Lost World Vanished Lives

Episode 1: Magic in the Rocks
David travels the world to unearth some of the planet’s most spectacular fossils.

From the Leicestershire quarries where, as a boy, he was first captivated by fossils, David Attenborough travels across the planet to unravel some of the wonders and puzzles of paleontology. He encounters 30-million-year-old insects embedded in ancient resin, forests of colorful quartz and coal balls from vanished primeval swamps. But how do you find the world’s oldest and rarest reptile?

Episode 2: Putting Flesh on Bone
David Attenborough uses fossils to unearth the ancient secrets of pterodactyl flight.

Could a pterodactyl as large as a light aircraft really have flown? How did ancient sea monsters give birth to their young? And what strange creature left its footprints on the Isle of Aran 350 million years ago? Just three of the mysteries solved in this detective story in which David Attenborough investigates the secret lives of animals from history, as told in the fossil record.

Episode 3: Dinosaur
David Attenborough visits the biggest, most spectacular dinosaur displays in the world.

Dinosaurs were not only the largest animals ever to walk on earth, they were also some of the most varied and fascinating. In this investigation into their lives, David Attenborough uncovers dinosaur bones in the Sahara desert and views spectacular fossilized creatures. He also meets a unique specimen with its skin still intact and finds out how mother dinosaurs tended their eggs and young.

Episode 4: The Rare Glimpses
David Attenborough explores the stories behind the rarest fossils ever discovered.

Just occasionally, as mud turned to stone, conditions were so perfect for fossilization that even the softest parts of animals were preserved in astonishing detail. David Attenborough unearths bizarre creatures of the earliest seas, tiny horses the size of spaniels, imperial mammoths, saber-tooth big cats and, the rarest of them all, an animal that was half bird and half reptile.