National Geographic: Dinosaur Hunters (1997) Movie Script
Eighty million years ago,
disaster came to a world
ruled by dinosaurs.
It came in waves of
and and wind
that buried
every creature alive.
For eons,
the dinosaurs lay entombed
in a place that would
one day be called
the Gobi Desert
in a country named Mongolia.
Among the dead
was one of the strangest
dinosaurs that ever lived.
It was called Oviraptor.
It was swift, smart, lethal.
Now, only bones
tell us about its life.
And the vicious
world it lived in.
The bones have given us
a glimpse of those
ancient times.
A dim reflection of life
before history.
But there is more
to the story... still hidden
in the vast emptiness
of the Gobi.
Now an ambitious expedition
is traveling to
that distant desert
to uncover the secrets
of the Oviraptor's world.
They don't exactly
look like scientists.
Often, they're mistaken
for each other.
But Mike Novacek leads
the expedition,
along with colleague
Mark Norell.
They could be taken
for surfers;
but they're from
the American Museum
of Natural History -
scientists piecing together
an ancient jigsaw puzzle
of evolution and extinction.
To me it's so
obviously important,
I'm so emotionally
bound up in this.
I can't imagine why
a knowledge of our history of
where we come from isn't
important to human experience.
Could you imagine
what it would be like
to live in the late
and not know that extinction
actually existed?
There's also just
this sense of discovery.
I mean,
every bone that we find
tells us something about
how the world
was 80 millions years ago,
which is... pretty neat.
Just having a sense of history
of what the planet was like
and what the planet
has gone through,
I think, just increases
our appreciation
for our own existence.
Mike and Mark are about to journey
to the sun scorched badlands of the Gobi.
It's a desolate area -
a half million dusty
square miles of sand, scrub,
and redrock cliffs.
But it's a paleontologist's
version of heaven.
For this is where
the Oviraptors lived and died
and lay untouched
in the earth for millennia.
Then, in 1922, one of the
most famous scientific
expeditions in history
wound its way toward
Mongolia's dinosaur graveyard
Its leader was a charismatic
and...
controversial explorer
named Roy Chapman Andrews.
Like Mark and Mike,
he came from the
American Museum
of Natural History.
But Andrews was an
incurable publicity hound -
and a scientific cowboy.
Where his paleontologist
used a camel-hair brush,
Andrews hacked away with
a pick ax.
But he found one of the
richest dinosaur boneyards
in the world.
He returned with a spectacular
collection of fossils...
and a library
of stunning film images.
But in the 1920s,
Communists seized power
in Mongolia.
The open door to the West
slammed shut.
For the next 65 years,
the fabulous fossil fields
of the Gobi
were forbidden territory.
Now, everything's changed.
Only token symbols
of Russia's domination remain.
Finally,
Western scientists can return.
We don't want those onions?
They rot.
They rot in two days.
Mark and Mike were among
the first scientists
allowed in.
They're now back
for their sixth expedition
with the Mongolian Academy
of Sciences.
Three kilos?
Three kilos.
They have just enough supplies
for a short month,
and a long way to go...
retracing Andrews' footsteps
on their way to
one of the richest
concentrations of fossils
in the world -
a place called Ukhaa Tolgod.
Over a vast span of time,
Ukhaa Tolgod
was ruled by dinosaurs.
Dinosaur history
can be thought of
as a great empire
that lasted
a few hundred million years.
That's a significant
slice of the history of life.
Imagine that time,
from the moment the dinosaurs
appeared till now,
is a single day.
At midnight,
dinosaurs first walked earth.
They're flourishing at noon.
They don't go extinct
until five in the afternoon.
Time passes.
The first modern man
finally appears
a minute and a half
before midnight.
All of our recorded history
takes three and a half seconds
In the Gobi, time seems to
have stood still.
The Gobi is such a big place
and it basically has no life
support system.
We really have to bring
everything with us.
So all our food,
all our fuel
which we're carrying in
a fuel tanker,
all our supplies
have to be treated like we're
actually exploring
a polar region.
In such a vast area,
success is never certain.
Even getting there
can be a nightmare.
Roy Chapman Andrews
thought he'd solved
the problem in the '20s,
with a new piece of
technology.
When it was announced
that we were to attempt
a scientific exploration
of the Gobi Desert
with a fleet of motor cars,
men said that
we were little less than fools.
Only camels had been used
in that country.
We had 40 men,
eight motor cars
and 150 camels
to carry supplies.
It was the biggest land
scientific expedition
ever to leave
the United States.
Roy Chapman Andrews.
From China,
Andrews headed northwest.
He left Peking,
then crossed over the border
and drove deep into
the parched heart
of outer Mongolia.
Mongolia, a land of painted
deserts dancing in mirage.
Mongolia, a land of mystery,
of paradox and promise!
A thirsty land.
A land of desolation!
Gazelles, wild asses,
and wolves ranged
the marching sands.
Few explorers had been there
and they brought back tales
of thirst, cold, and hunger.
But Andrews found
one more thing... mud.
Our average speed was
only four miles an hour.
Rocks, ravines, washouts,
and ditches
followed one another
in rapid succession.
One might imagine that the
roads have gotten better.
They have not.
And even modern jeeps
aren't built
for a desert like the Gobi.
We have an electrical problem
and we don't know what it is.
It's not a very complicated
wiring plan.
It's a Russian jeep.
It's not like a Japanese
or an American car.
They're up and running.
But next,
it's a truck's turn.
Piston, huh?
We think it's piston
number six.
A critical breakdown could
have severe consequences.
End of the expedition,
if not the end of our lives.
Maybe we'll make it.
Oh, God.
With the nearest gas station
some 500 miles away,
and time already
getting tight,
things will have to go
smoothly from now on.
Oh, we're having
some mechanical problems.
We think it's a fuel pump.
But we're not sure.
This could be way bad.
Seems to me I got this thing
in there
without doing
the twisty deal.
Maybe we'll tow it
or abandon it.
Abandon it.
Get on with it.
We can't stay here
more than a day.
After more than
the vehicles all decide to
run at the same time.
As they enter the dusty
dinosaur fields of the Gobi,
they're traveling a long way
backwards in time.
Dinosaurs first appeared
some 230 million years ago,
in a world
with a different face.
The creatures were thriving
as South America
and Africa split apart.
About 75 million years ago,
in the late Cretaceous period,
dinosaurs began to disappear...
leaving only bones behind.
