Discover the incredible varieties of life that came before us, the cataclysmic changes that wiped them out, and how humans are pushing Earth towards a sixth mass extinction.

Our planet has witnessed an astonishingly vast array of species come and go. Homo sapiens is just a slender branch of this variety.

The Earth of eons ago featured lumbering land animals that were neither mammal nor reptile; armor-plated fish lived here more than 350 million years ago.

If we could visit any of Earth's ancient phases, we might think we'd landed on an alien planet.

Produced by the University of Cape Town, Extinctions: Past and Present is led by the paleobiologist and professor Anusuya Chinsamy-Turan.

Alongside her university colleagues, Chinsamy-Turan narrates the waves of evolution of a dazzling array of plant and animal life.

The course covers the periods of mass destruction and renewal triggered by Earth's five climate-induced extinctions — and the possibility of a sixth mass extinction caused by us.