- [Coyote] 65 million years ago,
dinosaurs disappeared from the face of our planet.
Today these same dinosaurs can be found
through the science of paleontology,
unearthed as fossilized skeletons
and their descendants can be seen living and thriving
amongst the lineages of our modern day birds and reptiles.
The past is now the present
and our mission is to bring you closer than ever before
to a world of prehistoric adventure,
this is Beyond Dinosaurs.
(dramatic music)
The Black Hills, a beautiful,
yet isolated range of mountains
that jut from South Dakota's Great Plains
are a wonder to behold.
Their dark, jagged peaks
are iconically prehistoric in their own right
and the wilderness that surrounds them
is an adventure lover's playground,
yet it's something beyond the mountains,
that has drawn us to this unique location.
Today we are visiting the Black Hills Institute
of Geological Research, founded in 1974,
they're an independently owned and operated establishment,
that specializes in the discovery,
excavation and preservation of fossils.
Over the next several days,
we will be working alongside Pete Larson,
who is arguably the world's foremost authority
on everything that has to do with Tyrannosaurus rex.
You may recognize Pete and rightfully so,
as he was featured in the Emmy Award winning documentary,
Dinosaur 13.
He is renowned for having unearthed
10 of the 40 most complete T-Rex skeletons in history,
including Sue, who currently resides
at the Chicago Field Museum
and Stan, who's proudly displayed
at the Black Hills Institute.
Morning, Pete, how are you?
- Oh, hi Coyote, pleased to meet you.
- Nice to meet you too.
I would say that you have your hands full
with what looks like a Pterodactyl skeleton?
- Well, it's actually a Pteranodon skeleton,
- Pteranodon, okay. - but very close relative,
- Yep. - they actually belong
to the same group, 'cause they have a very short tail,
actually tail's off of this one
right at the moment, - Okay.
- but I'm just gonna check out
and see if I got this fitting just right,
yeah, that looks okay.
- You're renowned for your discoveries
of Tyrannosaurus rex skeletons
and that is really what we are hunting after today.
So what I wanna do now, if you're cool with this, Pete
is actually go behind the scenes
here at the Black Hills Institute,
see some of the things that nobody gets to see,
some of your treasures, some of your Tyrannosaur treasures
and if we're lucky, maybe I'll even get hands on
and we'll get everything up close for the camera,
sound good? - That sounds fine,
let's go to the Research Collections Room
and I'll show you some really cool stuff.
- Here we go, guys.
Pete is truly a man of mystery,
so we had no idea what was in store
as he led us deep into the catacombs
of the Black Hills Fossil Archive.
- Back there, that's all unprepared fossils
waiting to be prepared. - That's all fossils?
- That's all fossils back here.
- Let's check this out real quick.
Rows and rows of bones encased in plaster jacketing
stretched as far as the eye could see,
all discoveries from a lifetime
spent searching for prehistoric giants,
that disappeared from out planet millions of years ago.
To say that we were in awe is an understatement.
This is, you hear that?
This is Triceratops stuff,
real stuff. - Triceratops Alley,
I suppose you might say. - Okay.
We saw Triceratops bones by the dozens,
Hadrosaur skeletons galore
and even the remains of prehistoric whales,
that will one day hopefully find their way
to a museum display room.
- On some of these whales, that we've collected,
we've found actually preserved baleen,
so even the baleen, which is hair is preserved.
- You can see that shape of that whale there,
- Yeah. - just that ribcage
perfectly preserved, - Yeah.
- and that is a cool find.
For nearly half a century, Pete has been discovering
the remains of creatures, that seem to be lost in time
and while the crew and I
were like kids in a fossil candy shop,
these were simply the unprocessed specimens,
our next stop was Pete's off display collection,
the true relics of priceless design and timeless wonder.
(light haunting music)
Tyrannosaurus rex is without question
the undisputed tyrant king of the dinosaurs.
This predatory giant is Pete's all time favorite
and like Pete, it's the one prehistoric animal,
that is primarily responsible
for sparking my love of these ancient creatures.