Their bones were more
motionless than the continents
Then in the 1920s,
Roy Chapman Andrews
came to a remote place
in the Gobi Desert
he would name
the Flaming Cliffs.
It was a likely-
looking place.
There appear to be medieval
castles with spires and turrets
brick-red in
the evening light,
colossal gateways,
walls and ramparts.
A labyrinth of ravines
and gorges studded
with fossil bones
make a paradise
for the paleontologist.
Without a doubt
there were hundreds of bones
lying just beneath
the surface.
But where?
If only my eyes
could pierce that
baffling surface
and get a glimpse
of what lay concealed!
Within minutes,
they were finding fossils.
Andrews and his team
had stumbled onto the mother
lode of dinosaur bones.
They discovered the remains of
some 200 different animals,
many of them completely
new species.
The fossils revealed a world
that Andrews found alien
and terrifying.
Dinosaurs were
the sort of creatures
you might think of as
inhabiting another planet
or the kind you dream of
in a bad nightmare.
It was an image our culture
nourished for generations.
Dinosaurs were fierce,
monstrous...
and not all that bright.
Many of the new ideas
about dinosaurs
are coming from the amazing
boneyard called Ukhaa Tolgod.
The team discovered the site
three years ago.
Now, to get to the dinosaurs,
all they have to do...
is find it again.
The maps in general are pretty
lousy for the Gobi Desert.
The towns on those maps
are myths in many cases.
We don't even pay
any attention to
any of the roads
marked on those maps.
They're completely wrong.
Even a satellite tracking
system doesn't always help.
So the satellite
may know where you are
but the road you need
may be in a
completely
different direction
so the roads here are
very confusing.
There are no signs and many
of them lead nowhere.
We're gonna go like this.
We're a little off course.
We're not really lost.
We're just a bit off course.
So we've gotta go
this-away and that-away.
At times, you have to go in
circles to move forward.
Roy Chapman Andrews too spent
more than a few days
wandering the Gobi.
But in the end,
he blundered into a discovery
that stunned the world.
A member of his expedition
literally stumbled across
a critical link in the great
chain of being.
On July 13,
George Olsen reported
that he had found
some fossil eggs.
We did not take
his story very seriously.
Nevertheless,
we were all curious enough
to go with him
to inspect his find.
There could be no mistake.
Our paleontologist
finally said,
"Gentlemen,
there is no doubt about it.
You are looking at the first
dinosaur egg ever found."
The discovery made Roy Chapman
Andrews a national hero.
But the eggs were not alone.
Lying above the nest
was a bizarre skeleton -
a bird-like dinosaur
unknown to man.
It had apparently been
caught in the act of murder -
stealing the eggs.
So it was forever cursed
with the name Oviraptor -
Latin for "egg thief."
It would be years
before we discovered
the strange truth
about the animal called
Oviraptor.
In the late '20s,
the winds of change
blew fiercely over
the great dinosaur
fields of Mongolia.
That's when
Roy Chapman Andrews
was forced to leave
the Gobi forever.
We are more than ever convinced
that Central Asia
was a paleontology
Garden of Eden.
Still, we have shown the way,
have broken trail as it were.
Later, others will reap
a rich harvest.
Decades later,
Mark and Mike are
hoping to find
the treasures that Andrews
left untouched in the sand.
After more than a week
in the blistering Gobi,
they finally reach their goal:
the brown hills of Ukhaa Tolgod
With all the delays,
they've only got
two weeks to work.
This is the place
where they've pinned
all their hopes.
With luck,
a year of shifting sands has
exposed more bones.
But even here,
there are no guarantees.
It is possible to fail
in the Gobi.
It's a huge area,
a huge tract of land,
there are lots of rocks.
But they don't all
contain fossils.
You can drive to
what looks like the most
tantalizing set of badlands
you could possibly imagine
and not find one
scrap of bone.
It's a treasure hunt in a way
and it is sort of like finding
a needle in a haystack.
But on this day,
Discovery
and elation are immediate.
Oh, I see it.
Oh, wonderful.
Jeez.
That's nice.
Back to lizard
The side of a skull here.
The teeth sticking out.
You can see these teeth,
yeah.
Each one of these is a socket
for a tooth.
Pretty big.
This is a hand claw.
Has this big thing
right here on it...
it's the hand of an Oviraptor.
About medium size.
They've hit the jackpot:
among their first finds
are Oviraptors -
the creature Andrews knew as
"egg thief."
Considering that the Oviraptor
is one of the rarest dinosaurs
in the world and there's
only been a handful
of specimens found before
we discovered this place
where we've found 25.
I mean,
today we found at least five
just in the first 20 minutes.
This is really not
what paleontology is like,
most of the time.
You don't go finding 12
skeletons in a half an hour.
There's another
one right there, too.
Yup.
Each one of these
little mounds of little white flecks sticking out...
that's the eroded rubble of
parts of big dinosaur skeletons
One, two, three, four
four skeletons right here.
This is going to be
a really good specimen.
This is part of
a shoulder right here.
Let me see.
This looks,
is looking like a tail.
That's the tail and part of
the pelvic girdle here
and the tail shooting
straight out.
This is nice.
I mean, what we're seeing
here is just awful.
I mean,
all these poor dinosaurs
and other creatures...
mammals and vertebrates -
buried alive possibly
and skeletons littering
the surface like some
battlefield.
But it's great for us
'cause we thrive on carnage.
We don't have enough tape.
We oughta count
everything here.
Once, scores of dinosaurs
walked the sands
of Ukhaa Tolgod
moving toward a tragic destiny.
I think this was an oasis
Huge numbers of dinosaurs
and other vertebrates
congregating around
maybe some water.
And on occasions,
not just one event
but on several occasions,
these animals were buried
in these sands.
We'd have to imagine
an enormous sandstorm,
an enormous force
bearing down
on these creatures
for such a disaster.
Some of the dinosaurs almost
look like they're trying
to swim to the surface,
much like a skier
in an avalanche caught,
in some cases,
in their struggle
to get out of this
sand avalanche,
or great wall of sand,
that engulfed them.
Perhaps
they suffocated in the sand.
Hey, I just swept there.
You've made it
all dirty again.
I take pride in my work.
Next year we'll bring some
dust busters.
The prehistoric sandstorms
buried dinosaurs
at every stage of life.
And on their first
expedition here,
Mark and Mike made an
unprecedented discovery:
A nest with eggs and inside
one was an embryo -
the embryo of an Oviraptor,
like a dinosaur
on the half shell.
