Season 1 • Episode 2
LatestDavid Attenborough embarks on an epic 500-million-year journey to unravel the incredible rise of the vertebrates. The evolution of animals with backbones is one of the greatest stories in natural history. To tell this story, David presents explosive new fossil evidence from China, a region he has long dreamt of exploring and the frontier of modern paleontological research. He reveals how vertebrates came to be the dominant form of animal life, and why humans are the heirs to a magnificent evolutionary heritage. This episode reveals how mammals developed from tiny nocturnal forest dwellers to the dominant form of life on the planet following the death of the dinosaurs. David explains how the meteoric rise of mammals led to an astounding diversity of life and laid the foundations for the ascent of man.
David Attenborough embarks on a remarkable 500 million-year journey revealing the extraordinary group of animals that dominate our world, and how their evolution defines our human bodies.
Direction
David Lee crafts prehistoric worlds you'll swear you can smell.
Cinematography
Fossil footage so crisp you'll forget they're rocks.
Writing
Attenborough's narration hits like gentle cosmic truth.
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Attenborough was 87 during filming and insisted on hand-feeding a lungfish on camera. The man simply cannot be stopped.
This series quietly revolutionized prehistoric docuseries by using only real fossils and locations—no CGI creatures, just Attenborough standing where your jawbone began.
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