Flowers carry both male and female sex organs. And they first appeared about a hundred million years ago – about December 20th on our calendar. ibid.
Mammals: they first appeared about 180 million years ago. That’s December 12th on our calendar. And the earliest of them certainly looked like some little insect-eating creatures that still thrive today. David Attenborough: Life on Earth: Mammals (revised series)
While some primitive mammals incubated eggs others developed more efficient methods of bringing up their young. ibid.
In the eucalyptus trees of Australia at night: this little marsupial is called a sugar glider, and with good reason. ibid.
Kangaroos – the marsupial equivalent of deer and antelope. ibid.
The amazing variety of mammalian forms are all derived from small nocturnal creatures that lived unobtrusively while the giant reptiles ruled the Earth. ibid.
Bats: caves like this in Mexico contain the densest population of individual mammals found anywhere on Earth. ibid.
Whales’ ... bodies supported by water have been able to grow into the biggest animals the world has ever seen. ibid.
Grass: it was only about 25 million years ago that grass began to spread widely on our planet. ibid.
The elephant is the largest living land animal. ibid.
The long duels between hunter and hunted fought out on the open plains led to a great development of team work and communication. ibid.
Lemurs are true primates, although primitive ones. They belong to the group that includes the moneys, apes and man himself. ibid.
Marmosets are the smallest of the seventy or so species of monkey in South America. ibid.
Many African monkeys have shown a readiness to come down to the ground. ibid.
There is more meaning and mutual understanding in exchanging a glance with a gorilla than with any other animal I know. Their sight, their hearing, their sense of smell are so similar to ours that they see the world in much the same way as we do. We live in the same sort of social groups with largely permanent family relationships. They walk around on the ground as we do, though they are immensely more powerful than we are. So if there were ever a possibility of escaping the human condition and living imaginatively in another creature's world, it must be with the gorilla. The male is an enormously powerful creature but he only uses his strength when he is protecting his family and it is very rare that there is violence within the group. So it seems really very unfair that man should have chosen the gorilla to symbolise everything that is aggressive and violent, when that is the one thing that the gorilla is not – and that we are. ibid.
Aggressive and violent – that’s one thing the gorilla is not, and we are. ibid.
Every gorilla has its unique fingerprints just as we have. ibid.
A very nimble mind and an inquisitive disposition – and that’s exactly what these chimpanzees have got. ibid.
Chimps live in groups of up to fifty. ibid.
Grooming has been a crucial influence in the development of chimp behaviour. ibid.
We ourselves are assuredly part of the natural world. Now it lies within our power to destroy it or to preserve it in all its variety and magnificence. ibid.
The air speed record is held a smaller flyer – a swift ... a hundred and seventy kilometres an hour. David Attenborough, Life on Earth (revised series), Fish, Birds & Reptiles
Feathers have enabled birds to master the air. ibid.
They developed originally from simple sea creatures, perhaps not unlike these – sea squirts. ibid.
Bony fish now live in almost all parts of the ocean as well as in fresh water. ibid.
Water is eight hundred times more dense than air. ibid.
Some of them did regularly get out on to land. Whatever the reason for this move they evolved into the first amphibians. ibid.
The largest group of amphibians – the frogs. ibid.
Our planet – the Earth – is as far as we know unique in the universe – it contains life. David Attenborough, The Living Planet I: A Portrait of the Earth: The Building of the Earth, BBC 1984
The Himalayan bear is capable of living very high indeed. ibid.
Yellow-billed choughs go as high as any bird in the world. ibid.
Mount St Helens May 18th 1980: it blew away three-quarters of a cubic mile of rock … Over sixty people stayed and were killed. ibid.
Krakatoa … the loudest noise that ever echoed round the Earth in recorded history. ibid.
There is a surprising amount of life here … the colour comes from microscopic plants. David Attenborough, The Living Planet II: The Frozen World
Rarer still is the animal that preys on them – the snow leopard. ibid.
Emperor penguins … The males are left with the eggs … The male Emperors stoically sit out the months of winter darkness. ibid.
No Eskimo lives in this way today. ibid.
In the lands between the Arctic Circle and the Tropics each year brings a great change between winter and summer. David Attenborough, The Living Planet: The Northern Forests III
The winter forests can support very few plant-eaters. ibid.
Not all owls use nest-holes; the Eagle owl nests on the ground often among rocks. ibid.
Salamanders: almost every range of mountains in the United States has its own species with own particular colours. ibid.
One spectacular sleeper who dozes for months on end: just look at this – a black bear. ibid.
The fire has cleared away the old growth on the ground. ibid.
This is a Giant Sequoia – it’s thought to be about two thousand five hundred years old. ibid.
The greatest proliferation of life you can find anywhere on the surface of the Earth. I’m up in the canopy of the jungle, the tropical rain forest. David Attenborough, The Living Planet IV: Jungle
Two main causes: warmth and wetness. ibid.
The greatest expanse of all – the Amazon Jungle. ibid.
Every jungle has its monkey troops. ibid.
The canopy is a complete world suspended above the surface of the Earth that they’d never need leave. ibid.
Human beings have lived here for tens of thousands of years. ibid.
Since Life began the sea has been full of eggs. David Attenborough, The Trials of Life: A Natural History of Behaviour I: Arriving, BBC 1990
A few exceptional males also get pregnant. ibid.
In the Russian Arctic at the beginning of the brief summer snow geese babies are hatching. David Attenborough, The Trials of Life II: Growing Up
Some bats also used the creche system. ibid.
Chimps feed on a wide variety of things. ibid.
There’s another drawback to eating leaves – they’re not that very nutritious. David Attenborough, The Trials of Life III: Finding Food
The greatest plunderer of leaves however are insects. ibid.
Eating plants poses more problems than one might think. ibid.
These Great Skewers ... are pirates ... and they are also extremely skilful hunters – they are killers. David Attenborough, The Trials of Life IV: Hunting and Escaping
Killer Whale: no other whale deliberately beaches itself in this way or has perfected its method of getting back to the sea. ibid.
Poison is carried by all kinds of animals. ibid.
Black and yellow is a colour code for poison that is widely understood. ibid.
Chimpanzees: they hunt in teams. ibid.
Not all animals rely on sight; others use other senses to find their way around. David Attenborough, The Trials of Life V: Finding the Way
The Amazon: here another animal has developed echo location – the river dolphin. ibid.
Lines join together into longer lines: sometimes sixty lobsters will be marching one behind the other. ibid.
Arctic Terns: their twelve-thousand mile journey. ibid.
Others build the most ingenious structures to shield themselves from a world that can be so very hostile. David Attenborough, The Trials of Life VI: Home Making
The prairie dog in fact has a home with air conditioning. ibid.
Only spiders and insects have the ability to produce silk. ibid.