| Description |
1 online resource (streaming video file) (48 min. 49 sec.) ; 294312933 bytes |
| Series |
Planet Earth ; Series 1, Episode 5 |
| Summary |
When astronauts peer down on planet Earth, the one environment they all notice are the deserts, which make up a staggering 30% of the land's surface. From space they look empty and lifeless. A closer look reveals a very different picture. Prepare to be overwhelmed by the beauty of Planet Earth. Deserts are united by their lack of rain, yet they are the most varied of our planet's ecosystems. Mongolia's Gobi Desert is home to wild Bactrian camels, one of the rarest mammals on the planet, which survive by eating snow in lieu of water. In the Atacama in Chile, guanacos survive in the driest desert in the world by licking the dew from cactus spines.Changes are rare in deserts, but they play a crucial part in their story. Planet Earth captures some of these key moments of change, from Saharan sandstorms nearly a mile high, to desert rivers that run for a single day.In the USA, the brief blooming of Death Valley triggers a plague of desert locusts 65 kilometres wide and 160 kilometres long, two spectacles that might only occur once in 30 years. The highlight of the program is a unique aerial voyage over the dunes and rocky escarpments of the Namibian deserts. From this aerial perspective, it is possible for the first time to follow some very un-desert-like animals.PRODUCTION DETAILS:A BBC/Discovery Channel/NHK co-production in association with the CBC. Executive Producer and Director, Alastair Fothergill (The Blue Planet). Producers; Andy Byatt, Vanessa Berlowitz, Mark Brownlow, Huw Cordey, Jonathan Keeling and Mark Linfield. Soundtrack by George Fenton |
| Event |
Broadcast 2011-03-13 at 13:00:00 |
| Notes |
Classification: G |
| Subject |
Bactrian camel.
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Biotic communities -- Environmental aspects.
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Desert ecology.
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Guanaco.
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Habitat (Ecology)
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Zoology.
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Asia -- Gobi Desert.
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Chile -- Atacama Desert.
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| Form |
Streaming video
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| Author |
Attenborough, David, cast
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Fothergill, Alastair, director
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