Here was the vicious
carnivore, the "egg thief,"
just a tiny baby
about to hatch.
It was an important discovery -
a secret moment
in the very beginning
of this strange
dinosaur's life.
This year,
they're hoping to
find out more
about the Oviraptor
and its fate.
There's growing excitement
on the far side of the ridge.
They think they've found
a completely
new kind of dinosaur,
a relative of the Oviraptor,
and it may shed light on
what ultimately happened to
the dinosaurs.
We have no idea what this is.
It's a really big animal.
It might be something new.
This specimen
has a lot of important
implications that go beyond
just being a really
beautiful object.
So it's exactly
what we wanted to find...
we hope.
The skeleton is
what's important.
Mark and Mike believe that
these bones may help prove
an exciting theory -
that some dinosaurs
actually evolved.
They evolved into creatures
that are still alive today.
The bones tell the story.
There are uncanny similarities
in the skeletons of
certain dinosaurs -
like these and modern birds.
Almost without doubt,
they shared
a close common ancestor.
And each new find
may help prove
that dinosaurs
did not really go extinct,
that birds, in fact,
are dinosaurs.
Dinosaurs need to be thought
of as incredibly
successful animals
that exist with us today.
We just call them birds.
Our skies are filled
with dinosaurs.
It's a bad metaphor
to use to call something
like dinosaur-like,
you know... just
because it's old,
obsolete, ugly,
stupid, and slow.
I mean, that's not what these
animals are all about.
I mean, it's like the swifts
flying around here and things
I mean,
they're a type of dinosaur.
And that they're
still with us now.
And the closest relative
to birds
is these small carnivorous
dinosaurs
we've collected
in these red rocks.
At day's end, hopes are
high that this new find
will help connect the dots
between dinosaurs and birds.
The feeling of anticipation
is palpable,
if not always exactly in key.
First thing in the morning,
they're back at the site.
So, we hope we got something
we can identify eventually.
Mike, work on that.
Kill that beetle,
while you're at it.
As they pry the rock open,
they sense trouble.
Look at that.
Yeah.
I don't know what that is.
Bunch of... maybe.
I'm afraid to say.
Could it be a theropod,
maybe?
No.
Well, it could be, but...
It's not known to science.
I think what we're lookin' at
is that there's a dead
theropod right there.
It's gone and we're
excavating an ankylosaur.
And the ankylosaurs
are among the most common
dinosaurs around.
It's not a
new dinosaur at all.
It's not even
related to birds.
I'm sure that
this is an ankylosaur.
You want us to just go away?
What they want to do now
is give up.
Today, the dinosaur hunters
have tracked down
approximately zilch.
Well, you win
a few and you lose a few.
That's just...
I don't feel too good right now
I'm tired.
They've spent
two fruitless days
working in the
blistering heat.
But tomorrow will
be another day -
with any luck, a better one.
Instead, nature decides
to add insult to injury.
As Mongolian would say,
"Ich boro." It's raining.
Sounds like I'm bored.
Yeah,
it sounds like I'm bored.
The sun burns off
the disappointment.
It's a new day and a new dig.
This find is not
a new species.
It's not related to birds.
And it's not an Oviraptor.
But it probably was
the Oviraptor's prey.
It's an animal called
Protoceratops.
They called these guys
the cows of the Cretaceous.
They were sort of everywhere.
They roamed around,
they think,
maybe in herds.
It's full of spikes.
We actually call it Spikey
now.
We've sort of bonded
with this one.
These are the eyes
and the snout.
So we're looking at
the skull from the top.
These are... cheek spikes
and the frill covering
the neck here.
Protoceratops was a bizarre
dinosaur,
a hog-sized animal
with a beak like a parrot's,
a strict vegetarian
that grazed the ancient Gobi.
Around its head was
an elaborate shield,
but the shield didn't protect
it from its enemies.
Enemies like the Oviraptor.
And that's exactly
what the team digs up next...
Oviraptors.
A pair of them
lying so close together
they seem to describe
an ancient romance.
Yeah,
we're kind of fond of them.
We're trying to figure out
what names to give them.
Ozzie and Harriet.
Romeo and Juliet.
Batman and Robin.
Well, we have a hypothesis
they were holding hands
and they were sort of
reaching for each other
across the miles.
The star-crossed Oviraptors
are given the permanent
nicknames of Romeo and Juliet.
We have one hand
just down here.
This is the other one.
Christa now is gluing
another hand.
And this is, of course,
the neck coming up
and the head and the hip bone.
And over here we have a claw.
It's a long hard process
to excavate the past.
But they've done it before.
Over the last few years,
they've uncovered a world
of almost preposterous beings.
Some are related to birds.
Others are even
related to us.
Our tiny ancestors -
mammals that lived
alongside the Oviraptors.
Most of these mammals
were small,
like early mice and shrews.
But these insignificant
creatures
gradually evolved
into all the mammals
of our world - the cats,
the aardvarks,
the whales
and even human beings.
But sometimes evolution...
has to take a back seat
to hygiene.
We don't have much water here,
so it's kind of hard to
get things clean.
I thought
I packed more shorts.
For some reason, I messed up.
I've got these on delicate.
Yeah, personal grooming is
a passion of the camp here.
The team spends a lot of time
making sure
that they're groomed,
looking their best
at all times,
because you never know.
There may be some
formal affairs
in a nearby village that
you might need to attend.
There are only
a few days left.
It's time for the second
act of Romeo and Juliet:
the Oviraptors await
a sheltering shroud
of rags and plaster.
They're now
in the skillful hands
of preparator Amy Davidson.
I love skeletons.
I actually never was that
into dinosaurs as a kid,
but I've always loved bones.
And I have a background
as a sculptor
and I've always admired
the skeleton that
we all have inside us.
It's some of the most
beautiful sculpture on earth.
And these fossil skeletons
look almost as well preserved
as yesterday's camel skeleton
But they are a dinosaur.
These fossils are forever.
It almost lasted forever.
For 80 million years,
Romeo and Juliet lay together
reaching toward
each other in death.
What were they like in life?
Did they hunt together?
Share food with each other?
Fight with each other?
Or was this love
among the Oviraptors?
Scientists may never know
for certain
if the bird-like Oviraptors
fell in love.
But now there's a new find
that digs even deeper
into the private lives of
the dinosaurs -
a place paleontologists
usually enter
only in their best dreams.
Oh, yeah, it's farther down.
