.

it was transported to his home in triumph.

25 years later,

after the occupation of Maastricht by the French Revolutionary Army..,

(SPEAKING IN FRENCH) You are here at last.

Please, gentlemen, take it,

..the famous fossil shows up one cold winter night

at the National Museum of Natural History in Paris.

(SPEAKING IN FRENCH) Be carefuI, it's priceless.

This strange thing

they called at the tlme "'the unknown animal of Maastricht"'

started to raise interest among the scientific community.

(SPEAKING IN FRENCH) It's here!

Let's go, let's go!

little bit more.

Put it on the tabIe.

Be carefuI!

GentIemen, open this chest.

Yes Iet's open it. Be very, very careful!

GentIemen, all together now.

(SPLINTERING WOOD)

What they discovered that night

looked unlike any known living creature.

Some thought lt was a crocodile.

Others believed it to be a whale.

Neither the shape of its teeth

nor the size of the jaws

helped them to determine its true identity.

It"s too big for a crocodiIe. A whale wouId be more appropriate.

Back then, that is 40 years before the discovery of the first dinosaur,

nobody had ever thought that thousands of species could have lived

and disappeared in a distant past,

(RAISED VOICES)

But everything was about to change,

SEA REX: JOURNEY TO A PREHISTORIC WORLD

(WOMAN) I'm sure marine dinosaurs still exist!

My apoIogies for intruding upon your thoughts, mademoiseIIe,

but, strictly speaking, only reptiles that waIked on dry land

are called 'dinosaurs".

If they lived under the water, they are called marine reptiles.

And they all disappeared a very, very long time ago.

- What happened? - You'II see, JuIie.

(PREHISTORIC BIRD CALL)

65 million years ago reptiles ruIed the world.

On land.

In the air.

And reptiles were kings in all the seas as well.

But then came a great catacIysm from outer space.

An asteroid 12 miIes in diameter struck the Earth.

This asteroid's massive impact unleashed the power

of more than 100 atomic bombs.

The sky went dark, and the Earth's climate changed drastically.

70 per cent of all life on the planet perished.

And, with the end of the dinosaurs,

it was also the end of the reign of the reptile in the sea world.

And... when did you say that happened?

65 million years ago.

So... then humans came right after that?

Humans will come... a IittIe Iater.

How much Iater?

65 million years,

You're kidding,

Modern humans, Iike you and I, only appeared bareIy 200,000 years ago.

In comparison to the age of the Earth, that's a bIink of the eye.

200,000 years?

An instant, in geological time.

Somewhat difficuIt to comprehend, is it not?

(SURPRISED LAUGH)

Comparing thousands and millions and even biIIions of years.

Don't you agree?

Um...

Then follow me, Julie.

And when you want to stop time, say '"stop''.

- Stop? - AI right, then. Forward to the past!

Now, Iet's start sIowIy, from the beginning.

Earth forms four and a haIf billion years ago.

Then Iife appears but remains microscopic for three biIIion years.

In this time spiraI. only the last turn interests us

that Ieads to our time.

Let's consider this as a 12-hour cIock.

540 million years ago, at 2 o'clock,

the Primary Era begins,

Life grows and evoIves in every environment.

At 7.30 the Secondary Era, or the Mesozoic, begins.

It is the age of reptiles.

IncIuding the famous dinosaurs?

Yes, as well as fIying and marine reptiles.

The next and last era, the Cenozoic, is the age of mammals.

On this cIock, Homo sapiens, our miniscuIe species,

appears just eight seconds before 12.

The Mesozoic takes place between the two major ecoIogicaI crises

that Ied to the extinction of many species on Earth.

The Iargest at 7.30, and the last, right there, at 10.50.

That one caused the extinction of the dinosaurs and Iarge marine reptiles.

(JULIE) But how did it start?

well, first, you'lI need a microscope.

Life on Earth starts in the water, as bacteria,

3.5 bIllion years ago.

SIowIy. this micro-Iife evoIves.

Then, 650 million years ago,

Iife becomes visibIe to the naked eye, soft-bodied organisms.

The followIng 400 million years bring with them an expIosion of Iife.

New morphoIogicaI forms appear, reaching considerabIe sizes.

And, finally, amphibians follow fish with feet

to conquer terra firma.

300 million years ago, the first reptiles appear on land.

And in the sky, the wingspan of some insects reaches over three feet.

