Introduction by Executive Producer John Rubin

Earth & Sky - Long

HHMI Tangled Bank Studios, NOVA for WGBH Boston

“Rise of the Mammals” followed the story of a major fossil discovery for three years starting just days after the initial mind-blowing find in Colorado. These fossils captured an unprecedented and unbroken record of plants, animals, and precise dates spanning the first million years after the asteroid impact that wiped out the great dinosaurs. The fossils shed new light on an immensely consequential period in the history of life, when new ecosystems took shape and surviving mammals—including our distant ancestors—rose up to seize the planet.