They've discovered
another Oviraptor.
And then, in the dirt below
the skeleton... eggs,
an entire nest.
How many eggs now revealed?
Uh, one, two, three, four,
five, six, seven, eight, nine.
And then three
over there... twelve.
Twelve eggs. All right.
Another one
coming out right here.
It's really
a great fossil find
because it's one of
the rare instances
where we can capture
a little bit of behavior
that's 80 million years old.
Here we have
a sort of day in the life
of or the death of a creature
of a dinosaur...
in association with something
it did during its life.
This one was fossilized where
it dropped and
it happened to drop right
on top of its own nest.
She didn't just drop there.
The good mother Oviraptor
was sitting on the nest.
They probably brought food
to their nest, as birds do.
And the good mother
tended her eggs.
Like a bird,
she prodded them into a circle
The fearsome carnivore
of the Gobi was parenting.
So the story of the dinosaur
named "egg thief"
has finally come full circle.
The Oviraptors
watched over their eggs
and took care of the nest.
Now, they will never be seen
as simply nightmare
creatures again.
The dig has been everything
the team could hope for.
But to see what
they've really got,
they have to get
all the fossils safely
out of the ground,
and then take them
on a trip exactly
halfway around the world.
She bathed in plaster,
Romeo and Juliet are now heavy
but dangerously delicate... like Rice Krispies
wrapped in concrete.
No, no.
That way.
Okay, okay.
Sorry.
I thought you were going to
push backwards.
Perfect.
It's beautiful, Amy.
More, more, more, more, more.
It's beautiful.
More, more, more, more.
Okay.
Nothing came out.
All right, Amy.
So far, so good.
Now they have to convince
the good mother Oviraptor
to come down from her
hillside perch.
It's like moving
a grand piano off a cliff.
Romeo and Juliet
prove just as stubborn.
I'm happy.
Just drive slowly, please?
It's not there yet.
It could get lost in the mail.
They do get lost in the mail.
The good mother Oviraptor
and Romeo and Juliet
are trucked east.
And then, they disappear...
lost, somewhere in China.
After four months bound up
in Chinese red tape,
the dinosaur fossils
finally make it
to their destination...
the American Museum of
Natural History in New York.
The first arrival is Juliet.
She's headed for Amy's lab,
where, if all goes well,
they'll find out
what ancient secrets
lie beneath the recent coat
of plaster.
I'm really glad this is here.
This is great
From the summer in the Gobi to
the winter in New York City.
Juliet is now a seasoned
world traveler.
After 80 million
years of repose
She, s the new kid
on the block.
There's a lot of questions
at this point.
There could be
anything in here.
I have a feeling
that this one's going
to be a nice skeleton -
this is my guess -
a nice skeleton,
hopefully with a skull,
all laid out.
It's pretty fun.
And it's all mine.
It's a tricky business...
millimeters
make all the difference.
Yeah, this is good.
I'm really glad
I didn't saw through a bone
in the process.
It's weird.
It's just opening
this little window
into this world I was living
last summer.
Yeah, this looks good.
After all this work,
they still don't know
if Juliet is an
important specimen,
whether her skeleton is
perfect or a total ruin.
This is great.
I'm really psyched,
'cause this is the skull.
It does have a skull.
We're really, really happy.
I like, you know,
working late at night.
It's really hard to
go home because...
I just look at it and say,
"I can't believe this."
It's traveled
and halfway around the world
and it's sitting here
and, you know,
it's a dinosaur.
Working late?
Yeah.
And it's so beautiful.
The more I work on it,
the more you see
this natural sculpture.
My work just sort
of disappears
and this beautiful thing
comes out of the rock.
The process takes weeks.
Finally, Juliet is revealed
in all her splendor.
She's everything
they've been hoping for,
perhaps the most perfect
specimen ever found -
a dinosaur for the ages.
It's a beautiful fossil.
In fact, I mean,
that I think that
this is probably
the best prepared
and the best preserved
Oviraptor that's
yet been worked on from
our expedition -
or even anywhere in the world
I think we're going to
have the,
to be able to relish
in the fruits
of last summer
for many years to come.
It makes you wonder
what's still out there.
She's more than a pretty face
These bones
will help us trace
the evolution of dinosaurs
into birds.
Meanwhile,
Juliet makes a scientist dream
about the world
she left behind.
I think what fascinates me is
the broad picture.
What was it like
if you were flying in a little
Piper Cub over that area,
like some of the bush pilots
do over the Serengeti?
What would it look like then -
all those dinosaurs and the
mammals and the lizards...
and the Gobi?
After six long summers,
Mark and Mike have uncovered
the hidden secrets
of the Gobi... making Juliet's
world feel almost real.
You could picture a lake
perhaps and some cliffs
and a bunch of Oviraptors
on a cliff
like a colony of seabirds,
perhaps.
And a bunch of these
tank like ankylosaurs
lumbering around
near the pond
and perhaps
a herd of Protoceratops
wandering through.
And every once in a while
a vicious Velociraptor
coming over the hill
to nab something.
And we can imagine
the Oviraptors:
Romeo and Juliet,
hunting together,
and the good mother,
minding her eggs.
Unnoticed in its
low station
is our own ancestor,
a tiny tense creature
lost among
the powerful beings
of the ancient Gobi.
In the end,
they would all disappear
from the face of the earth -
along with most of the
creatures of their world.
From our perspective,
of course,
this mass extinction event
is not a big problem
because we're part of
the group
that survived
and started evolving into bats
and large hoofed animals and
lions and tigers and bears...
and ultimately humans.
Ultimately, humans,
like the Oviraptors,
and most of
the dinosaur kingdom,
may not be able to count on
permanent residence on earth.
Every species that's
ever lived
Has become extinct
or will become extinct.
And whether extinction
is due to
the total decimation
of our population
or whether it's due to
the evolution of
that species into
another species,
nevertheless, everybody
becomes extinct eventually.
So in that view,
we've had it.
Some species lived
and then died out:
a story like any other story.
Others evolved,
changed and lived on.
So perhaps a message about
our own future
is encoded in these silent
remnants of the past.
The only real knowledge
we have of our distant
biological past
is from the fossil record.
And it gives us
a sense of who we are
and where we sit in the world
and what that world
might become.
Time is the hardest
rock to pierce,
and the story of life,
with its infinite changes,
is the greatest mystery
we have.
But the expedition
has been blessed with luck.
