PostHole
Compose
Login
The Life Scientific: Steve Brusatte on the fall of dinosaurs and the rise of mammals
Steve Brusatte analyses the pace of evolutionary change and tries to answer big questions. Why did the dinosaurs die out and the mammals survive? How did dinosaurs evolve into birds? If you met a Velociraptor today you’d probably mistake it for a large flightless bird, says Steve. His intense interest in T. rex, Triceratops and all the other dinosaur species developed when he was a teenager and continues to this day. More recently, however, he’s focussed on the long history of mammals.
For hundreds of millions of years, our mammalian ancestors remained small. Most were mouse-sized. None were bigger than a badger. Steve studies how, when an asteroid collided with earth 66 million years ago, the mammals got lucky. All the big dinosaurs were wiped out and only the small ones with wings survived. (Birds are dinosaurs, by the way). Within half a million years, mammals of all shapes and sizes had taken over on planet earth. Sabre-toothed flesh eaters, cow-sized plant guzzlers and a host of other warm blooded placental animals evolved alongside the badger sized burrowers.
Steve talks to Jim Al-Khalili about his life and work, including the recent discovery of an incredibly well-preserved Pterosaur on the Isle of Skye, a place he likes to call Scotland’s Jurassic Park.
Producer: Anna Buckley
Accessibility links
BBC World Service
Discovery
- Discovery Home
- Episodes
- Galleries
- Podcast
- Join us on Facebook
Main content
Listen now
The Life Scientific: Steve Brusatte on the fall of dinosaurs and the rise of mammals
Discovery
How did mammals come to dominate our planet? Prof Steve Brusatte tells Jim Al-Khalili about his life and work studying dinosaurs, mammals and ancient reptiles.
Steve Brusatte analyses the pace of evolutionary change and tries to answer big questions. Why did the dinosaurs die out and the mammals survive? How did dinosaurs evolve into birds? If you met a Velociraptor today you’d probably mistake it for a large flightless bird, says Steve. His intense interest in T. rex, Triceratops and all the other dinosaur species developed when he was a teenager and continues to this day. More recently, however, he’s focussed on the long history of mammals.
For hundreds of millions of years, our mammalian ancestors remained small. Most were mouse-sized. None were bigger than a badger. Steve studies how, when an asteroid collided with earth 66 million years ago, the mammals got lucky. All the big dinosaurs were wiped out and only the small ones with wings survived. (Birds are dinosaurs, by the way). Within half a million years, mammals of all shapes and sizes had taken over on planet earth. Sabre-toothed flesh eaters, cow-sized plant guzzlers and a host of other warm blooded placental animals evolved alongside the badger sized burrowers.
Steve talks to Jim Al-Khalili about his life and work, including the recent discovery of an incredibly well-preserved Pterosaur on the Isle of Skye, a place he likes to call Scotland’s Jurassic Park.
Producer: Anna Buckley
###
####
Higher quality (128kbps)
Lower quality (64kbps)
Available now
27 minutes
Last on
Mon 4 Apr 2022
00:32GMT
BBC World Service except Americas and the Caribbean
More episodes
Previous
The Life Scientific: Shankar Balasubramanian on decoding DNA
Next
Wild Inside: Jungle royalty - the Jaguar
See all episodes from Discovery
Broadcasts
Mon 28 Mar 2022
19:32GMT
BBC World Service except East and Southern Africa & West and Central Africa
Tue 29 Mar 2022
03:32GMT
BBC World Service Australasia, South Asia & East Asia only
Tue 29 Mar 2022
04:32GMT
BBC World Service Americas and the Caribbean
Space
The eclipses, spacecraft and astronauts changing our view of the Universe
The Curious Cases of Rutherford and Fry
[The Curious Cases of Rutherford and Fry]
A pair of scientific sleuths answer your perplexing questions. Ask them anything!
Podcast
Discovery
Explorations in the world of science.
Similar programmes
By genre:
- Factual > Science & Nature
By format:
Magazines & Reviews
[BBC World Service homepage]
News in more than 40 languages