So as we traversed the dark corridors beneath the Institute,
I could feel he was leading us toward
something truly special.
So this is like a Tyrannosaurus archive down here?
- It is, and also archive for other fossils too,
- Okay. - but we probably,
when researchers come here,
well, for instance, here's a, this is--
- There's a T-Rex arm just sitting here!
- This is a cast, - Okay.
- it's not the original, but this is an exact reproduction
of what Sue's arm looks like, - Wow.
- and you can see it's got, you know, muscle scars here
and if you turn it over, this is kind of cool,
this is what's called an avulsion,
this is where one of the muscles,
the coracobrachialis attached to the humerus
and it was literally pulled out of its hole,
where the tendons were detached, the muscle to the bone.
Those tendons were pulled out and they reattached,
so whatever they used their arms for,
they used 'em a lot.
- And that's interesting, because people look at the arm
of a Tyrannosaurus rex and say,
"Look at how little this is, only these two fingers,"
but look at how large that arm is.
Now this is a cast of Sue's arm and correct me if I'm wrong,
but Sue is the most complete Tyrannosaurus skeleton
ever unearthed, which as we know,
- That's correct, that's correct, yeah.
- you were a part of that excavation.
- An awesome preservation, it's just a wonderful,
wonderful fossil. - Wow.
Something inside me
could feel the presence of a large predator,
it's like an electrical charge,
that triggers the hairs on the back of your neck
to stand on end
and as Pete approached a large white cabinet,
I already knew what was waiting inside.
Okay, we're about to reveal the first, our first glimpse
at Tyrannosaur fossils and this is Foxy Lady,
Pete, are you ready? - Oh, I'm ready.
I've been ready all my life.
These are bones from the inside of the lower jaw.
Like reptiles, dinosaurs have many bones in their lower jaw,
we just have two, we have a right and a left mandible,
- Right. - but these guys have 14,
literally 14, - Wow.
seven paired bones
- Okay. - in their lower jaw.
Okay, so we're getting down into some more fun stuff,
- Whoa, look at that. - This is again
part of the skull, this is part of the palate,
I'm just gonna pull this out, so you can kind of see it.
This is really cool, because you see these marks here?
- Hm-mm. - Those holes?
Those should not be there, - Really?
- those holes were actually produced
by a bite of another Tyrannosaurus rex,
see how they're kind of crushing in,
but healing, - Yeah.
This is like a Tyrannosaurus rex skull puzzle in here.
Wow, look at that.
- Here's some vertebrae,
this is a caudal vertebra, a tail vertebra,
- Whoa! - from this beast.
- [Mark] Look how big that is.
- That's as big as my head, bigger,
really cool. - Wow.
- So here's one more drawer.
- Whoa! - Gosh!
- Oh! - Oh, look at that!
- This is one of the dentary,
so the dentary is the tooth-bearing element of the lower jaw
and this is kind of cool,
you can see there's a tooth, that's just erupting.
- Right here, there. - Yep,
and one that was broken off
and some of them that came loose
and what we're gonna do is I'm gonna show you
what some of these teeth are like,
when they come out of the jaw. - Okay.
- I didn't let you hold any bones yet.
- Yes, I know!
You have something in mind. - I have something in mind,
it's a little more special.
So here's the cabinet, a very fun cabinet
and another one down below it.
- So, so far we have looked
at an incredible number of Tyrannosaur fossil specimens,
but now we're going to look at what you consider,
call prepared teeth. - Prepared teeth,
once we clean all the glue off the surface.
- [Coyote] Hm-mm.
(light suspenseful music)
- [Mark] Wow, man!
- [Coyote] The Holy Grail
of dinosaurs fossils,
may I? - This is absolutely
the world's most famous Tyrannosaur tooth,
more than a million people have held a cast of this tooth,
- [Coyote] Yes.
- But not very many people have held the original tooth,
you're one of probably 30 people,
that have held that tooth. - Wow!