They've gazed into the past
and brought the violent
and tender world
of the Oviraptor
that much closer to our own.
disaster came to a world
ruled by dinosaurs.
It came in waves of
and and wind
that buried
every creature alive.
For eons,
the dinosaurs lay entombed
in a place that would
one day be called
the Gobi Desert
in a country named Mongolia.
Among the dead
was one of the strangest
dinosaurs that ever lived.
It was called Oviraptor.
It was swift, smart, lethal.
Now, only bones
tell us about its life.
And the vicious
world it lived in.
The bones have given us
a glimpse of those
ancient times.
A dim reflection of life
before history.
But there is more
to the story... still hidden
in the vast emptiness
of the Gobi.
Now an ambitious expedition
is traveling to
that distant desert
to uncover the secrets
of the Oviraptor's world.
They don't exactly
look like scientists.
Often, they're mistaken
for each other.
But Mike Novacek leads
the expedition,
along with colleague
Mark Norell.
They could be taken
for surfers;
but they're from
the American Museum
of Natural History -
scientists piecing together
an ancient jigsaw puzzle
of evolution and extinction.
To me it's so
obviously important,
I'm so emotionally
bound up in this.
I can't imagine why
a knowledge of our history of
where we come from isn't
important to human experience.
Could you imagine
what it would be like
to live in the late
and not know that extinction
actually existed?
There's also just
this sense of discovery.
I mean,
every bone that we find
tells us something about
how the world
was 80 millions years ago,
which is... pretty neat.
Just having a sense of history
of what the planet was like
and what the planet
has gone through,
I think, just increases
our appreciation
for our own existence.
Mike and Mark are about to journey
to the sun scorched badlands of the Gobi.
It's a desolate area -
a half million dusty
square miles of sand, scrub,
and redrock cliffs.
But it's a paleontologist's
version of heaven.
For this is where
the Oviraptors lived and died
and lay untouched
in the earth for millennia.
Then, in 1922, one of the
most famous scientific
expeditions in history
wound its way toward
Mongolia's dinosaur graveyard
Its leader was a charismatic
and...
controversial explorer
named Roy Chapman Andrews.
Like Mark and Mike,
he came from the
American Museum
of Natural History.
But Andrews was an
incurable publicity hound -
and a scientific cowboy.
Where his paleontologist
used a camel-hair brush,
Andrews hacked away with
a pick ax.
But he found one of the
richest dinosaur boneyards
in the world.
He returned with a spectacular
collection of fossils...
and a library
of stunning film images.
But in the 1920s,
Communists seized power
in Mongolia.
The open door to the West
slammed shut.
For the next 65 years,
the fabulous fossil fields
of the Gobi
were forbidden territory.
Now, everything's changed.
Only token symbols
of Russia's domination remain.
Finally,
Western scientists can return.
We don't want those onions?
They rot.
They rot in two days.
Mark and Mike were among
the first scientists
allowed in.
They're now back
for their sixth expedition
with the Mongolian Academy
of Sciences.
Three kilos?
Three kilos.
They have just enough supplies
for a short month,
and a long way to go...
retracing Andrews' footsteps
on their way to
one of the richest
concentrations of fossils
in the world -
a place called Ukhaa Tolgod.
Over a vast span of time,
Ukhaa Tolgod
was ruled by dinosaurs.
Dinosaur history
can be thought of
as a great empire
that lasted
a few hundred million years.
That's a significant
slice of the history of life.
Imagine that time,
from the moment the dinosaurs
appeared till now,
is a single day.
At midnight,
dinosaurs first walked earth.
They're flourishing at noon.
They don't go extinct
until five in the afternoon.
Time passes.
The first modern man
finally appears
a minute and a half
before midnight.
All of our recorded history
takes three and a half seconds
In the Gobi, time seems to
have stood still.
The Gobi is such a big place
and it basically has no life
support system.
We really have to bring
everything with us.
So all our food,
all our fuel
which we're carrying in
a fuel tanker,
all our supplies
have to be treated like we're
actually exploring
a polar region.
In such a vast area,
success is never certain.
Even getting there
can be a nightmare.
Roy Chapman Andrews
thought he'd solved
the problem in the '20s,
with a new piece of
technology.
When it was announced
that we were to attempt
a scientific exploration
of the Gobi Desert
with a fleet of motor cars,
men said that
we were little less than fools.
Only camels had been used
in that country.
We had 40 men,
eight motor cars
and 150 camels
to carry supplies.
It was the biggest land
scientific expedition
ever to leave
the United States.
Roy Chapman Andrews.
From China,
Andrews headed northwest.
He left Peking,
then crossed over the border
and drove deep into
the parched heart
of outer Mongolia.
Mongolia, a land of painted
deserts dancing in mirage.
Mongolia, a land of mystery,
of paradox and promise!
A thirsty land.
A land of desolation!
Gazelles, wild asses,
and wolves ranged
the marching sands.
Few explorers had been there
and they brought back tales
of thirst, cold, and hunger.
But Andrews found
one more thing... mud.
Our average speed was
only four miles an hour.
Rocks, ravines, washouts,
and ditches
followed one another
in rapid succession.
One might imagine that the
roads have gotten better.
They have not.
And even modern jeeps
aren't built
for a desert like the Gobi.
We have an electrical problem
and we don't know what it is.
It's not a very complicated
wiring plan.
It's a Russian jeep.
It's not like a Japanese
or an American car.
They're up and running.
But next,
it's a truck's turn.
Piston, huh?
We think it's piston
number six.
A critical breakdown could
have severe consequences.
End of the expedition,
if not the end of our lives.
Maybe we'll make it.
Oh, God.
With the nearest gas station
some 500 miles away,
and time already
getting tight,
things will have to go
smoothly from now on.
Oh, we're having
some mechanical problems.
We think it's a fuel pump.
But we're not sure.
This could be way bad.
Seems to me I got this thing
in there
without doing
the twisty deal.
Maybe we'll tow it
or abandon it.
Abandon it.
Get on with it.
We can't stay here
more than a day.
After more than
the vehicles all decide to
run at the same time.
As they enter the dusty
dinosaur fields of the Gobi,
they're traveling a long way
backwards in time.
Dinosaurs first appeared
some 230 million years ago,
in a world
with a different face.
The creatures were thriving
as South America
and Africa split apart.
About 75 million years ago,
in the late Cretaceous period,
dinosaurs began to disappear...
leaving only bones behind.