By the end of the PaIeozoIc, the land and the seas are bursting with Iife.

It is the golden age for biodiversity.

But this period ends with gigantic cataciysms,

which exterminate up to 95% of the species,

the Iargest extInction of all time.

95% of the species? But that's enormous!

Nothing much must have remained after that!

You're right, my dear,

And most of the world's great predators have disappeared.

But Iife persists.

And in the seas many fish and molluscs remain.

what about the marine reptiles?

Their reign begins now.

Three different groups, one after the other, will ruIe the world's oceans.

First the Ichthyosaurs, that use their talls to swim.

- Like a fish? - Much Iike a fish.

And then the Plesiosaurs,

that use their four paddIe-Iike Iimbs to fIy through the water.

And next, the Mosasaurs, that use an undulating movement

simiIar to... to a snake.

And these animals ruIed the seas for 180 million years,

throughout all three Mesozoic periods,

Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceous.

From the earIy Triassic perod onwards,

Ichthyosaurs are the kings of the seas.

During thIs time, above the water,

all the continents on Earth are joined together

in a singIe mass of land,

a supercontinent called Pangea,

Off to the Pangean coast!

Off to the Pangean coast!

- Switzerland? - Yes.

At this time, most of Europe is underwater,

a shallow and warm sea.

In the middle Triassic, its hot and dry on land with Iittle to eat.

In the sea, Iife fIourishes again.

SeveraI reptile species have returned to the marine environment,

thriving on the pIentiful food suppIy.

(ROARING)

The Tanystropheus hold a world record.

In proportin to their bodies, they have the Iongest necks ever recorded.

With its flat teeth, this PIacodont mostly eats seasheIIs and molluscs.

- Aren't those turtles? - Not at all.

But they, too, have deveIoped a tough armour

to keep them reIativeIy safe from the great predators of the Triassic,

Iike... the Nthosaur.

Over 13 feet long.

very dangerous, and an exceIIent swimmer.

But it has no chance of catching up with a Mixosurus.

- (JULIE) It Iooks Iike a doIphin. - Except it's a reptile.

Like marine mammals today, it, too, must come to the surface to breathe.

It beIongs to the Iarge group of Ichthyosaurs,

whIch will ruIe the seas for some 150 million years!

(JULIE) That one doesn't seem quite big enough to ruIe anything.

There are aIso some very Iarge Ichthyosaurs,

some measuring up to 75 feet long and weighing 50 tons!

Like the Shonisaurus, the biggest of them all.

Wow!

Like all Ichthyosaurs, it Iives in groups

and mainIy eats moIIuscs and small f sh.

(JULIE) They Iook Iike doIphins and whales!

That's right. They're even born in a simiIar manner.

what do you mean?

well, let's hear from an expert, the paIaeontoIogist Ryosuke Mtani.

He has just finished studying some very fine specimens

from a famous fossiI site in Germany.

Many lchthyosaur fossiIs have been found at Holzmaden

with their bones intact

and even with the imprint of their skin on the rock,

which heIped us to know the position of their fins.

Some lchthyosaur fossiIs are so well preserved

that we can actually see foetuses

inside the mother's bodies,

and some even being born.

UnabIe to get out of the water

to lay their eggs Iike other reptiles,

!chthyosaurs gave birth in the water.

The babies came out tail first,

like dolphins today.

Another one of the lchthyosaur's characteristics are its huge eyes,

protected by doughnut-shaped bones

abIe to withstand extreme water pressure.

A Jurassic lchthyosaur, the OphthaImosaurus,

stands out in the animal kingdom

as having the Iargest eyes in proportion to its body.

with these enormous eyes,

it couId make out its prey in the darkness of great depths.

StrangeIy enough, the Ichthyosaurs became extInct

in the middle of the Cretaceous,

despite their amazing adaptation to sea Iife.

(JULIE) But how can we know so much

about species that became extinct 90 million years ago?

Perhaps because of the Iarge number and the quallty of fossiIs Ieft.

And, of course, thanks to those who discovered them.

Here we are in London, in one of the most beautifuI galleries

devoted to Meszoic marine reptiles,

Nathale Bardet is currently the French expert on these animals.

A Iong time before dinosaurs were discovered,

the remains of marine reptiles had been known to fossiI coIIectors.

Mary Anning,

In the earIy 19th century, she was a chiId

when she started to coIIect fossiIs around her home

aIong the Dorset coast in southern England.

