How to Build a Dinosaur Page #2

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so working out what it looked like is

a huge challenge.

And Luis's team will be doing much more

than just piecing bones back together.

They'll be creating a lifelike model of the animal,

which means adding muscles and skin.

I think when most of us go to

an exhibition like this,

we don't think about all of the

work that's gone into it,

and an exhibition on this scale

requires hundreds of people to be

working together,

from scientists, to engineers,

to artists, and designers.

But absolutely none of it would be possible

without the starting point of the hard evidence,

the fossils themselves,

because if we'd never found their bones,

we wouldn't ever have known that

these ancient animals ever existed.

Luis has come to the southeastern corner of Utah.

Today, this is Wild West country,

a stopoff on the way to the Grand Canyon,

and its past is equally epic.

All the rocks you can see around

here are mostly of Jurassic age,

so this is prime dinosaur country.

At the time of the Jurassic,

the dinosaurs were in their prime

and this was their home.

But it was a very different world.

Back then, this area was awash

with streams and flood plains.

It was the perfect habitat

for the largest land animals that have ever lived -

the sauropods,

long-necked, plant-eating dinosaurs.

It's just a phenomenal place.

It's beautiful and it's filled with clues about...

the ancient life.

In a vast desert, most of us wouldn't have a hope

of finding those clues.

But if you know what you're looking for,

the hint of a different colour on

the ground is all it takes.

Let me take a closer look.

You can see the bones

right here, and here, and here.

It's very difficult to see what exactly they may be.

They're very thin.

It would probably be worth coming back

and cleaning this a little bit

and taking a closer look at what they may be.

Amazingly, less than 100 metres away,

there are more clues to the past.

Luis's colleague has found

the remains of a sauropod.

There's a piece of rib here

that's going into the ground,

about this angle,

and then there's a piece of the...

a pubis, the hipbone, right here,

and it's almost complete,

save for the very back end,

which is already starting to weather off.

Luis has to decide what to do with these finds.

Starting a new dig is a huge undertaking,

requiring time and money,

and he has limited resources.

We already have two very good sites

with long-necked dinosaurs.

I'm reluctant to open another excavation.

Just half a mile away is one of those sites.

Luis's team began work on it a year ago.

Most of the bones are still embedded in the rock

and must be painstakingly excavated.

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