Emerging from the dinosaurs' shadows, mammals went from underdogs to global power, with game-changing adaptations that would conquer land, air and sea.
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Evolution. Competition. Mass extinction. Three fundamental rules have driven the rise and fall of life on Earth for over four billion years.
2023 • Nature
For billions of years, land on Earth was uninhabitable. But in the seas, predation allowed species to thrive before — and after — two mass extinctions.
2023 • Nature
Sprawling moss, towering trees, flying insects, limbed amphibians: Early species vied for domination as the land went from hostile to hospitable.
2023 • Nature
After Earth's third mass extinction, mammals' surviving ancestors ruled the supercontinent Pangea. But lizards soon ushered in the age of reptiles.
2023 • Nature
The formation of continents with varied environments allowed for an explosion of biodiversity — and turbo-charged the evolution of mighty dinosaurs.
2023 • Nature
The dinosaurs met their end with a cataclysmic asteroid impact. Rising from the ashes, birds reinvented themselves into a dynasty 10,000 species strong.
2023 • Nature
Emerging from the dinosaurs' shadows, mammals went from underdogs to global power, with game-changing adaptations that would conquer land, air and sea.
2023 • Nature
As the Ice Age thawed, humans rose above the rest. But the possibility of a sixth mass extinction now looms: Has our ingenuity caused our downfall?
2023 • Nature
On 12th September 2015, a 30-ton humpback whale breached and landed on Tom Mustill and his friend Charlotte Kinloch as they paddled a sea kayak in Monterey Bay, California. Incredibly, both survived the incident, but the near-death experience haunted documentary maker Tom and left him wondering if the whale was deliberately trying to hurt them. To find the answer, Tom returned to California in 2018 to investigate. Tom meets those who have survived similar hair-raising encounters and the experts who know the whales best. What he discovers raises far bigger questions, not just about what happened that day but also about our relationship with whales and their future alongside us.
Natural World • 2019 • Nature
The next programme explores the various sea-living invertebrates. In Morocco, the limestones are 600 million years old, and contain many invertebrate fossils. They fall broadly into three categories: shells, crinoids and segmented shells. The evolution of shelled creatures is demonstrated with the flatworm, which eventually changed its body shape when burrowing became a necessity for either food or safety. It then evolved shielded tentacles and the casings eventually enveloped the entire body: these creatures are the brachiopods. The most successful shelled animals are the molluscs, of which there are some 80,000 different species.
2/13 • Life on Earth • 1979 • Nature
Are you genetically destined to despise brussels sprouts? We’re all human, but why are we all so different? With the help of a line-up of dogs and many sets of twins, Prof Alice Roberts explores what makes each of us totally unique.
S1E3 • Who Am I (Royal Institution Christmas Lectures) • 2018 • Nature
Richard Hammond continues his exploration of weird and wonderful animal abilities by focusing on super-senses, and discovers how those same animal senses have inspired some unlikely human inventions. Richard gets buried in a Californian gold mine, attempts to talk to a rattlesnake by telephone, and is taken for a ride by a monster truck that drives itself. Along the way, he encounters elephants who can talk to each other through solid rock; seals who use their whiskers to sense the shape, size, speed and direction of an object that passed over thirty seconds earlier; and a blind cyclist who relies on fruit bats to get him safely down a twisting mountain bike trail.
S1E2 • Richard Hammond's Miracles of Nature • 2012 • Nature
Learn how rain transforms the area into a lush grazing pasture, creating an abundance of food. Moderate weather makes it harder for predators, as prey can migrate further. With plenty of food available, mating and birthing seasons have arrived.
S1E3 • Life at the Waterhole • 2021 • Nature
The next programme deals with flying insects. It begins in Central Europe, where the Körös River plays host to millions of giant mayflies as they rise from their larval skins to mate. — the climax of their lives. Mayflies and dragonflies were among the first to take to the air about 320 million years ago, and fossils reveal that some were similar in size to a seagull. Damselflies are also looked at in detail.
Part 2 • Life in the Undergrowth • 2005 • Nature