Miracle Planet Part 5 Survival of the Fittest Breakup - Human Earth

Miracle Planet is a 5-video series co-produced by the NFB, NHK Japan, the Discovery Channel and the Science Channel.

Over its more than 4-billion-year history, Earth has been home to repeated violent climatic changes, which have caused mass extinctions. And yet, life has survived. In fact,these same catastrophes that devastated life on Earth also helped bring about its evolution from the simplest microbes to the complexity and diversity that is found on the planet today.

Featuring location footage, interviews with the world's foremost scientists and cutting-edge computer technology, Miracle Planet is a five-part series that recounts the profound and gripping story of Earth's mysterious evolution.

5 Survival of the Fittest Breakup - Human Earth

After the dinosaurs disappeared, the land was dominated by giant ground birds such as Diatrima. Continental drift, which had once caused the supercontinents to form, now broke up the huge landmasses. Mammals found an isolated niche for themselves in the Asian continent. Free from the attacks of giant birds, mammals could safely evolve there. In time, large, predatory mammals like Hyenodont emerged.

When global warming melted the ice that had covered the land bridge between Asia and North America, a conflict erupted between Diatrima and Hyenodont. The winner was Hyenodont. It was the start of the golden age for mammals.

Primates still hid from their predators in treetops, where they developed a unique ability, stereoscopic vision. Now that they could measure the distance between things, they could easily jump from branch to branch. As a result of global warming, trees grew higher and thick forests covered entire continents. Primates could live without going down to the ground, where dangerous predators roamed.

Then, as Antarctica was torn apart from other continents and became a world of ice and snow, it started cooling the entire Earth. Forests disappeared, and most of the primates became extinct. Anthropoids developed a fovea, part of the eye responsible for sharp vision, which enabled them to survive by efficiently finding food. Stronger eyesight brought about a side effect, the ability to communicate through facial expressions. This led to the formation of a “society” among anthropoids.

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