David Attenborough TV -
There are some four million different kinds of animal and plants in the world. Four million different solutions to the problems of staying alive. David Attenborough, Life on Earth I: The Infinite Variety, BBC 1979
There are several hundred thousand different insects that have been named. ibid.
The Beagle sailed around South America and into the Pacific. ibid.
The Galapagos Islands got their name from the herds of tortoises that live on them. ibid.
The suspicion grew in Darwin’s mind that species were not fixed for ever. ibid.
He called the mechanism Natural Selection. ibid.
Molluscs … today there are something like 80,000 different species of them. David Attenborough, Life on Earth II: Building Bodies
Why – 50 million years ago – did they all die out? There’s not one surviving ammonite today. ibid.
Segmentation was a great evolutionary success. ibid.
These first plants were simple algae. David Attenborough, Life on Earth III: The First Forests
The biggest living organism of any kind is a conifer – the Giant Sequoia. ibid.
Locusts: in the eyes of man one of the greatest plagues on Earth … the most numerous and varied kind of animal in the world – the insects. David Attenborough, Life on Earth IV: The Swarming Hordes
There may be as many as a million million individual locusts in a single swarm … nearly a million different species of insects. ibid.
Variation is the raw material of evolution. ibid.
The most complicated mechanisms of all are those produced by orchids. ibid.
Without the moth, the yucca would not be pollinated. ibid.
With the best protection they can muster, the caterpillars industrially put away their food. ibid.
Two highly dramatic transformations ... The caterpillar’s body is breaking down into a kind of soup. ibid.
The Australian Orchid butterfly is ready for flight. ibid.
The Atlas Moth is one of the biggest of all butterflies and moths. ibid.
In this one single termite hill there must live two or three million insects … one single great organism. ibid.
She is a giant egg machine. ibid.
Not all wasps and bees are social. ibid.
Insects are still masters of great parts of the world. ibid.
Life began in the sea. David Attenborough, Life on Earth V: Conquest of the Waters
A number of different ways of propelling themselves through the water. ibid.
The Hammerhead shark is said to be particularly sensitive. ibid.
The Ray has flattened its body to an extreme degree. ibid.
The Basking Shark grows to a length of fifteen metres. ibid.
Open water fish often form vast shoals. ibid.
Many species have never been filmed. ibid.
Salmon … a paragon among fish. ibid.
350 million years ago … the fish began to haul themselves on to the land. David Attenborough, Life on Earth VI: Invasion of the Land
A tongue that can be stuck out is an amphibian invention. ibid.
An egg with a waterproof shell – that was the next great evolutionary breakthrough. ibid.
Reptiles … can survive in places where amphibians would roast to death in minutes. David Attenborough, Life on Earth VII: Victors of the Dry Land
No bird would want to eat the Australian Thorny Devil. ibid.
Temperature control is something all reptiles must achieve. ibid.
At seven metres long and weighing three-quarters of a ton, a Bull Nile Crocodile is the biggest reptile alive today. ibid.
Archaeopteryx: Not the legs of a wizard but the wings of a bird. David Attenborough, Life on Earth VIII: Lords of the Air
With song and dance, identities are established. ibid.
It’s no hoax – it’s a platypus. David Attenborough, Life on Earth IX: The Rise of the Mammals
The size of a Corgi dog – a Tasmanian Devil. ibid.
There are over a hundred and fifty different kinds of marsupials. ibid.
Mammals: but how have they become so varied? David Attenborough, Life on Earth X: Theme and Variations
There are a dozen or so species of mammals around the world that have specialized in living on ants and termites. ibid.
The leaf-eaters didn’t have everything their own way: there were also hunters in the forest. David Attenborough, Life on Earth XI: The Hunters and the Hunted
This creature is a true primate and one of the most primitive ones – it’s a lemur. David Attenborough, Life on Earth XII: Life in the Trees *****
There are over twenty different kinds of lemur. ibid.
With one exception all monkeys sleep at night. ibid.
The Marmosets are the smallest of the monkeys. ibid.
There are about seventy different species of monkey in South America alone. ibid.
The biggest of all the apes ... the gorilla. ibid.
Aggressive, violent – and that’s one thing the gorilla is not, and we are. ibid.
Every gorilla in fact has its own unique fingerprint just as we have. ibid.
Grooming like this has been a crucial influence in the development of chimp behaviour. ibid.
You and I belong to the most widespread and dominant species on Earth. We live on the icecaps at the pole and in the tropical jungles at the equator. David Attenborough, Life on Earth XIII: The Compulsive Communicators
4,000 million of us today ... The story starts back in Africa. ibid.
Apes had come down from the trees. ibid.
The early people hunted in teams. ibid.
Upright man was in Europe in some numbers. Now the climate of Europe changed. ibid.
There are over four million different kinds of plants and animals in the world. David Attenborough: Life on Earth (revised series)
Some ancient rocks contain fossils that are well over three thousand million years old. ibid.
Around fourteen hundred million years ago – that’s the middle of August on our calendar – some kinds of primitive cells began to collaborate to form complex cells. ibid.
At certain times of the year corals also release sexual cells into the water. Some of the larvae that result begin new colonies. ibid.
Scallops are also filter-feeding bi-valves but they live on the sea bed. Not only have they good eyes, they are surprisingly mobile. ibid.
Squids and their close relative the octopuses are the most active and intelligent of all the molluscs. ibid.
Each Spring on the eastern seaboard of north America a strange re-enactment of that momentous episode in life’s history takes place: horseshoe crabs have changed little for several hundred million years. ibid.
Millipedes ... one indeed was as long as a cow. ibid.
About four hundred million years ago new creatures appeared which were to be the forerunners of probably the most successful group of all animals without backbones, the insects. ibid.
Some little creatures developed wings ... Insects were the first creatures to take to the air. ibid.