| Description |
1 online resource (streaming video file) (59 min. 15 sec.) ; 358461592 bytes |
| Summary |
David Attenborough continues his journey to chart the rise of the animals that dominate our world today - the vertebrates. In this episode, he begins with a visit to the Lufeng Basin of Southern China, where local experts have discovered one of the earliest true mammals ever found, a 195-million-year-old creature with powerful senses called Hadrocodium. Current science tells us that this is the common ancestor to all mammals!In Australia, David encounters the highly unusual egg-laying platypus; one of the few survivors of a group of mammals that can take us back 200 million years. At that time all mammals laid their young in eggs, but also nourished them with unlimited supplies of a new substance - milk. In Northern China, David gets to study the earliest members yet found of two groups of mammals that abandoned egg-laying altogether and began to give birth to their young alive - the marsupials and the placentals.In Germany, excavations in an ancient volcanic lake bed are revealing an explosion in diversity amongst the mammals after the dinosaur extinctions of 65 million years ago. In the dramatic rock formations of the Badlands in South Dakota, USA, we see scientists uncovering the remains of mammals that grew into monsters - the Megafauna. David visits the Beijing Museum of Natural History to see the preserved skeleton of the largest of these, the giant Paraceratherium, 5 metres tall and over 8 metres long; it could look the largest dinosaurs in the eye!Finally, David traces the arrival of a super predator often blamed for the extinction of most of the Megafauna - Homo sapiens. Our greater intelligence allowed us to make weapons and hunt in teams. David visits a maternity ward in Kunming City, southern China, and cradles a 12-hour-old baby boy, Shao Bao, to explain how his skull is adapted to allow our supersized human brains to be born.PRODUCTION DETAILS:Written and presented by David Attenborough. Producer: Anthony Geffen. Director: David Lee |
| Event |
Broadcast 2014-02-16 at 19:30:00 |
| Notes |
Classification: G |
| Subject |
Animal behavior -- Evolution.
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Biological specimens -- Analysis.
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Fossils -- Experiments.
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Mammals -- Research.
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Vertebrates -- Research.
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England.
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| Form |
Streaming video
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| Author |
Lee, David, director
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Attenborough, David, host
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Hildebrandt, Thomas, contributor
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Kaessmann, Henrik, contributor
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Luo, Zhe-Xi, contributor
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Sertich, Joseph, contributor
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Tao, Wang, contributor
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