For two years a team of top scientists have been secretly studying a unique fossil. They believe it could be one of our earliest primate ancestors. David Attenborough, Uncovering Our Earliest Ancestor, BBC 2009
The search has concentrated in East Africa. Known as the Cradle of Mankind. Here in the 1970s they found the link between apes and man. It offered conclusive proof that we started walking upright 3.2 million years ago. A human ancestor, a female, Lucy. Then in 1984 the remains of a body was found. ibid.
The fossil was found here in a place known as the Messel Pit [Germany]. There is nowhere in the world like it. ibid.
All lower primates have such a grooming claw on the hind foot. ibid.
Eda’s skeleton is over 95% complete. ibid.
A hundred and fifty years ago Charles Darwin explained the incredible diversity of life in a new way ... New species appeared as they adapted to a new environment. At the time Darwin’s proposal was controversial. He argued that monkeys, apes and ourselves have a common ancestor – that ancestor we know must have lived hundreds of millions of years ago. ibid.
Darwin’s idea was revolutionary and he was ridiculed by many in Victorian society. ibid.
Lucy was the half-ape half-man species that Darwin predicted. But where was the link millions of years earlier between us and the rest of the animal kingdom? ibid.
There is a bone in Ida’s foot that links her with every person on the planet. It could be the evidence that the first small adaptations towards walking upright happened 47 million years ago. ibid.
David Attenborough has travelled the globe countless times to film the living world in all its wonder. In a career that spans the age of television itself he has pioneered new filming technologies, produced some of the most iconic moments in broadcasting and inspired a generation. Now in his eighties he is on the road again. Attenborough’s Journey, BBC 2010
Trilobites are principle characters in the story of the first life on Earth. They were one of the most successful kinds of animal in history. There are fifty thousand species that we know of. And probably many more undiscovered. They were the first animals to see a fully formed picture. Using lenses in their eyes made of rock. And in their heyday they dominated the globe for two hundred and fifty million years. Humans have been around for just two. ibid.
Using the latest technology it’s possible to bring those first animals to life in over half a billion years. David Attenborough’s First Life 1/2, BBC 2010
The history of life can be thought of as a many-branched tree with all species alive today related to common ancestors down near the base. The five kingdoms of life – the main branches – were established early on … That for me is the most fascinating question of all – how and when did they first appear? ibid.
Microscopic single cells – they first appeared about three and a half billion years ago when the Earth was a very different place. ibid.
Deep in the oceans life had begun. The latest theory is that chemicals spewing from underwater volcanic vents solidified and created towers like these, and this produced the conditions needed for the first cells to form. ibid.
Just before complex life appeared the world was in the grip of the biggest ice age in its entire history. ibid.
Snowball Earth ... It’s likely those conditions lasted for millions of years ... Life was nearly annihilated before it had barely begun. ibid.
We owe our existence to ice-dwelling extremophiles. ibid.
And it was this increase in oxygen that was the key to the rise of the animal kingdom. ibid.
The arrival of sexual reproduction speeded evolution. ibid.
There was about to be an explosion of life that would be the foundation for complex animals. ibid.
The group – the Arthropods – were the great pioneers. They were the first big predators. They had eyes, legs and hard external skeletons ... They were the first to crawl out of water to conquer the land and air. David Attenborough’s First Life 2/2
The Cambrian ... 542 million years ago. During the next ten to twenty million years animals increased in numbers, in diversity, in size, than ever before. ibid.
The Burgess Shales where a rich seem of fossils documents the Cambrian explosion in astonishing detail. ibid.
Moroccan’ trilobites are big business these days ... Trilobites were the first animals to see clearly. ibid.
Giant millipede – about four and a half feet long. ibid.
The golden age of the giant Arthropods was not to last. ibid.
Insects alone make up at least 80% of all animal species. ibid.
Life originated in the ocean. After an immense period of time some creatures managed to crawl up on to the land. Those animals may seem to us to be very remote, strange, even fantastic. But all of us alive today owe our very existence to them. ibid.
Darwin had explained how different species evolved but he also proposed that all life was inter-related having come from a common origin. Attenborough: 60 Years in the Wild II: Understanding the Natural World, BBC 2012
Almost 200 years ago whilst walking these very paths in the English countryside and observing the banks and meadows near his home, Charles Darwin developed his groundbreaking ideas about evolution, casting a new light on the natural world and opening out eyes to its true wonder. David Attenborough, Planet Earth s3e1: Coasts, BBC 2023
The natural world continues to surprise us. But since Darwin’s time it has changed beyond recognition, transformed by a powerful force – us. We will see how animals are adapting in extraordinary ways to survive these new challenges they face. ibid.
Life evolved in lockstep with Earth’s spinning motion. How the Universe Works s8e8, Science 2020