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Eons

Our Most Mysterious Extinct Cousins

Season 6 Episode 12

There was a group of hominins, those creatures more closely related to us than to chimpanzees, that did take a different, parallel journey from our ancestors. Our paths ran beside each other - and potentially even crossed at times - but while ours led us here, theirs led to extinction. What happened to Paranthropus and what can their fate tell us about our past?

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Season
The Dinosaur Who Was Buried at Sea
12:11
Nobody had ever found a specimen like Borealopelta before.
The Biggest Frog that Ever Lived
7:05
Untangling the origins of Beelzebufo -- the giant frog that lived alongside the dinosaurs.
The Story of the Dino Stampede
10:43
To try to solve the puzzle of Lark Quarry, experts have turned to paleoichnology.
How the Walrus Got Its Tusks
7:42
A story that spans almost 20 million years.
When Dinosaurs Chilled in the Arctic
9:20
How were they able to survive in this harsh environment?
The World Before Plate Tectonics
9:24
This period was anything but boring.
When Dinosaur Look-Alikes Ruled the Earth
7:23
These animals truly ruled the Earth, becoming both abundant and diverse.
How We Identified One of Earth’s Earliest Animals
10:44
The key to solving the puzzle of Precambrian life was a tiny bit of fossilized fat.
The Two Viruses That We’ve Had For Millions of Years
9:11
The two viruses that we’ve had for millions of years.
How Plants Caused the First Mass Extinction
9:31
The arrival of plants on land would eventually help cause a massive extinction event.
How the Andes Mountains Might Have Killed a Bunch of Whales
8:27
Cerro Ballena has over 40 skeletons of marine mammals from the Late Miocene Epoch.
The Risky Paleo Diets of Our Ancestors
7:59
Part of a secret to our success as a species has been our early experimentation with food.
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