Walking with Beasts

For 160 million years the dinosaurs have ruled the world, while mammals have lived in their shadow – small animals clinging to safety in burrows in the ground and nests in the trees above. But the planet and its inhabitants have started to sicken, until the final straw comes – a ten kilometre wide meteor crashes into the Earth wiping out the dinosaurs and almost half of all known animals.

The mass extinction event that saw the demise of the dinosaurs and more than 70% of known land animals was almost as devastating in the seas. The oceans were emptied of virtually all large animals and carnivorous creatures, leaving them ripe for exploitation by a new set of predators.

For well over 40 million years forests have dominated the world. They have been the cradle of evolution for the mammals, but the world is changing. The forests are opening up and are punctuated by open plains. With the constraints of living in the forest lifted, evolution has produced the largest land mammal that ever lived.