The Green Planet: Desert Worlds
11:00 pm - 12:00 am, Thursday, April 30 on U&Yesterday (27)
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About this Broadcast
Desert Worlds
Season 1, Episode 4
Plants that have developed to thrive in the desert, including cacti that grow in the shade of other trees and collect water in pleated trunks that expand and contract - but can also find themselves a host to other plants, like desert mistletoe. The programme also reveals how tobacco plants being eaten by caterpillars are able to summon the creatures' natural predators, and how tumbleweeds roll across the landscape, only unfurling and growing when they encounter rain
HD
16x9
audio-description
Education/Science/Factual Topics
Educational
Cast & Crew
David Attenborough
(Presenter)
Michael Gunton
(Executive producer)
Rupert Barrington
(Series producer)
Paul Williams
(Producer)
More Information
Did You Know..
David Attenborough
(Presenter)
Born:
May 08, 1926
in
London
Best Known For:
His more than 50 years of broadcasting.
Early-life:
Born David Frederick Attenborough on May 8, 1926, in London, son of an academic and principal of Leicester University College. He had two brothers - Johnny, who had a car dealership, and film director and actor Richard. During World War Two, his parents also adopted two German Jewish girls, who arrived in Britain as part of the Kindertransport. Attenborough went to Leicester's Wyggeston Grammar School for Boys before studying geology at Cambridge. He served two years in the Royal Navy.
Career:
Attenborough joined the BBC in 1952, making his reputation with the groundbreaking Zoo Quest series, which he hosted for 10 years. He became controller of BBC2 in 1965, overseeing the advent of colour TV, and in 1969 was made BBC director of programming. In 1973, he returned to presenting with the series Eastwards With Attenborough and The Tribal Eye. In 1979, he wrote and presented Life On Earth and its sequel The Living Planet in 1984. The following year, he was knighted. He has since made several more programmes, such as Life in the Freezer (about Antarctica; 1993), The Private Life of Plants (1995), The Life of Birds (1998), The Life of Mammals (2002), Life in the Undergrowth (2005) and Life in Cold Blood (2008), First Life (2010), Frozen Planet (2011) and Life Story (2014). He continues to narrate and present documentaries.
Quote:
'I'm not sure there's any need for a new Attenborough. The more you go on, the less you need people standing between you and the animal and the camera waving their arms about.'
Trivia:
In addition to his knighthood, Attenborough has also been awarded more than 30 honorary degrees and has several species and fossils named after him.
Michael Gunton
(Executive producer)
Rupert Barrington
(Series producer)
Paul Williams
(Producer)
