Life On Earth: A Natural History

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However, in showing the different types of species that have evolved, the book also takes us on a journey through time, showing us animals that have barely needed to evolve at all as well as ones that are highly specialized. We thus see the differences that have proven successful throughout evolution (explaining natural selection and other processes) depending on where in the world you are (Australia's maruspials being the most well-known example). This also goes for plants (which many never even think about) - be it trees, shrubs, lichen, moss or flowers. This quality of natural beauty is why I find it so rewarding. The pleasure is almost spiritual. You can experience beauty without thinking about your ego or anybody else’s. There is no moral to be learned, no theme to unravel, no joke to get, no political message. But the downside is that I don’t know how to react, how to express my appreciation. I can, for example, write a review of a book or a documentary. But this would be absurd to do with a tree or an animal. The best most of us can do is to mutter "How lovely!" under our breaths and then lapse into a respectful silence. Building Bodies" looks at the first animals to appear in the ocean. These can be divided into three groups: the shelled animals, animals with radial symmetry and those with segmented bodies but all came from a common ancestor. One of the descendants of that common ancestor developed a shell and became the molluscs which branched out into snails, bivalves, swimming nautilus, cuttlefish and the octopus. Another is the crinoids, which developed a radially symmetrical body around the centre. Some developed a five fold symmetry, leading to the starfishes and other echinoderms. The third started with a segmented body, leading to the worms and other creatures with an external shell like the famous trilobites, other creatures as revealed in the Burgess shale as well as the crabs, lobsters and shrimps. Though some parts of the book felt less interesting than others, and that most of the general history phrases and terms from the book were things we already knew or learned in middle school biology, I still really really enjoyed listening to this book. The flow was nice and extensive enough without being too surface-level or boring. Attenborough's narration and writing style is very factual but also gives a sense of intrigue.

David Attenborough’s unforgettable meeting with gorillas became an iconic moment for millions of television viewers. Life on Earth, the series and accompanying book, fundamentally changed the way we view and interact with the natural world setting a new benchmark of quality, influencing a generation of nature lovers.But Attenborough needed some way to organize the material, and this one did just fine. In any case, science isn't the focus of these programs. Attenborough does not, for example, give us a good explanation of the mechanism of evolution. He gives us the Attenborough trademark: beautiful images of animals and plants, along with thoughtful narration in his sonorous voice. There is much more detail in the book than on our screens. For odd, historical reasons, the BBC keeps natural history and science in separate silos, as if displaying the scientific fact of evolution can only be represented in the glory of nature. But make no mistake, this is a science book. An updated version of the book originally released with the documentary series, "Life on Earth", the book gives a splendid overview of the various multicellular lifeforms we know about. Each chapter covers a specific living kingdom (animal or plant) but has been updated with the latest scientific information about them.

Attenborough recounts the history of the natural world, „from the emergence of tiny one-celled organisms in the primeval slime more than 3,000 million years ago to apelike but upright man, equally well adapted to life in the rain forest of New Guinea and the glass canyons of a modern metropolis.“ And how fantastic are these images! We see slow-motion shots of bees flapping their wings; we see colorful bacteria floating around in fluid. We see birds of paradise doing their mating dance, and brightly-colored fish darting through the great barrier reef. We swim with dolphins and fly with bats, we spy on moles crawling through tunnels and watch tadpoles developing into frogs. The sounds are no less impressive than the sights. In addition to the calls of birds, the croaks of frogs, the songs of whales, and the howls of monkeys, is the orchestral accompaniment. I don’t know how they make music for these things, but the music in this documentary was always excellent. It matches the mood of the footage and is timed to dance along with the images. The Infinite Variety" gives an overview of the huge variety of life on Earth. After a brief introduction to Evolution by Natural Selection, the reader is then shown the geologic time scale of the Earth compressed into a year, and where along it the various forms of life (from single celled organisms to humans) arose. A look at the possible earliest forms of life is then shown, followed by the evolution of single-celled organisms and the rise of the earliest multi-celled organisms like the sponges, jellyfish and corals. Palaeontology, geology and DNA studies are used to show how much we know (and don't know) about such early forms of life. Not what I expected—which happens when you forgo reading the blurb. Not sure what I was thinking. But I didn‘t get this audiobook for the story, I got it to listen to him. David Attenborough can tell me anything and I would listen. The man is an international treasure. I love him, probably like many other people growing up on his TV documentaries about nature. In retrospect I would probably have enjoyed this more with moving pictures on a TV screen though. As in: a re-watch of his „Life“ series!Life on Earth was his first program. Nowadays, David Attenborough is such a household name, and his influence on nature documentaries is so widespread, that it made the experience of seeing the young Attenborough a bit jarring. He looks spry, even sprightly. He snorkels, scuba dives, crawls through a cave, holds animals in his own hands, and tries to cut an antelope carcass with a stone tool. He’s slowed down a lot since then. But in all other respects he was and remains the same. Naturally, you have a better chance of getting a complete impression when watching countless DVDs with hundreds of hours of footage than when reading a book with a few photographs in it. Nevertheless, this book manages to vividly convey the astonishingly colourful displays of amphibians and birds, the raw strength of hunting mammals (especially big cats), the breathtaking grace of whales and sharks and other sea creatures, as well as the quirkiness of insects and the silent beauty of plants (even if they don't bloom).