- Getting to hold the tooth
of a Tyrannosaurus rex humbles you to the bone
and its 65 million year old power
radiates through your very being.
To know that an animal of this size once walked our planet
is a staggering realization
you can only comprehend and come to grips with,
as you run your fingers down its serrated edges.
To know that this very tooth
pierced the flesh of countless dinosaurs
is a haunting realization,
that is powerful enough to evoke nightmares,
but to see the skull
is something altogether more impressive,
so we left the fossil vault behind
and headed upstairs to witness the Black Hills'
breathtaking collection of dinosaur skeletons.
Wow. - So what do you think?
- This is it, the collection of the relics!
Amazing, Pete, amazing,
you can't even imagine what it feels like
to stand here right now absorbing in all these skeletons.
The first time you enter the Black Hills Hall of Dinosaurs,
it immediately feels as if
you have been transported back to the Mesozoic era.
Dinosaurs relics from all three periods,
that made up the Age of Reptiles filled the room,
from the Triassic to the Jurassic
and finally the icons of the Cretaceous
surround, tower above and nearly swallow you.
We walked amongst the giants,
a sense of awe sweeping over us,
like a tidal wave of prehistoric wonder
and finally we found our way to Stan.
Standing nearly 15 feet tall
and measuring close to 40 feet in length,
he's one of the most complete T-Rex skeletons ever unearthed
and he stands as the Institute's proud centerpiece.
This is the majority of Stan's skeleton
and this?
- [Pete] And this is Stan's original skull,
the left side. - This is the skull.
Now for everybody out there watching,
just so that they understand,
Stan's skull is one of the most complete
Tyrannosaur skulls ever unearthed
and the most perfectly preserved skull,
which has provided us with just an unbelievable amount
of information about this prehistoric giant, correct?
- It is, it's definitely the most important T-Rex skull,
that has been discovered to date for a lot of reasons,
one is because it can really show us this kinesis
in a way that we couldn't see in the other skulls,
in addition, it's the skull,
that has been seen most by most people in the world,
there are something like 60 skeletons of Stan
- Wow. - in museums around the world,
cast skeletons, - Yeah.
- so they're reproductions.
It's when you think of T-Rex, you think of Stan,
- Yeah. - that image you get
of what T-Rex face looks like, you see Stan's face.
- What an incredible fossil
and what a day for the Brave Wilderness team.
Pete, I cannot thank you enough for having us out today
behind the scenes here at the Black Hills Institute.
We got up close with some incredible fossils
and of course got to hold
the most famous Tyrannosaur tooth in the world.
- [Mark] (laughing) I'm still shaking, guys.
- Stan's tooth, I know.
There's no way that we could possibly ever thank you enough
for being a part of the launch of Beyond Dinosaurs.
This is just the start of the expedition, guys,
we have several more episodes planned here in South Dakota
and stay tuned, because I have a feeling,
that this is gonna be an adventure
65 million years in the making.
I'm Coyote Peterson, be brave, stay wild.
We'll see you on the next prehistoric adventure.
Getting to spend the day learning about dinosaurs
from one of the greatest minds in paleontology
was a perfect start to this prehistoric adventure.
Going behind the scenes at the Black Hills Institute
was a privilege unlike anything
the crew and I had ever done before
and holding the largest tooth
from the most complete Tyrannosaurus rex skull in history
was an honored moment
I will cherish for the rest of my life.
Dinosaurs are without question
the greatest creatures to have ever walked our planet
and while they may have disappeared millions of years ago,
in many ways, they're still with us today.
This new series will take you on an exciting journey
into the modern realm of these ancient beings,
as we explore the science, the theories
and the imagination that it takes to go Beyond Dinosaurs.
If you are ready for an adventure
65 million years in the making,
be sure to go back and watch the episode,
where we announce our partnership with Universal Pictures,
as we become the Jurassic World Explorers
and don't forget, subscribe, so you can join me and the crew
on this season of Beyond Dinosaurs.
(light jungle music)