Skip to main content
Back to Show
Eons

How Did Our Most Famous Ancestor Really Die?

Season 5 Episode 8

Did our most famous fossil ancestor, Lucy, die by falling out of a tall tree? The answer is part of a decades-long debate over how, exactly, our ancestors transitioned from life in the trees to life on the ground.

Support Provided By
Season
How Eating Plants Shaped Life on Land | Life and Death on Pangea
25:37
The first herbivorous vertebrates evolve on the side of the amniote family tree leading to mammals.
How The Formation of Pangea Changed The World | Life and Death on Pangea
25:37
Seed plants and amniotes adapt to dry climates, helping them thrive on Pangea in the Permian Period.
How A Geological Event Created The Ultimate Cat
9:11
How did Homotherium evolve to be so successful? The answer may lie in the rise of the Tibetan plate.
Did These Feathered Wings Evolve to Be Scary?
10:16
The mystery of what non-flying dinosaurs were doing with their feathered wings has a new hypothesis.
We Can't Remember What Giant Sloths Were Like
11:45
What did ancient people once know about these bizarre megafauna that we’ve since forgotten?
Did These Mammoths Dig Their Own Grave?
7:44
5,700 years ago, woolly mammoths crossed a remote tundra island off Alaska.
When Fish (Finally) Conquered the Deep Sea
9:48
Why did vertebrates conquer both the land and the air before the depths of the sea?
Why Do Humans Age Fast?
8:27
Long-extinct dinosaurs may still haunt us—possibly driving us to age faster than any vertebrate.
When the Earth Had Supermountains
9:34
Only twice in Earth's history have supermountains risen, and both times reshaped life forever.
Does The World's Most Famous Dinosaur Have The Wrong Name?
12:32
Was the T-Rex given the wrong name?
Did Ancient Storms Kill These Pterosaurs?
10:05
500+ pterosaur fossils found at Solnhofen may be hiding a dark secret distorting our view of them.
Sensitive Teeth? Blame This Fish
11:08
Why are our teeth so sensitive? The answer originates in the armored skin of ancient fish.
Active loading indicator