Fossil Wonderlands

Professor Richard Fortey travels to fossil sites to learn more about the distant past. In the first episode, he visits the Rocky Mountains to explore a 520-million-year-old fossilised seabed containing bizarre and experimental lifeforms that have revolutionised our understanding about the beginnings of complex life. Among the finds are marine creatures with five eyes, worm-like scavengers covered in spikes, and a metre-long predator resembling a giant shrimp.

Episode 1

Professor Richard Fortey travels to fossil sites to learn more about the distant past. In the first episode, he visits the Rocky Mountains to explore a 520-million-year-old fossilised seabed containing bizarre and experimental lifeforms that have revolutionised our understanding about the beginnings of complex life. Among the finds are marine creatures with five eyes, worm-like scavengers covered in spikes, and a metre-long predator resembling a giant shrimp.

Episode 2

Professor Richard Fortey visits a site in China known as the `Dinosaur Pompeii', where many important examples of prehistoric animals with feathers have been uncovered. Among the discoveries made there are a cousin of the T-rex, and a creature with strong parallels to living pandas.

Episode 3

Professor Richard Fortey Investigates the remains of an ancient volcanic lake, which contains well-preserved examples of early mammals and giant insects - including bats, dog-sized `dawn' horses and ants as large as a hummingbird. The area also houses what could be the oldest known human ancestor to be found.

BBC HD, English subtitles.