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Eons
The Mystery Behind the Biggest Bears of All Time
Season 2
Episode 19
The short-faced bears turned out to be remarkably adaptable, undergoing radical changes to meet the demands of two changing continents. And yet, for reasons we don’t quite understand, their adaptability wasn’t enough to keep them from going extinct.
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25:37
An apocalypse ended the Permian Period 252 million years ago, wiping out more than 80% of species.
25:37
The first saber-teeth and tusks evolve in the Late Permian and our ancestors, the cynodonts, appear.
25:37
An extinction in the Middle Permian decimates life, from a fossil reef to our ancient relatives.
25:37
The first herbivorous vertebrates evolve on the side of the amniote family tree leading to mammals.
25:37
Seed plants and amniotes adapt to dry climates, helping them thrive on Pangea in the Permian Period.
9:11
How did Homotherium evolve to be so successful? The answer may lie in the rise of the Tibetan plate.
10:16
The mystery of what non-flying dinosaurs were doing with their feathered wings has a new hypothesis.
11:45
What did ancient people once know about these bizarre megafauna that we’ve since forgotten?
7:44
5,700 years ago, woolly mammoths crossed a remote tundra island off Alaska.
9:48
Why did vertebrates conquer both the land and the air before the depths of the sea?
8:27
Long-extinct dinosaurs may still haunt us—possibly driving us to age faster than any vertebrate.
9:34
Only twice in Earth's history have supermountains risen, and both times reshaped life forever.