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Eons
The Strange Case of the Buzzsaw Jaws
Season 1
Episode 11
There are many fossils that challenge our ability to form even the most basic idea of how a living thing looked, or lived, or functioned. One of the longest-running of these mysteries involved a 270-million-year-old sea creature called Helicoprion that once swam the seas around the supercontinent of Pangea.
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Around 300 million years ago sails were all the rage, but we're still not sure what they were for.
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During the Permian Period many tetrapods, or four-limbed vertebrates, took to life in the trees.
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For millions of years after the Great Dying microbes ruled the Earth.
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Life begins to rebound after the destruction of the mass extinction ending the Permian Period.
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An apocalypse ended the Permian Period 252 million years ago, wiping out more than 80% of species.
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The first saber-teeth and tusks evolve in the Late Permian and our ancestors, the cynodonts, appear.
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An extinction in the Middle Permian decimates life, from a fossil reef to our ancient relatives.
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The first herbivorous vertebrates evolve on the side of the amniote family tree leading to mammals.
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Seed plants and amniotes adapt to dry climates, helping them thrive on Pangea in the Permian Period.
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How did Homotherium evolve to be so successful? The answer may lie in the rise of the Tibetan plate.
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The mystery of what non-flying dinosaurs were doing with their feathered wings has a new hypothesis.