Rodents truly are the most adaptable of mammals. ibid.
The rabbit weighs ten times as much as the stoat but the stoat prefers to eat in privacy. David Attenborough, The Life of Mammals V: Meat Eaters
There are two great tribes of carnivores: there are the cats and there are the dogs. ibid.
The Siberian tiger: ten feet long from nose to tail. ibid.
The most mysterious, the least known of all dogs: South American bush dog ... The only dogs with webbed feet. ibid.
African hunting dogs: 80% of their chases will end in a kill. ibid.
Most lions do most of their hunting at night. ibid.
Cheetahs are the fastest thing on four legs. ibid.
The leopard is perhaps the most accomplished stalker. ibid.
Instead of being a specialist, you can be a generalist. David Attenborough, The Life of Mammals VI: Opportunists
Omnivores are the most adaptable animals in the world. ibid.
Foxes bury their surplus food. ibid.
During hibernation a bear burns up almost a million calories. ibid.
In a good salmon year a bear can catch a dozen a day. ibid.
Raccoons have found our cities very much to their liking. ibid.
One of the most widespread and adaptable mammals on the planet: the brown rat. ibid.
It’s not the meek who’ve inherited the Earth, it’s the opportunists. bid.
The most unlikely can swim. David Attenborough, The Life of Mammals VII: Return to the Water
The sinuous agility of the sea-otter. ibid.
South of New Zealand, in the Antarctic, it’s so cold the sea freezes over. ibid.
Foxes prey on newborn seals. ibid.
There are bigger predators here than foxes: polar bears. ibid.
In the warm clear waters of the Florida Creeks there still are – Manatees. ibid.
Manatees are so big nothing much attacks them. ibid.
A river dolphin: Ganges – it’s completely blind: sonar. ibid.
Dolphin teams may number several hundred. ibid.
The sardines are forced to the surface they come with a range of seabirds overhead. ibid.
The Blue Whale is a hundred feet long. Thirty meters. Nothing like that can grow on land ... That magnificent creature. ibid.
Meerkats in the Kalahari Desert ... They spend the night in burrows ... They have to warm up in the early morning sun. David Attenborough, The Life of Mammals VIII: Life in the Trees
Someone must always stand guard. ibid.
A third of the Earth’s land is still covered by trees of one kind or another. ibid.
The Sun Bear of Indonesia: it also is a fruit-eater and it spends more of its time in the trees than any other bear. ibid.
Fruit bats are extremely strong fliers. They can travel great distances. ibid.
This roost alone contains a staggering five million. ibid.
How ill-equipped we are for a life in the trees. ibid.
There’s a very good living to be had – up there. ibid.
Some monkeys however have particular specialities. David Attenborough, The Life of Mammals IX: Social Climbers
Pygmy Marmoset – the smallest monkey in the world. ibid.
Monkeys of many kinds travel side by side. ibid.
There’s a ruthless class system in monkey society. ibid.
The most important thing we share is our big brain. David Attenborough, The Life of Mammals X: Food for Thought
Chimpanzees: they are clever, social, political creatures. ibid.
We’ve only recently had the tiny lenses and the electronic cameras that we need to explore this miniature world. David Attenborough, Life in the Undergrowth I, BBC 2005
But in the waters of the world conditions were much more stable. Life had begun there some 2,000 million years earlier still. ibid.
Snails: with rain and the coming of night a secret army comes out of hiding. These are the conditions they like best. ibid.
This is a whip spider; like its ancestors it has a hard external skeleton. ibid.
There are centipedes in the world however that are as big as my forearm. ibid.
Worms: a single hectare may be home to eight million of them. They spend nearly all their time below ground. ibid.
Australia: how long is a giant earthworm? ... a couple of metres almost. ibid.
Mayflies, Europe's largest ... The ancestral mayflies were among the first creatures of any kind to take to the air about three hundred and twenty million years ago. David Attenborough, Life in the Undergrowth II
This insect must have had a wingspan as big as a seagull. ibid.
Living dragonflies can reach speeds of nearly forty miles an hour. ibid.
Many beetles have grown very large ... The Titan is now known to be the biggest of all beetles. ibid.
Cicadas ... they may be millions of them in a single acre of land. ibid.
I’m in a cave. Each one of those tiny lights is produced by the larva of a small insect called a fungus gnat as a way of attracting its prey ... One of the most magical illuminations in the whole of the natural world. David Attenborough, Life in the Undergrowth III: The Silk Spinners
They’re lures and they can be lethal ... This is silk. ibid.
Silk really is an extraordinary material. It’s stronger than a steel thread ... It can stretch up to twice its length. ibid.
Each leg has about a hundred and fifty tiny silk ejectors. ibid.
Trap-door spider ... This is the most ancient of living spiders. ibid.
The biggest and strongest webs are those made by nephila: golden orb web spiders of the tropics: they may be several metres across. ibid.
In Australia there is a species of spider that has taken web construction a stage further still: it builds not just in two dimensions but in three. ibid.
A creature that hunts in packs. This enormous web above me contains thousands of spiders ... they can kill prey many times their own size. ibid.
This wonderful shimmering carpets of gossamer ... It’s Autumn in England. ibid.
Ultra-violet markings on some flowers serve to guide insects to nectar. David Attenborough, Life in the Undergrowth IV: Intimate Relations
Hard-wired into the microscopic brain of this ordinary looking insect are a whole series of skills, sensitivities and reactions that will enable it in its turn to give its own offspring a special start in life. ibid.
Leafcutter ants ... they are all members of one highly organised society. David Attenborough, Life in the Undergrowth V: Supersocieties
Every insect society is full of conflict, power struggles and mutinies. ibid.
There are the Giant Asiatic Bees – the biggest of all honey-bees. ibid.
The unmistakable acrid smell of formic acid. ibid.
Ants live almost anywhere. ibid.
The champions by far are these tiny creatures – termites. ibid.
Titan Beetle – the world's largest insect. (Animals & Insects) ibid.
On the island of New Guinea there are forty-two different species of birds of paradise, each more bizarre than the last. David Attenborough, Planet Earth I: Pole to Pole, BBC 2006
The sun rises once more over Antarctica. Now at last the Emperor penguins abandon their huddle. The males are still carrying the precious eggs that they’ve cherished throughout the Antarctic winter. With the returning sun the eggs hatch. ibid.
This forest covers only 3% of the planet’s surface but it contains more than 50% of all its plants and animals. The canopy is particularly rich. There are monkeys, birds and millions of species of insects. Exactly how many we have no idea. ibid.