YouTube Series

New videos on wildlife, conservation, and the story of life on Earth

The Story of Life on Earth is an independent YouTube series made as an homage to Martin Jenkins, the British children’s author and conservation biologist, and to the curiosity behind his books. It covers real science and real animals, from the first spark of life through the fossil record and the age of dinosaurs, including the T-Rex. Every long-form episode is below, in order.

Episode 1, Before Life

From the Big Bang to a young, watery Earth, before anything was alive.

Episode 2, The First Spark

How life may have begun, and what Earth’s earliest history suggests about looking for life on Mars.

Episode 3, The 2.5 Billion Year Secret

Oxygen, complex cells and the stretch of time known as the Boring Billion.

Episode 4, Before We Had Eyes

The Cambrian explosion and the first arms race between predators and prey.

Episode 5, How the Ocean’s Top Predators Came to Be

Jaws, armored fish and the rise of the ocean’s first great hunters.

Episode 6, How Simple Mosses Built Our Modern World

Plants, then animals, make the move from water onto land.

Episode 7, The Great Dying

The end-Permian mass extinction, the worst in Earth’s history.

Episode 8, How Dinosaurs Took Over After Earth’s Worst Extinction

How dinosaurs went from Triassic underdogs to Jurassic giants.

Episode 9, How T-Rex Actually Hunted

A day in the life of Tyrannosaurus rex, built from what its fossils reveal.

Episode 10, After Dinosaurs and T-Rex

The asteroid impact that ended the age of dinosaurs, and the rise of mammals.
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What the Series Covers

The series covers the same deep-time story that Martin Jenkins tells in his book Life: The First Four Billion Years, built from its own research and made for video: the earliest chemistry that could be called alive, the first eyes, the rise and fall of ocean predators, the Great Dying and the age of dinosaurs. Each episode works through one chapter of that story in enough depth to explain the science, for curious viewers who want the real explanation rather than a simplified version.

New episodes are added on a rolling basis, and most have their own page on this site with additional detail and sources beyond what fits in the video, listed below.

The series is an independent, fan-made production. It is not made by Martin Jenkins and is not affiliated with or endorsed by him or his publishers, Walker Books and Candlewick Press.

The latest episodes follow life onto land, through the Great Dying and into the age of dinosaurs. Episode 8 covers how dinosaurs took over after Earth’s worst extinction, and you can read more about it on the dinosaurs and fossils page. Episode 9 follows a day in the life of the T-Rex, and Episode 10 covers the world after the dinosaurs.

Every episode, with its own page

Episodes 1 through 8 also have their own pages with more detail and sources.

Closed captions are available on every episode, and each video description links back to the matching page on this site for anyone who wants the sources behind a given claim.