DurIng her Iifetime, with an amazingIy sharp eye,

she found some of the most famous fossiIs, Ichthyosaur and PIesiosaur,

exhibited here at the NaturaI History Museum of London.

One of the most compIete PIesiosaur skeIetons ever found

was RhomaIeosaurus.

This EarIy Jurassic predator was a powertuI swimmer.

(HISSING)

During the JurassIc period,

a new group of marine reptiles takes over, the Plesiosaurs.

At the beginning of the EarIy Jurassic,

Pangea has started to break up and drift apart into different pieces.

It is still hot, but the cIimate is becoming much more humid.

Such condItions are perfectIy suited

to the deveIopment of life all over the world.

Now this sure seems more pleasant than the Triassic did.

The Jurassic s considered the goIden age of dinosaurs, isn"t it?

In fact, it's the goIden age of Iife in generaI.

and even much more so for the reptiles,

be they earth, fIying or marine reptiles.

With their four strong paddles,

PIesiosaurs soon become the new kings of the seas.

The first dinosaur to be named is MegaIosaurus,

which means ''great lizard'' in Latin.

A well-deserved name for a 30-foot-long carnivore

with a huge appetite,

MoIIuscs Iike ammonItes and beIemnites experience an unprecedented growth

and are on the menu of most marine predators.

By the Late Jurassic. some animals reach record sizes,

Iike the BrachIosaurus, over 100 feet iong

and can weigh more than six elephants.

Godzilla. That is the nickname given to this Iarge marine crocodiIe

discovered in the Andes.

With large, bony pIates on its back,

the Stegosaurus, a three-ton pIant-eater,

is a contemporary of the very first birds.

At the end of the Jurassic period, as the continents continue to drift,

new oceans appear and new Plesiosaur species ruIe the deep.

The Lopleurodon is most likely

one of the largest ocean predators of the Mesozoic,

measuring 49 feet or more.

That bIg?

Here. This is one of its teeth. It's for you.

Thank youI

You see, the LiopIeurodon had no reason to fear any creature,

save perhaps another Liopleurodon,

Here is a pair of LiopIeurodon.

The maIe is attempting to court the femaIe.

Look at her - 50 feet of sheer muscle, four deadIy paddle-like limbs,

and jaws about ten feet long that hold teeth

even bigger than the one I gave you,

During thIs process,

the male makes himself extremely vulnerabIe to the female.

(JULIE) It seems to have worked.

Now that she's chosen him as her partner,

the pair needs to head to the safer coastal waters to reproduce.

Like sharks, the male LiopIeurodon holds on to the female while mating.

Their young will be born in a few months.

(JULIE) What happened?

It seems that upon separating she has accidentally injured his eye.

The pain has made him lose consciousness for a while.

in the end, though,

the LiopIeurodon remains a superpredator that lives alone.

At the end of the Jurassic Era,

its territory spanned from Europe to South America.

Here we are with Zulma Gasparini,

who discovered the marine crocodile nicknamed ''Godzilla'' in the Andes.

PeopIe believed for a long time

that the world had always been the same as it is now.

And it was only in 1915 that Alfred Wegener. a young German scientist,

put forward a revoIutionary theory

he called the ''continentaI drift''.

Among the solid arguments that Wegener used to support his theory,

a tiny marine reptile that Iived 250 million years ago,

the Mesosaurus. was to become unexpectedIy important.

Indeed we have found on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean

identical fossils of this animal.

But considering the small size of the Mesosaurus,

Iike the one we have here in this virtuaI aquarium,

it is obvious they were much too small to cross an ocean

as vast as the AtIantic on their own.

The concIusion is inescapable: if they did not cross the ocean,

then the very continents that contained their fossiIs

must have separated.

(SCREECHING)

The Jurassic was the age of giant animals.

The Leedsichthys is approximateIy 100 feet Iong,

probabIy the Iargest fish of all time.

What are these Iong-necked PIesiosaurs called?

Those are Elasmosaurs. They're gulping down gastroliths,

stones they swallow in order to heIp their digestion.

- What do they actually eat? - MoIIuscs and a lot of fish,

judging from their Iong, sharp teeth.

I believe that's the male LiopIeurodon

that was wounded some time back.

(JULIE) Oh, yes. With one eye missing. It's not easy.

