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
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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
Shrouded in myth and legend, the forests of Germany are world famous, thanks to the fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm. This episode reveals the strange creatures that actually live there.
Part 3 • Wild Germany • 2012 • Nature
Professor Richard Fortey delves into the fascinating and normally-hidden kingdom of fungi. From their spectacular birth, through their secretive underground life to their final explosive death, Richard reveals a remarkable world that few of us understand or even realise exists - yet all life on Earth depends on it. In a specially-built mushroom lab, with the help of mycologist Dr Patrick Hickey and some state-of-the-art technology, Richard brings to life the secret world of mushrooms as never seen before and reveals the spectacular abilities of fungi to break down waste and sustain new plant life, keeping our planet alive. Beyond the lab, Richard travels across Britain and beyond to show us the biggest, fastest and most deadly organisms on the planet - all of them fungi. He reveals their almost magical powers that have world-changing potential - opening up new frontiers in science, medicine and technology.
2014 • Nature
Evolution. Competition. Mass extinction. Three fundamental rules have driven the rise and fall of life on Earth for over four billion years.
S1E1 • Life on Our Planet • 2023 • Nature
Two out of five wild plants are threatened with extinction. Today people are finding remarkable ways to help them, and so make our world a little greener and a little wilder.
S1E5 • The Green Planet • 2022 • Nature
Jungles contain up to 90% of the world’s plant and animal species: flowering plants, trees, birds, fungi, reptiles, fish – their range and beauty is absolutely staggering. It is becoming clear that what affects the rainforest affects us all deeply.
2020 • Nature