Meerkats Unmasked - Part 2

"Join Simon King, a wild life film-maker, on a year long study of "Digger" and "Momma" and their small gang of meerkats as he follows and documents their everyday lives."

The Human Sexes - Part One - Different But Equal

"Written and presented by Desmond Morris (1997). Will boys always be boys and girls always be girls? Will we ever really understand each other? You may be shocked by your conclusions. Prepare yourself for an intimate, erotic examination of physical differences between the sexes, from body fat to brain power. See Turkish men demonstrate their suitability as mates by wrestling in olive oil. Celebrate Mardi Gras in New Orleans, where women bare their breasts to entice men to reward them with strings of beads. Observe women who flaunt their femininity as exotic dancers, and female body builders who develop their muscles to the point of masculinity. Examine brain scans that show that men and women even think differently about the same problems. 'Different But Equal' explores whether the amazing differences between men and women are based on biology or history."

Life on Earth - Episode 06 - The Swarming Hordes

"The sixth episode describes the move from water to land. The fish that did so may have been forced to because of drought, or chose to in search of food. Either way, they eventually evolved into amphibians. Such creatures needed two things: limbs for mobility and lungs to breathe. The coelacanth is shown as a fish with bony fins that could have developed into legs, and the lungfish is able to absorb gaseous oxygen. However, evidence of an animal that possessed both is presented in the 450 million-year-old fossilised remains of a fish called a eusthenoptron. Three groups of amphibians are explored. The sicilians have abandoned legs altogether to aid burrowing, newts and salamanders need to return to the water to allow their skins to breathe, but it is frogs and toads that have been the most successful. Attenborough handles a goliath frog, the largest of the species, to demonstrate its characteristics. Their webbed feet form parachutes that turn them into "dazzling athletes", and some can leap over 15 metres — 100 times their body length. In addition, their vocal sacs ensure that mating calls can be heard from up to a mile away. Poison dart frogs deter predators by means of venom, and one such example could kill a human. Various methods of breeding are examined, including laying eggs in rivers, depositing them in other damp habitats for safety or, as with the Brazilian pipa, embedding them within the skin of the parent itself."

Meerkats Unmasked - Part 1

"Join Simon King, a wild life film-maker, on a year long study of "Digger" and "Momma" and their small gang of meerkats as he follows and documents their everyday lives."

Life on Earth - Episode 05 - The Conquest of the Waters

"The fifth episode looks at the evolution of fish. They have developed a multitude of shapes, sizes and methods of propulsion and navigation. The sea quirt, the lancelet and the lamprey are given as examples of the earliest, simplest types. Then, about 400 million years ago, the first back-boned fish appeared. The Kimberley Ranges of Western Australia are, in fact, the remnants of a coral reef and the ancient seabed. There, Attenborough discovers fossils of the earliest fish to have developed jaws. These evolved into two shapes of creature with cartilaginous skeletons: wide ones (like rays and skates) and long ones (like sharks). However, it is the fully boned species that were most successful, and spread from the oceans to rivers and lakes. To adapt to these environments, they had by now acquired gills for breathing, a lateral line to detect movement and a swim bladder to aid buoyancy. Coral reefs contain the greatest variety of species, many of which are conspicuously coloured to ward off predators or attract mates. Their habitat, with its many hiding places within easy reach, allows them to remain so visible. However, the open ocean offers no such refuge, so there is safety in numbers — both hunters and hunted swim in shoals and have streamlined bodies for pursuit or escape. Most species that live below the thermocline, in the freezing depths of the ocean, have never been filmed, and these are largely represented by still photographs."

The Blue Planet - 2 - Seas of Life

"The Blue Planet, the definitive exploration of the Earth's final frontier is now over. From the deep to the shore, from pole to pole it revealed extraordinary life and behavior that had never before been filmed. In some cases the species were only recently known to scientists."

Gene Memory

"A startling examination, based on years of genetic research, on the role that ancestral genes play not just on our physical characteristics - but our psychological makeup as well." This brings a wholly new element into the nature versus nurture debate.

Wildlife Specials - Eagle

The Blue Planet - 1 - Ocean World

"The Blue Planet, the definitive exploration of the Earth's final frontier, is now over. From the deep to the shore, from pole to pole it revealed extraordinary life and behavior that had never before been filmed. In some cases the species were only recently known to scientists."

Life on Earth - Episode 04 - The Swarming Hordes

"This fourth episode details the relationship between flowers and insects. There are some one million classified species of insect, and two or three times as many that are yet to be labeled. Around 300 million years ago, plants began to enlist insects to help with their reproduction, and they did so with flowers. Although the magnolia, for instance, contains male and female cells, pollination from another plant is preferable as it ensures greater variation and thus evolution. Flowers advertise themselves by either scent or display. Some evolved to produce sweet-smelling nectar and in turn, several insects developed their mouth parts into feeding tubes in order to reach it. However, to ensure that pollination occurs, some species — such as the orchid — have highly complicated mechanisms that must be negotiated first. Others, such as the yucca and its visiting moths, are dependent on one another. Hunters, such as the mantis, are camouflaged to match the flowers and leaves visited by their prey. Since an insect’s skin is chitinous, it has to shed it periodically in order to grow, and the caterpillar, its chrysalis or cocoon and resulting butterfly or moth is one of the more complex examples. Termites, ants and some bees and wasps overcame any limitations of size by grouping together and forming superorganisms. The green tree ants of south-east Asia are shown to display the most extraordinary co-operation when building their nests."