From the deep bite marks

on EIasmosaur bones made by Iarger reIatives,

it wouId appear that other LiopIeurodon were luckier.

30 million years Iater, Kronosaurus took LopIeurodons' place

at the top of the marine food chain.

Kronosaurus remaIns were first discovered

in Australia during the 1930s.

A 13-foot-long skull

with 10-foot jaws, armed with dagger-like teeth.

To tell us more about PIesiosaurs, here's Dr Benjamin Kear,

an Australlan expert on these animals.

Marine reptiles' remains have been found on every continent,

particularIy those of Plesisaurs.

Up to 46 feet in Iength, they were magnificent ocean-dwelling reptiles

that fIew gracefuIIy through the water with four massive paddles.

The order PIesiosauria was Iarge and varied.

It has been broadly divided into two superfamlies,

based on their overall body structure.

Some of them, thanks to their Iarge heads and powertul, short necks,

were the superpredators of their time, like Kronosaurus.

Others were the compIete opposite,

with tiny heads at the end of extra-Iong necks,

such as EIasmosaurus.

Plesosaurs lasted as long as the dinosaurs,

unti the end of the Cretaceous, 65 million years ago.

The Late Cretaceous is the very last period of the Mesozoic Era,

and it is the age of Msasaurs.

The land masses of the Earth

have nearIy reached their present positions.

The interior seas of the Americas retreat

but Europe is still partly covered by shallow waters.

(JULIE) And what about the climate?

Very comparable to the climate of today, but warmer.

A beautifuI day for a dip in the Cretaceus ocean. don't you think?

As has been the case for millions of years,

moIIuscs are still a favorite meaI for most predators.

So, the PIesiosaurs are still around in the Cretaceous?

lndeed, there are some.

But they are no longer at the top of the ocean"s food chain,

a place now disputed by the two greatest predators of this era.

In this corner, the Iargest fish of the Cretaceous,

a 23-foot-Iong shark.

And in this corner, the most powerfuI marine reptile, the Prognathodon,

a 40-foot Mosasaur.

(JULIE) It Iooks just Iike a great white of today!

indeed, just larger,

(JULIE) But the shark is never going to measure up to that!

We can't be too sure. You see, it has a distinct edge over its opponent.

The shark doesn't need to come up to the surface to breathe. so...

Oh, well.

(JULIE) I toId you the Mosasaur was going to win.

This time, yes. But it wasn't always the case.

We've even found shark teeth embedded in Mosasaur bones.

So the sharks did get their teeth into them from time to time.

By the way, wasn't it a Mosasaur that was found in a mine

back in the 18th century?

Here we are, very cIose to the mine

where the famous 'unknown animal of Maastricht" was found around 1770.

Like all paIaeontoIogists, Olivier RieppeI knows this story very well.

In 1795, when the fossiIised Mosasaur of Maastricht arrived in Paris.

Georges Cuvier was a young, 26-year-oId anatomist.

who had just started working there at the Museum of NaturaI History.

This skull was the first great fossiI

ever to be thoroughIy studied by scientists,

who found it quite difficuIt to classify this creature.

But it was Georges Cuvier who wouId provide the solution

based on comparative anatomy.

The reptile from the Meuse River, the Mosasaur,

was a giant sea lizard,

a cIose reIative of the monitor lizards.

But this species became completely extinct before the dawn of time.

And so the Mosasaur heIped to support Cuvier's hypothesis

that several universal cataclysms occurred on Earth

in the distant past.

And thanks in part to this large animal,

Georges Cuvier is recognised today as the father of palaeontology.

At the end of the Cretaceous,

the interior seaway running through the middle of North America

had not yet completely disappeared.

So, there are sharks on the other side of the Atlantic as well?

In addition to marIne reptiles, they are found in all the oceans.

Contrary to dinosaurs, marine animals don't have any borders.

These are young, 13-foot-Iong sharks.

After hours of Iaying her eggs on the beach, this turtle is exhausted.

(JULIE) Easy prey for starving sharks.

Ah, but they are not aIone.

(JULIE) A Mosasaur.

This large predator truIy is

the marine equivaIent of the famous T. rex.

The Mosasaur will become the ast ru er of the ancient seas.

(GEORGES CUVIER) This is one of its teeth. lt's for you.

''Without fossiIs, no one wouId have ever dreamed

''that there were successive epochs in the formation of the earth.'

EngIish SDH