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Dinosaurs: The Final Day with David Attenborough (titledDinosaur Apocalypse in the U.S.) is a Britishdocumentary programme that aired onBBC One on 15 April 2022. Presented byDavid Attenborough, the documentary follows the final days of non-avian dinosaurs through theCretaceous–Paleogene extinction event.

The programme's creatures were made withcomputer-generated imagery.^[1]

In the United States, the documentary aired in a two-episode format for the PBS seriesNOVA - under the titleDinosaur Apocalypse - on 11 May 2022.^[2]

Using theTanis fossil site in theHell Creek Formation as evidence, Attenborough and paleontologists try to piece together the extinction of the dinosaurs and theasteroid believed to have killed them, 66 million years ago. At this site inNorth Dakota, numerous groundbreaking fossil discoveries that reveal information on the final years of theCretaceous period and the organisms that were present during the time have been made.

Years before the final day of the dinosaurs, gravitational interactions withJupiter dislodge the asteroid which will become theChicxulub impactor from its orbit, sending it on a course for Earth.

On a spring morning, 66 million years ago, Tanis was a sandbank on the edge of a river near theWestern Interior Seaway. HugeAzhdarchidpterosaurs congregate en masse to nest and raise their young, which are bornfully capable of flight. A motherTyrannosaurus rex tends to her eggs, and twoTriceratops spar over territory in the woods just beyond the water's edge. Meanwhile, the river itself is full of a host of aquatic and semi-aquatic organisms, includingbaenidturtles,sturgeons,paddlefish andbowfins. Also native to the area is theneornithischian dinosaurThescelosaurus, which is speculated to have used the water as an advantage to escape bigger predators.Pediomys, a genus of earlymarsupial mammal, thrives at Tanis, though they spend much of their time burrowing and rushing through the undergrowth to avoid the other animals that make the sandbank their home.

Following the discovery of fossilised fish withtektitespherules embedded in theirgill arches, insight into what destroyed the ecosystem at Tanis is made; the culprit, believed to be aseiche wave produced by seismic waves from the impact, must have arrived at Tanis while the spherules were still falling from the sky, up to two hours after the impact. A specimen ofamber is found that contains an intact piece of tektite as aninclusion; analysis of the amber using theDiamond Light Sourcesynchrotron inOxfordshire yields the remarkable discovery of the spherule containing a piece of unmelted rock with quantities of metals that are consistent with the asteroid itself. With aseiche wave now believed to be responsible, a complete image of Tanis's final moments can be reconstructed.

Immediately after the asteroid struck theYucatan Peninsula, life continued at Tanis as normal for several minutes. The blast generated by the impact would have been visible, but silent, as its shock wave dissipated a long distance away from Tanis. The effects of the impact arrived in the form of an onslaught of seismic waves and the rain of spherules that set the surrounding vegetation on fire. Shortly after this, a ten-metre high seiche is sent up the Interior Seaway, swiftly wiping out the area's ecosystem and preserving many different species beneath a layer of sediment that would eventually be unearthed by researchers as fossils in the present day. Two such fossils are discovered that give particular insight into Tanis's fate; aThescelosaurus fossil is found with its skeleton in a jumbled state, suggesting it was killed by being thrown about by turbulent water, and a fossil of a turtle shows signs of the animal being impaled by airborne or waterborne debris. In the case of theThescelosaurus specimen, it may represent the first confirmed fossilised dinosaur that was killed as a direct result of the impact and its immediate aftereffects, rather than one that had died some time before or after the disaster.

In the hours that follow, heat given off by the impact ignites fires across the globe. Only the hardiest and most fortunate animals and plants can survive the relentless flames and smoke that enshroud the planet, giving rise to anuclear winter; for small animals, one of the best methods to escape the horrendous aftereffects of the impact was to build burrows. As the dust settles, the impactor leaves additional evidence of its extraterrestrial origin in the form of a layer ofiridium - a metal rare in Earth’s crust, but common in asteroids - across the globe, in the form of theCretaceous–Paleogene boundary. With the start of thePaleogene, mammals,reptiles - including lizards, snakes, turtles andcrocodiles and their relatives, among others - andbirds inherit the planet, beginning theage of mammals that persists to the present day. In the case of the birds, they persist as a surviving lineage of thetheropod dinosaurs; thus, it is more correct to say that the Cretaceous extinction event brought about an end to allnon-avian dinosaurs, butnot dinosaurs as a whole.

Chitra Ramaswamy ofThe Guardian rated the documentary four out of five stars.^[3]

• List of films featuring dinosaurs

• Dinosaurs: The Final Day with David Attenborough atIMDb

• Documentary television series about dinosaurs
• David Attenborough
• BBC television documentaries
• British English-language television shows
• Documentary films about extinctions

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