On March 28, the reporter learned that the latest documentary "Mammals" (Mammals), produced by Youku and created by the Natural History Department of BBC Studios, will be exclusively launched on Youku on March 31. Sir David Attenborough, known as the "Father of the World's Nature Documentary", will lead the audience to reveal how mammals conquer and thrive on the planet through their extraordinary body structure, amazing adaptability, extraordinary intelligence and unique social ways.
"Mammalian Planet" consists of 6 episodes, including: "Hidden Night", "New Habitat", "Mysterious Water", "Extremely Cold Land", "Extremely Hot Land", and "Wonderful Jungle", which explore hidden habitats under the unique lens language of the BBC, revealing the strategies and behaviors behind the successful reproduction of this extraordinary group.
Twenty years after Sir David Attenborough filmed Life of Mammals, less than 6% of the world's mammals are actually wild animals, and many are at risk of extinction. While rediscovering this particular group of animals, the film will also highlight the many challenges mammals face in a rapidly changing world and how they coexist with the most successful mammals of all, humans.
Since the extinction of the dinosaurs, the Earth has gone through more than 50 ice ages. Although many animals have been eliminated in the harsh environment, some mammals seem to embrace it and find their place in it. As warm-blooded animals, they have fur and fat, as well as their ability to produce milk, which allows them to raise their young at great speed in harsh environments. Each glacial age promotes their evolution, and helps them improve their physiology, change their behavior, and eventually learn to live with their harsh environment.
However, one of the most serious problems is that these animals, which have adapted to the cold climate, have to deal with a rapidly warming world. At the beginning of "Extremely Cold Land", the film crew filmed a very surprising scene: a polar bear is chasing and hunting reindeer. In winter, polar bears prefer to prey on faty, easy-to-digest seals as a way to help them store calories quickly, but due to a warming climate, the sea ice in the extreme cold is shrinking, and polar bears have to stay on land longer, and Svalbard reindeer are their only prey on land.
Hardy mammals, they can be seen even in the inaccessible heat of the desert. In the episode "Hot Place", in order to avoid the many predators who travel late at night to hunt after the temperature drops, the Hastelloy squirrel has to choose to come out to forage during the day when the surface temperature is as high as 80 degrees Celsius. In order to survive, the Hastelloy squirrel has evolved a physiological function called "heat transfer". When their body temperature becomes very high, they will quickly crawl to the shady ground below the cactus and stretch all their limbs outstretched, maximizing the area of contact with the ground. While this pose looks as comical as being run over by a car, it lowers its body temperature by one degree Celsius per minute. In this way, the Hastelloy squirrel cycles from rising to low body temperature every day, successfully breeding in the hot desert.
While mammals are found in every corner of the planet, the ever-changing environment due to human activities has forced some mammals to make changes and travel to incredible habitats to thrive. In the episode "New Settlement", wolves, who had been hunted down by the locals in large numbers, used their keen sense of smell to find an area that few humans could set foot in - the abandoned minefields of Israel and Syria after the war, in order to escape from humans. Led by local experts, the film crew risked their lives through the minefield and successfully captured the wolves living in the restricted area, which seemed to live a comfortable life, but the danger faced by the wolves chasing their prey at high speed during the hunt can be imagined.
66 million years ago, when dinosaurs' domination of the planet came to an end, mammals were able to freely explore every corner of the planet. With extraordinary body construction, amazing adaptability, unparalleled intelligence, and a unique way of socializing, mammals have conquered the planet and thrived. Among them, the most representative and most successful mammal is humans. According to chief producer Roger Weber, the biggest highlight of "Mammalian Planet" is the connection between mammals and humans, which gives the documentary a strong "sense of layer, responsibility and empathy". The film adopts a character-led narrative and incorporates strong emotions, not a textbook introduction to mammals, but a realistic representation of mammals' lives, emotions and struggles, awakening the emotional connection and awe of human beings with them.
Yangtze Evening News/Purple Cow News reporter Zhang Nan
Proofreading by Sheng Yuanyuan
(Source: Yangtze Evening News)
For more exciting information, please download the "Jimu News" client in the application market, please do not reprint without authorization, welcome to provide news clues, and pay the remuneration once adopted. 24-hour hotline: 027-867777777.