Their bones were more
motionless than the continents
Then in the 1920s,
Roy Chapman Andrews
came to a remote place
in the Gobi Desert
he would name
the Flaming Cliffs.
It was a likely-
looking place.
There appear to be medieval
castles with spires and turrets
brick-red in
the evening light,
colossal gateways,
walls and ramparts.
A labyrinth of ravines
and gorges studded
with fossil bones
make a paradise
for the paleontologist.
Without a doubt
there were hundreds of bones
lying just beneath
the surface.
But where?
If only my eyes
could pierce that
baffling surface
and get a glimpse
of what lay concealed!
Within minutes,
they were finding fossils.
Andrews and his team
had stumbled onto the mother
lode of dinosaur bones.
They discovered the remains of
some 200 different animals,
many of them completely
new species.
The fossils revealed a world
that Andrews found alien
and terrifying.
Dinosaurs were
the sort of creatures
you might think of as
inhabiting another planet
or the kind you dream of
in a bad nightmare.
It was an image our culture
nourished for generations.
Dinosaurs were fierce,
monstrous...
and not all that bright.
Many of the new ideas
about dinosaurs
are coming from the amazing
boneyard called Ukhaa Tolgod.
The team discovered the site
three years ago.
Now, to get to the dinosaurs,
all they have to do...
is find it again.
The maps in general are pretty
lousy for the Gobi Desert.
The towns on those maps
are myths in many cases.
We don't even pay
any attention to
any of the roads
marked on those maps.
They're completely wrong.
Even a satellite tracking
system doesn't always help.
So the satellite
may know where you are
but the road you need
may be in a
completely
different direction
so the roads here are
very confusing.
There are no signs and many
of them lead nowhere.
We're gonna go like this.
We're a little off course.
We're not really lost.
We're just a bit off course.
So we've gotta go
this-away and that-away.
At times, you have to go in
circles to move forward.
Roy Chapman Andrews too spent
more than a few days
wandering the Gobi.
But in the end,
he blundered into a discovery
that stunned the world.
A member of his expedition
literally stumbled across
a critical link in the great
chain of being.
On July 13,
George Olsen reported
that he had found
some fossil eggs.
We did not take
his story very seriously.
Nevertheless,
we were all curious enough
to go with him
to inspect his find.
There could be no mistake.
Our paleontologist
finally said,
"Gentlemen,
there is no doubt about it.
You are looking at the first
dinosaur egg ever found."
The discovery made Roy Chapman
Andrews a national hero.
But the eggs were not alone.
Lying above the nest
was a bizarre skeleton -
a bird-like dinosaur
unknown to man.
It had apparently been
caught in the act of murder -
stealing the eggs.
So it was forever cursed
with the name Oviraptor -
Latin for "egg thief."
It would be years
before we discovered
the strange truth
about the animal called
Oviraptor.
In the late '20s,
the winds of change
blew fiercely over
the great dinosaur
fields of Mongolia.
That's when
Roy Chapman Andrews
was forced to leave
the Gobi forever.
We are more than ever convinced
that Central Asia
was a paleontology
Garden of Eden.
Still, we have shown the way,
have broken trail as it were.
Later, others will reap
a rich harvest.
Decades later,
Mark and Mike are
hoping to find
the treasures that Andrews
left untouched in the sand.
After more than a week
in the blistering Gobi,
they finally reach their goal:
the brown hills of Ukhaa Tolgod
With all the delays,
they've only got
two weeks to work.
This is the place
where they've pinned
all their hopes.
With luck,
a year of shifting sands has
exposed more bones.
But even here,
there are no guarantees.
It is possible to fail
in the Gobi.
It's a huge area,
a huge tract of land,
there are lots of rocks.
But they don't all
contain fossils.
You can drive to
what looks like the most
tantalizing set of badlands
you could possibly imagine
and not find one
scrap of bone.
It's a treasure hunt in a way
and it is sort of like finding
a needle in a haystack.
But on this day,
Discovery
and elation are immediate.
Oh, I see it.
Oh, wonderful.
Jeez.
That's nice.
Back to lizard
The side of a skull here.
The teeth sticking out.
You can see these teeth,
yeah.
Each one of these is a socket
for a tooth.
Pretty big.
This is a hand claw.
Has this big thing
right here on it...
it's the hand of an Oviraptor.
About medium size.
They've hit the jackpot:
among their first finds
are Oviraptors -
the creature Andrews knew as
"egg thief."
Considering that the Oviraptor
is one of the rarest dinosaurs
in the world and there's
only been a handful
of specimens found before
we discovered this place
where we've found 25.
I mean,
today we found at least five
just in the first 20 minutes.
This is really not
what paleontology is like,
most of the time.
You don't go finding 12
skeletons in a half an hour.
There's another
one right there, too.
Yup.
Each one of these
little mounds of little white flecks sticking out...
that's the eroded rubble of
parts of big dinosaur skeletons
One, two, three, four
four skeletons right here.
This is going to be
a really good specimen.
This is part of
a shoulder right here.
Let me see.
This looks,
is looking like a tail.
That's the tail and part of
the pelvic girdle here
and the tail shooting
straight out.
This is nice.
I mean, what we're seeing
here is just awful.
I mean,
all these poor dinosaurs
and other creatures...
mammals and vertebrates -
buried alive possibly
and skeletons littering
the surface like some
battlefield.
But it's great for us
'cause we thrive on carnage.
We don't have enough tape.
We oughta count
everything here.
Once, scores of dinosaurs
walked the sands
of Ukhaa Tolgod
moving toward a tragic destiny.
I think this was an oasis
Huge numbers of dinosaurs
and other vertebrates
congregating around
maybe some water.
And on occasions,
not just one event
but on several occasions,
these animals were buried
in these sands.
We'd have to imagine
an enormous sandstorm,
an enormous force
bearing down
on these creatures
for such a disaster.
Some of the dinosaurs almost
look like they're trying
to swim to the surface,
much like a skier
in an avalanche caught,
in some cases,
in their struggle
to get out of this
sand avalanche,
or great wall of sand,
that engulfed them.
Perhaps
they suffocated in the sand.
Hey, I just swept there.
You've made it
all dirty again.
I take pride in my work.
Next year we'll bring some
dust busters.
The prehistoric sandstorms
buried dinosaurs
at every stage of life.
And on their first
expedition here,
Mark and Mike made an
unprecedented discovery:
A nest with eggs and inside
one was an embryo -
the embryo of an Oviraptor,
like a dinosaur
on the half shell.
