But in those days, it wasn't the icy wasteland all year that it is today. Because of the different shape of the world's continents, ocean currents were very different then. Warm water pushed up from the tropics would have bathed the area around the South Pole and kept the climate temperate enough for forests. However, being at this latitude meant that the entire region would have been in darkness for 2 months of the year during the southern hemisphere winter. This then would have been a place of extremes, and the animals that lived there would have had to have been very specialised to cope.
Scientists know a lot about the forest itself.
Discoveries of fossilised tree ferns, podocarps and ground ferns in Cretaceous coal seams help to build a detailed picture of forest plantlife. Fortunately, many of these plants are still around, especially in New Zealand where this programme was filmed. Much of the evidence behind the animals and habitats depicted in this programme comes from Australia. In the Early Cretaceous period the Australian state of Victoria lay within the Antarctic circle, and so its fossils represent a snapshot of life near the South Pole 106 million years ago. Leaellynasaura Palaeontologists used not to think that dinosaurs could have inhabited the polar landmasses - the low temperatures and lack of light during the winter were thought to be too extreme for dinosaurs to cope with.