In episode three, Fortey looks at the Ice Age. 2.8 million years ago - triggered by slight changes in the Earth's orbit around the sun and shifts in its ocean currents - the world began to cool. Within a few thousand years much of the planet was shrouded in a dense cloak of ice that would come and go until only 10,000 years ago. We call this age of ice - the Pleistocene Age - and it transformed the hierarchy of nature. This is the story of how a few specialist species that evolved to live in the biting cold survived into the present day.
It is estimated that 99 per cent of species have become extinct and there have been times when life's hold on Earth has been so precarious it seems it hangs on by a thread. This series focuses on the survivors - the old-timers - whose biographies stretch back millions of years and who show how it is possible to survive a mass extinction event which wipes out nearly all of its neighbours. The Natural History Museum's Professor Richard Fortey discovers what allows the very few to carry on going - perhaps not for ever, but certainly far beyond the life expectancy of normal species. What makes a survivor when all around drop like flies? In this episode Professor Fortey focuses on a series of cataclysms over a million year period, 250 million years ago
2012 • Nature
Professor Fortey travels across the globe to find the survivors of the most dramatic of these obstacles - the mass extinction events. In episode two, Fortey focuses on the 'KT boundary'. 65 million years ago, a 10 km diameter asteroid collided with the Earth and saw the end of the long reign of the dinosaurs. He investigates the lucky breaks and evolutionary adaptations that allowed some species to survive the disastrous end of the Cretaceous Age when these giants did not
2012 • Nature
In episode three, Fortey looks at the Ice Age. 2.8 million years ago - triggered by slight changes in the Earth's orbit around the sun and shifts in its ocean currents - the world began to cool. Within a few thousand years much of the planet was shrouded in a dense cloak of ice that would come and go until only 10,000 years ago. We call this age of ice - the Pleistocene Age - and it transformed the hierarchy of nature. This is the story of how a few specialist species that evolved to live in the biting cold survived into the present day.
2012 • Nature
Within the quiet confines of your home, wild things are afoot. The great struggle to survive, the drama of life and death, the cold calculation of the hunter and the anxiety of the hunted and it goes on all around you. In the Great Indoors, every corner is a potential lair, every carpet a dense forest, and the wide spaces of your kitchen, an open savannah where the food is abundant, but so is the danger. A number of creatures fly in and get trapped; others may enter to dine and dash, but some will be found nowhere else but safe and sound at home in your home. So when you trap that house spider and decide to set it free outside, you may in fact be dooming it to death in a world it's never known.
S56E12 • The Nature of Things • 2017 • Nature
Archimedes once said “Give me a place to stand, and I shall move the Earth.”
Canada's Devon Island is the largest uninhabited island in the world--and with good reason. Temperatures below freezing for nine months of the year and an annual rainfall comparable to the Gobi Desert leave the icy landscape so barren that NASA uses it to simulate conditions on Mars. Take an exhilarating expedition into a land where only the most experienced Inuit hunters dare set foot.
2/8 • Arctic Secrets • 2015 • Nature
Colin Stafford-Johnson journeys through one of the most bewitching islands in the world, featuring the wildlife and wild places that make it so special. In the first part of this two-part mini-series, Colin explores corners of Cuba that few outsiders have seen. Amongst the wonders he encounters is the bee hummingbird, the world’s tiniest bird, found nowhere else on the planet, and the spectacle of thousands of crabs migrating en masse.
1/2 • Natural World • 2020 • Nature
From mountain zebras to shy and secretive caracals, Karoo National Park showcases a diversity of creatures who have adapted to demanding environmental conditions. Scale the varying altitudes of this nature reserve's vast landscape.
4/9 • Great Parks of Africa • 2017 • Nature
Formed from the remains of a 2.5 million-year-old imploded volcano, the Ngorongoro crater is a study in contradictions: On one hand, it's a self-sustained and plentiful land that provides for the many animals that call it home. Conversely, its isolation threatens the existence of many of its key species. What does the future hold for this unique habitat?
6/6 • Africa's Wild Horizons • 2017 • Nature