Amazon.com
Flying lizards the size of twin-engine planes once dominated the skies above the Niobrara Sea, an ancient body of water that split North America from the Arctic Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico. Scientists have learned this from the creatures' limestone graves in what is now the western United States. What they don't know, according to
Flight of the Pterosaurs, the first episode of this 73-minute installment of the
Paleo World series, is how these crested dinosaur cousins took to the skies in the first place. The question "Is the million-year-old Peking man a human ancestor or simply an evolutionary dead end?" dominates
Missing Links, the second episode. While experts debate whether the Chinese Homo erectus walked to the greater Beijing area from Africa or whether this prehuman evolved there separately, viewers get an education about the limits and capabilities of early humans and a peek at their skulls and hand tools. In the third episode,
Mysteries of Extinction, narrator Ben Gazzara leads viewers through the twists and turns of theory as paleontologists try to solve one of the most enduring whodunits of science: the disappearance of the dinosaurs. There are clues. An element from outer space found in a clay layer around the world leads many to believe that an asteroid was the culprit. One maverick insists that turtles--which survived--would have been the first victims of asteroid ash and instead poses a "serial killer" theory. All three of this video's puzzles are engrossing despite--or perhaps because of--the lack of resolution.
--Kimberly Heinrichs