Wildlife Specials - Crocodile

Life on Earth - Episode 03 - The First Forests

"This third episode examines the earliest land vegetation and insects. The first plants, being devoid of stems, mainly comprised mosses and liverworts. Using both sexual and asexual methods of reproduction, they proliferated. Descended from segmented sea creatures, millipedes were among the first to take advantage of such a habitat and were quickly followed by other species. Without water to carry eggs, bodily contact between the sexes was now necessary. This was problematical for some hunters, such as spiders and scorpions, who developed courtship rituals to ensure that that the female didn't eat the male. Over time, the plants' cell walls strengthened and they grew taller. Ferns and horsetails were among the first such species. Insects then evolved wings to avoid climbing and the dragonfly (which once had a wingspan of 60 centimetres) is one of the most successful. The elaborate wingbeats of the damselfly are shown slowed down 120 times. Some plants, like the cycad enlisted the insects to transport pollen, while others, like the conifer, spread spores. Over a third of forests contain conifers and the giant sequoia of California is the largest living organism of any kind: it grows to a height of 112 metres. The conifer secretes resin to repair its trunk, and this survives as amber. Within it, insect specimens have been found that are 200 million years old. In fact, at this time, every insect known today was already in existence."

Life on Earth - Episode 02 - Building Bodies

"This second episode 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. Some are single-shelled such as the cowrie, while others are bivalves that include the scallop and the giant clam. One species that has remained unchanged for millions of years is the nautilus: it features flotation chambers within its shell, which in turn formed the basis for the ammonites. Crinoids are illustrated by sea lilies, starfish and sea urchins on the Great Barrier Reef. Segmented worms developed to enable sustained burrowing, and well preserved fossils are found in the Rocky Mountains of British Columbia. These developed into trilobites and crustaceans, and the horseshoe crab is shown nesting in vast numbers on Delaware Bay. While the rubber crab breeds in the sea, it is in all other respects a land animal and Attenborough uses it to exemplify the next evolutionary step."

Meerkats Divided

Wildlife Specials - Tiger

"Dangerous, powerful, but above all breath-takingly beautiful, tigers have for centuries sparked awe and admiration. Yet, it is their very uniqueness which has made them a prized object for hunters. This film could be the last complete portrait of tigers in the wild as there is a real chance they could be extinct within the next decade.

"Their elusive lifestyle has made filming difficult, but after 25 years of the Project Tiger scheme operating in India's Madhya Pradesh, these big cats have become more trusting. An award-winning team of producers and cameramen have teamed up to follow the lives of several tigers by day and, by using low-light cameras, at night. The result shows the majesty of these fascinating animals and the importance of saving them from extinction."








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Part 3

Life on Earth - Episode 01 - The Infinite Variety

"This episode begins in the South American rainforest, whose rich variety of life forms is used to illustrate the sheer number of different species. Since many are dependent on others for food or means of reproduction, David Attenborough argues that they couldn't all have appeared at once. He sets out to discover which came first, and the reasons for such diversity. He starts by explaining the theories of Charles Darwin and the process of natural selection, using the giant tortoises of the Galapagos Islands (where Darwin voyaged on HMS Beagle) as an example. Fossils provide evidence of the earliest life, and Attenborough travels a vertical mile into the Grand Canyon in search of them. By the time he reaches the Colorado River bed, the geological strata are 2,000 million years old — yet there are no fossils. However, the "right rocks" are found on the shores of Lake Superior in Canada, where wafer-thin slices of flint, called churt, reveal filaments of primitive algae. Also, the micro-organisms that flourish at Yellowstone Park in Wyoming appear to be identical to the Earth's oldest fossils. The evolution of single-celled creatures, from simple cyanophytes to more complex ciliates, and then from multi-celled sponges and jellyfish to the many variations of coral and its associated polyps, is discussed in detail. The fossilized remains of jellyfish are shown within the Flinders Ranges of Australia, and are estimated to be 650 million years old."

Weird Nature - Bizarre Breeding

Meerkats United

Godfrey Reggio - Anima Mundi - The Soul of the World

"Anima Mundi is a film about animals. It contains no actors, has not plot and has no script. Anima Mundi was created by Godfrey Reggio who also created Koyaanisqatsi.

"Anima Mundi was commissioned by the Italian jewellery company Bvlgari, for the World Wide Fund for Nature which used the film for its Biological Diversity Program. The breathtaking images of nature where intended to make the viewer feel that they where part of the natural world. Philip Glass provided the musical score in Anima Mundi, as with all of Godfrey Reggio's films.

"The concept of the term Anima Mundi is that the order and beauty of nature are made of the almost endless species and varieties of animals, elements and beings that make a balanced whole. All of the shots in Anima Mundi relate to this though, rather than just being images of animals that one might find in a BBC documentary.

"The footage in Anima Mundi is made up of existing and newly shot footage. Only the finest existing footage was considered for the film. The score provides a good accompaniment to the animal scenes. Philip Glass often provides an unusual score, as is the case with Anima Mundi. However the sounds and rhythms complement the film well."

Weird Nature - Peculiar Potions