9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
These dragons from deep-time[br]are incredible creatures.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
They're bizzarre,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
they're beautiful,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and there's very little[br]we know about them.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
These thoughts were going[br]through my head

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
when I looked at the pages of[br]my first dinosaur book.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
I was about 5-years-old at the time,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and I decided there and then[br]

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
that I would become a paleontologist.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Paleontology allowed me [br]to combine my love for animals

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
with my desire to travel to [br]far-flung corners of the world.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
And now, a few years later,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
I've led several expeditions [br]to the ultimate far-flung[br]

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
corner on this planet,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
the Sahara.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
I've worked in the Sahara because[br]I've been on a quest

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
to uncover new remains

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
of a bizarre, giant predatory dinosaur

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
called Spinosaurus.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
A few bones of this animal[br]have been found

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
in the deserts of Egypt

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and were described about 100 years ago

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
by a German paleontologist.[br]

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Unfortunately, all his Spinosaurus [br]bones were destroyed in WWII.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
So all we're left with are just[br]a few drawings and notes.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Fromthese drawings,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
we know that this creature,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
which lived about 100 million years ago,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
was very big, it had tall spines [br]on its back,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
forming a magnificent sail,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and it had long, slender jaws,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
a bit like a crocodile,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
with conical teeth,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
that may have been used to catch[br]slippery prey, like fish.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
But that was pretty much [br]all we know

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
about this animal for the next 100 years.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
My fieldwork took me to the[br]border region

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
between Morocco and Algeria,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
a place called the Kem Kem.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
It's a difficult place to work in.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
You have to deal with sandstorms,[br]and snakes and scorpians,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and it's very difficult to find[br]good fossils there.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
But our handwork paid off.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
We discovered many incredible specimens.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
The largest dinosaur bone that had [br]ever been found

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
in this part of the Sahara.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
We found remains of giant[br]predetory dinosaurs,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
medium sized predatory dinosaurs,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and seven or eight crocodile-like hunters.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
These fossils were deposited in a river system.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
The river system was also home [br]to a giant, car-sized celocant.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
And the skies over the river-system[br]were filled with terosaurs,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
flying reptiles.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
It was a pretty dangerous place,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
not the kind of place you'd want [br]to travel to

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
if you had a time machine.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
So we're finding all these incredible[br]fossils of animals

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
that lived alongside Spinosaurus,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
but Spinosaurus itself proved[br]to be very elusive.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
We were just finding bits and pieces

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and I was hoping that we'd find[br]a partial skelaton at some point.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Finally, very recently,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
we were able to track down a dig site

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
where a local fossil hunter found[br]several bones of Spinosaurus.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
We returned to the site,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
we collected more bones,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and so after 100 years

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
we finally had another partial skeleton

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
of this bizarre creature.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
And we were able to reconstruct it.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
We now know that Spinosaurs[br]had a head

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
a little bit like a crocodile,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
very different from other [br]predatory dinosaurs,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
very different from the T-Rex.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
But the really interesting information[br]came from the rest of the skeleton.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
We had long spines,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
the spines forming the big sail.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
We had leg bones, we had skull bones,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
we had paddle shaped feet,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
very wide feet,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
again, very unusual,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
no other dinosaur has feet like this,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and we think these may have been[br]used to walk on soft sediment,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
or maybe for paddling in the water.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
We also looked at the fine, microstructure[br]of the bone.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
The inside structure of Spinosaurus bone

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
-- it turns out that they're very dense[br]and compact.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
And again, this is something we see

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
in animals that spend a lot of time in the water,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
it's useful for buoyancy control in the water.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
We CT scanned all of our bones[br]and built a digital Spinosaurus skeleton.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
And we looked at the digital skeleton,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
we realized, that yes, this was a dinosaur[br]unlike any other.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
It's bigger than a T-rex, and yes,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
the head has "fish-eating" written all over it,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
but really the entire skeleton has [br]"water-loving" written all over it:

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
dense bone, paddle-like feet,[br]and the hind limbs are reduced in size,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and again, this is something we see[br]in animals

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
that spend a substantial amount of time

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
in the water.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
So, as we fleshed out our Spinosaurus,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
I'm looking at muscle attachments[br]and wrapping our dinosaur in skin,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
we realize that we're dealing[br]with a river monster,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
a predatory dinosaur, bigger than a T-Rex,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
the ruler of this ancient river of giants,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
feeding on the many aquatic animals[br]I showed you early on.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
So this is really what makes this[br]an incredible discovery.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
It's a dinosaur like no other.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
And some people told me,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
"Wow, this is a once in a