Here was the vicious
carnivore, the "egg thief,"
just a tiny baby
about to hatch.
It was an important discovery -
a secret moment
in the very beginning
of this strange
dinosaur's life.
This year,
they're hoping to
find out more
about the Oviraptor
and its fate.
There's growing excitement
on the far side of the ridge.
They think they've found
a completely
new kind of dinosaur,
a relative of the Oviraptor,
and it may shed light on
what ultimately happened to
the dinosaurs.
We have no idea what this is.
It's a really big animal.
It might be something new.
This specimen
has a lot of important
implications that go beyond
just being a really
beautiful object.
So it's exactly
what we wanted to find...
we hope.
The skeleton is
what's important.
Mark and Mike believe that
these bones may help prove
an exciting theory -
that some dinosaurs
actually evolved.
They evolved into creatures
that are still alive today.
The bones tell the story.
There are uncanny similarities
in the skeletons of
certain dinosaurs -
like these and modern birds.
Almost without doubt,
they shared
a close common ancestor.
And each new find
may help prove
that dinosaurs
did not really go extinct,
that birds, in fact,
are dinosaurs.
Dinosaurs need to be thought
of as incredibly
successful animals
that exist with us today.
We just call them birds.
Our skies are filled
with dinosaurs.
It's a bad metaphor
to use to call something
like dinosaur-like,
you know... just
because it's old,
obsolete, ugly,
stupid, and slow.
I mean, that's not what these
animals are all about.
I mean, it's like the swifts
flying around here and things
I mean,
they're a type of dinosaur.
And that they're
still with us now.
And the closest relative
to birds
is these small carnivorous
dinosaurs
we've collected
in these red rocks.
At day's end, hopes are
high that this new find
will help connect the dots
between dinosaurs and birds.
The feeling of anticipation
is palpable,
if not always exactly in key.
First thing in the morning,
they're back at the site.
So, we hope we got something
we can identify eventually.
Mike, work on that.
Kill that beetle,
while you're at it.
As they pry the rock open,
they sense trouble.
Look at that.
Yeah.
I don't know what that is.
Bunch of... maybe.
I'm afraid to say.
Could it be a theropod,
maybe?
No.
Well, it could be, but...
It's not known to science.
I think what we're lookin' at
is that there's a dead
theropod right there.
It's gone and we're
excavating an ankylosaur.
And the ankylosaurs
are among the most common
dinosaurs around.
It's not a
new dinosaur at all.
It's not even
related to birds.
I'm sure that
this is an ankylosaur.
You want us to just go away?
What they want to do now
is give up.
Today, the dinosaur hunters
have tracked down
approximately zilch.
Well, you win
a few and you lose a few.
That's just...
I don't feel too good right now
I'm tired.
They've spent
two fruitless days
working in the
blistering heat.
But tomorrow will
be another day -
with any luck, a better one.
Instead, nature decides
to add insult to injury.
As Mongolian would say,
"Ich boro." It's raining.
Sounds like I'm bored.
Yeah,
it sounds like I'm bored.
The sun burns off
the disappointment.
It's a new day and a new dig.
This find is not
a new species.
It's not related to birds.
And it's not an Oviraptor.
But it probably was
the Oviraptor's prey.
It's an animal called
Protoceratops.
They called these guys
the cows of the Cretaceous.
They were sort of everywhere.
They roamed around,
they think,
maybe in herds.
It's full of spikes.
We actually call it Spikey
now.
We've sort of bonded
with this one.
These are the eyes
and the snout.
So we're looking at
the skull from the top.
These are... cheek spikes
and the frill covering
the neck here.
Protoceratops was a bizarre
dinosaur,
a hog-sized animal
with a beak like a parrot's,
a strict vegetarian
that grazed the ancient Gobi.
Around its head was
an elaborate shield,
but the shield didn't protect
it from its enemies.
Enemies like the Oviraptor.
And that's exactly
what the team digs up next...
Oviraptors.
A pair of them
lying so close together
they seem to describe
an ancient romance.
Yeah,
we're kind of fond of them.
We're trying to figure out
what names to give them.
Ozzie and Harriet.
Romeo and Juliet.
Batman and Robin.
Well, we have a hypothesis
they were holding hands
and they were sort of
reaching for each other
across the miles.
The star-crossed Oviraptors
are given the permanent
nicknames of Romeo and Juliet.
We have one hand
just down here.
This is the other one.
Christa now is gluing
another hand.
And this is, of course,
the neck coming up
and the head and the hip bone.
And over here we have a claw.
It's a long hard process
to excavate the past.
But they've done it before.
Over the last few years,
they've uncovered a world
of almost preposterous beings.
Some are related to birds.
Others are even
related to us.
Our tiny ancestors -
mammals that lived
alongside the Oviraptors.
Most of these mammals
were small,
like early mice and shrews.
But these insignificant
creatures
gradually evolved
into all the mammals
of our world - the cats,
the aardvarks,
the whales
and even human beings.
But sometimes evolution...
has to take a back seat
to hygiene.
We don't have much water here,
so it's kind of hard to
get things clean.
I thought
I packed more shorts.
For some reason, I messed up.
I've got these on delicate.
Yeah, personal grooming is
a passion of the camp here.
The team spends a lot of time
making sure
that they're groomed,
looking their best
at all times,
because you never know.
There may be some
formal affairs
in a nearby village that
you might need to attend.
There are only
a few days left.
It's time for the second
act of Romeo and Juliet:
the Oviraptors await
a sheltering shroud
of rags and plaster.
They're now
in the skillful hands
of preparator Amy Davidson.
I love skeletons.
I actually never was that
into dinosaurs as a kid,
but I've always loved bones.
And I have a background
as a sculptor
and I've always admired
the skeleton that
we all have inside us.
It's some of the most
beautiful sculpture on earth.
And these fossil skeletons
look almost as well preserved
as yesterday's camel skeleton
But they are a dinosaur.
These fossils are forever.
It almost lasted forever.
For 80 million years,
Romeo and Juliet lay together
reaching toward
each other in death.
What were they like in life?
Did they hunt together?
Share food with each other?
Fight with each other?
Or was this love
among the Oviraptors?
Scientists may never know
for certain
if the bird-like Oviraptors
fell in love.
But now there's a new find
that digs even deeper
into the private lives of
the dinosaurs -
a place paleontologists
usually enter
only in their best dreams.
Oh, yeah, it's farther down.
They've discovered
another Oviraptor.
