Life on Earth
British naturalist David Attenborough examines the diversity and origins of "life on earth." As is usual with David Attenborough's work, the camera work is outstanding and employed techniques which were ground-breaking in their day. Also, as is his custom, Mr. Attenborough filmed this series in locales all across the world.
- 1979-1979
- 1 season
- PBS
- Documentary
British naturalist David Attenborough examines the diversity and origins of "life on earth." As is usual with David Attenborough's work, the camera work is outstanding and employed techniques which were ground-breaking in their day. Also, as is his custom, Mr. Attenborough filmed this series in locales all across the world.
Season 1 Episode Guide
13 Episodes 1979
Episode 1
The Infinite Variety
Tue, Jan 12, 1982 55 mins
Background to the origins of life on Earth and with the evidence of fossils, how some of today's living creatures can trace their ancestry back through the eons to those earliest of times.
Episode 2
Building Bodies
Tue, Jan 19, 1982 55 mins
The continuing story of the evolution of life on earth explores the earliest sea living invertebrates.
Episode 3
The First Forests
Tue, Jan 26, 1982 55 mins
Featured animals: Millipede, scorpion, jumping spider, wolf spider, silverfish, dragonfly, damsel fly, lacewing, caddisfly, bee, bugs, beetles, chafer, hover fly, crane fly, housefly. Featured plants: liverworts, mosses, club moss, horsetail, tree fern, cycad, conifer, sequoia.
Episode 4
The Swarming Hordes
Tue, Feb 2, 1982 55 mins
Featured animals: locust, ichneumon wasp, mantis, caterpillars, common crow butterfly, orchard butterfly, bird wing butterfly, atlas moth, termites, sweat bee, honey bee, green tree ants, parasol ants, army ants Featured plants: magnolia, hazel, oak, meadow cranes bill, daisy, stapelia, amorphophallus, wild arum (cuckoo pint), salvia, flying duck orchid, yucca, acacia.
Episode 5
The Conquest of the Waters
Tue, Feb 9, 1982 55 mins
Featured animals: sea squirt, lance let, lamprey, hag fish, hammerhead shark, wobbegong, saw fish, manta ray, basking shark, paddle fish, sturgeon, trout, pike, coral reef fish, barracuda, flying fish, stone fish, angler fish, bearded ghoul, gurnard, deep water fish, electric eel, tilapia, ice fish, salmon, catfish
Episode 6
Invasion of the Land
Tue, Feb 16, 1982 55 mins
Featured animals: mud skipper, coelacanth, lungfish, giant salamander, newt, axolotl, caecilians, Goliath frog, flying frog, holy cross toad, European toad, fire-bellied toad, whistling frog, midwife toad, Surinam toad(pipa), Darwin's frog, water-holding frog
Episode 7
Victors of the Dry Land
Tue, Feb 23, 1982 55 mins
Featured animals: marine iguana, thorny devil, shingle back, bearded dragon, frilled lizard, horned iguana, Madagascan gecko, chameleon, ear-less dragon, giant tortoise, anolis lizard, green iguana, crocodile, monitor lizard, blue-tongued skink, scaly foot, amphisbaenid, boa, puff adder, sidewinder, garter snake, rattlesnake Fossils: dinosaurs
Episode 8
Lords of the Air
Tue, Mar 2, 1982 55 mins
Featured animals: White stork, hoatzin, duck, peacock, jay, penguin, swift, skimmer, sapphire wing (hummingbird), sword-billed(hummingbird), nightingale, black cap, grasshopper warbler, willow warbler, Cory bustard, great bustard, birds of paradise, giant coot, oropendola, oven bird, long-tailed tit, sparrow, Arctic tern, eider duck, ostrich Fossil: archaeopteryx
Episode 9
The Rise of the Mammals
Tue, Mar 9, 1982 55 mins
Featured animals: platypus, echidna, woolly opossum, yapok, mouse opossum, rat opossum, quoll, Tasmanian devil, thylacine(extinct), numbat, sugar glider, koala, wombat, bandicoot, honey possum, potoroo, wallaby, pademelon, tree kangaroo, red kangaroo, solenodon, rabbit, wildebeest, harp seal Featured plant: Southern beech tree Fossils: pelycosaur, giant marsupial
Episode 10
Theme and Variations
Tue, Mar 16, 1982 55 mins
Featured animals: Tupaia, desman, star-nosed mole, aardvark, giant anteater, pangolin, silky-furred anteater, tamandua, horseshoe bat, pipistrelle bat, lacewing, tiger moth, pallid bat, false vampire bat, vampire bat, whispering bat, fruit bat(flying fox), fishing bat, humpback whale, orca, narwhal, dolphin Fossil: shrew like mammal
Episode 11
The Hunters and Hunted
Tue, Mar 23, 1982 55 mins
Featured animals: 3 toed sloth, dormouse, hamster, wood mouse, rabbit, buffalo, serval, lion, mole rat, prairie dog, giant ground sloth(extinct), capybara, viscacha, Mara, horse, zebra, rhinoceros, elephant, dik-dik, Impala, wildebeest, cheetah, hyena Featured plant: grass
Episode 12
Life in the Trees
Tue, Mar 30, 1982 55 mins
Continues the mammal theme, by focusing on primates. Beginning with the lemurs of Madagascar, then describing the differences between old world and new world monkeys and concluding with a study of gorillas and chimpanzees.
Episode 13
The Compulsive Communicators
Tue, Apr 6, 1982 55 mins
Tracing the evolution of the human species from African ape to the prodigious colonization of the entire earth and the impact upon the planet both now and in the future.