Back to Show
NOVA
Rise of the Mammals
Season 46
Episode 17
Sixty-six million years ago, an asteroid wiped out the dinosaurs in a fiery global catastrophe. But we know little about how their successors, the mammals, recovered and took over the world. Now, hidden inside ordinary-looking rocks, an astonishing trove of fossils reveals a dramatic new picture of how rat-sized creatures ballooned in size and began to evolve into the vast array of species.
Support Provided By
Season
53:30
Explore the promise and perils of new A.I. technologies.
Unlock with PBS Passport
53:10
Follow the quest to recover DNA millions of years old for the very first time.
Unlock with PBS Passport
53:29
Explore the engineering behind Paris’s iconic landmark, the tallest structure of its time.
Unlock with PBS Passport
53:17
New evidence reveals the real story of Easter Island and the builders of its stone heads.
Unlock with PBS Passport
53:31
Giant fossils uncovered in the Sahara Desert reveal new secrets of how whales evolved.
Unlock with PBS Passport
53:31
A family turns to science in their struggle to rediscover a history obscured by slavery.
53:54
Follow the quest to create a lifesaving malaria vaccine.
53:19
The inside story of China’s meteoric rise to the forefront of global innovation.
Unlock with PBS Passport
53:15
How did Earth give rise to humans? See what made our species' existence possible.
Unlock with PBS Passport
53:45
How did life bounce back after a cataclysmic extinction wiped out some 90% of all species?
Unlock with PBS Passport
53:47
See how life made the leap to land, turning a barren landscape into a lush, green world.
Unlock with PBS Passport
53:46
How did life survive on a planet covered in ice from pole to pole?