I'm John Batsuit, Professor Dan Flores, whose notebook, Wild New World, tells the epic

story of animals and people in America.

First contact from European diary keepers and chronologies that are important here,

16th, 17th century.

And what I learned is that the Europeans were amazed, flabbergasted, at the range of

animals they had no comparable name for or had never experienced.

This was the Eurasian people who came 13,000 years ago, but in those 13,000 year differences,

there had been major changes in Europe and in North America for the biosphere that they're

now entering.

And at first Dan, there are quotes, one young man named Wood, he's amazed, he's overwhelmed,

he sees this as awe with awe.

Does that go away quickly or does that remain into the 18th century, that awe of the scale

of wildlife?

It remains through a great deal of American history, in part because Europeans bring with them

a knowledge of the old world that goes back to the Greeks and Romans and in some cases

even farther.

They have what's called a great chain of being that enumerates and illustrates all the

creatures that you know as a European, but they have no conception that there are other

grand continents across the oceans.

And when they arrive in the Americas and begin confronting thousands of new birds, new

mammals, new reptiles, new plants that they have no idea about.

They are frankly flabbergasted and they're flabbergasted in particular after the great

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