And then, in the dirt below
the skeleton... eggs,
an entire nest.
How many eggs now revealed?
Uh, one, two, three, four,
five, six, seven, eight, nine.
And then three
over there... twelve.
Twelve eggs. All right.
Another one
coming out right here.
It's really
a great fossil find
because it's one of
the rare instances
where we can capture
a little bit of behavior
that's 80 million years old.
Here we have
a sort of day in the life
of or the death of a creature
of a dinosaur...
in association with something
it did during its life.
This one was fossilized where
it dropped and
it happened to drop right
on top of its own nest.
She didn't just drop there.
The good mother Oviraptor
was sitting on the nest.
They probably brought food
to their nest, as birds do.
And the good mother
tended her eggs.
Like a bird,
she prodded them into a circle
The fearsome carnivore
of the Gobi was parenting.
So the story of the dinosaur
named "egg thief"
has finally come full circle.
The Oviraptors
watched over their eggs
and took care of the nest.
Now, they will never be seen
as simply nightmare
creatures again.
The dig has been everything
the team could hope for.
But to see what
they've really got,
they have to get
all the fossils safely
out of the ground,
and then take them
on a trip exactly
halfway around the world.
She bathed in plaster,
Romeo and Juliet are now heavy
but dangerously delicate... like Rice Krispies
wrapped in concrete.
No, no.
That way.
Okay, okay.
Sorry.
I thought you were going to
push backwards.
Perfect.
It's beautiful, Amy.
More, more, more, more, more.
It's beautiful.
More, more, more, more.
Okay.
Nothing came out.
All right, Amy.
So far, so good.
Now they have to convince
the good mother Oviraptor
to come down from her
hillside perch.
It's like moving
a grand piano off a cliff.
Romeo and Juliet
prove just as stubborn.
I'm happy.
Just drive slowly, please?
It's not there yet.
It could get lost in the mail.
They do get lost in the mail.
The good mother Oviraptor
and Romeo and Juliet
are trucked east.
And then, they disappear...
lost, somewhere in China.
After four months bound up
in Chinese red tape,
the dinosaur fossils
finally make it
to their destination...
the American Museum of
Natural History in New York.
The first arrival is Juliet.
She's headed for Amy's lab,
where, if all goes well,
they'll find out
what ancient secrets
lie beneath the recent coat
of plaster.
I'm really glad this is here.
This is great
From the summer in the Gobi to
the winter in New York City.
Juliet is now a seasoned
world traveler.
After 80 million
years of repose
She, s the new kid
on the block.
There's a lot of questions
at this point.
There could be
anything in here.
I have a feeling
that this one's going
to be a nice skeleton -
this is my guess -
a nice skeleton,
hopefully with a skull,
all laid out.
It's pretty fun.
And it's all mine.
It's a tricky business...
millimeters
make all the difference.
Yeah, this is good.
I'm really glad
I didn't saw through a bone
in the process.
It's weird.
It's just opening
this little window
into this world I was living
last summer.
Yeah, this looks good.
After all this work,
they still don't know
if Juliet is an
important specimen,
whether her skeleton is
perfect or a total ruin.
This is great.
I'm really psyched,
'cause this is the skull.
It does have a skull.
We're really, really happy.
I like, you know,
working late at night.
It's really hard to
go home because...
I just look at it and say,
"I can't believe this."
It's traveled
and halfway around the world
and it's sitting here
and, you know,
it's a dinosaur.
Working late?
Yeah.
And it's so beautiful.
The more I work on it,
the more you see
this natural sculpture.
My work just sort
of disappears
and this beautiful thing
comes out of the rock.
The process takes weeks.
Finally, Juliet is revealed
in all her splendor.
She's everything
they've been hoping for,
perhaps the most perfect
specimen ever found -
a dinosaur for the ages.
It's a beautiful fossil.
In fact, I mean,
that I think that
this is probably
the best prepared
and the best preserved
Oviraptor that's
yet been worked on from
our expedition -
or even anywhere in the world
I think we're going to
have the,
to be able to relish
in the fruits
of last summer
for many years to come.
It makes you wonder
what's still out there.
She's more than a pretty face
These bones
will help us trace
the evolution of dinosaurs
into birds.
Meanwhile,
Juliet makes a scientist dream
about the world
she left behind.
I think what fascinates me is
the broad picture.
What was it like
if you were flying in a little
Piper Cub over that area,
like some of the bush pilots
do over the Serengeti?
What would it look like then -
all those dinosaurs and the
mammals and the lizards...
and the Gobi?
After six long summers,
Mark and Mike have uncovered
the hidden secrets
of the Gobi... making Juliet's
world feel almost real.
You could picture a lake
perhaps and some cliffs
and a bunch of Oviraptors
on a cliff
like a colony of seabirds,
perhaps.
And a bunch of these
tank like ankylosaurs
lumbering around
near the pond
and perhaps
a herd of Protoceratops
wandering through.
And every once in a while
a vicious Velociraptor
coming over the hill
to nab something.
And we can imagine
the Oviraptors:
Romeo and Juliet,
hunting together,
and the good mother,
minding her eggs.
Unnoticed in its
low station
is our own ancestor,
a tiny tense creature
lost among
the powerful beings
of the ancient Gobi.
In the end,
they would all disappear
from the face of the earth -
along with most of the
creatures of their world.
From our perspective,
of course,
this mass extinction event
is not a big problem
because we're part of
the group
that survived
and started evolving into bats
and large hoofed animals and
lions and tigers and bears...
and ultimately humans.
Ultimately, humans,
like the Oviraptors,
and most of
the dinosaur kingdom,
may not be able to count on
permanent residence on earth.
Every species that's
ever lived
Has become extinct
or will become extinct.
And whether extinction
is due to
the total decimation
of our population
or whether it's due to
the evolution of
that species into
another species,
nevertheless, everybody
becomes extinct eventually.
So in that view,
we've had it.
Some species lived
and then died out:
a story like any other story.
Others evolved,
changed and lived on.
So perhaps a message about
our own future
is encoded in these silent
remnants of the past.
The only real knowledge
we have of our distant
biological past
is from the fossil record.
And it gives us
a sense of who we are
and where we sit in the world
and what that world
might become.
Time is the hardest
rock to pierce,
and the story of life,
with its infinite changes,
is the greatest mystery
we have.
But the expedition
has been blessed with luck.
They've gazed into the past
and brought the violent
and tender world
of the Oviraptor
that much closer to our own.