BBC HD

Survivors: Nature's Indestructible Creatures

Richard Fortey

Shaun Trevisick

Survivors: Nature's Indestructible Creatures: Episode 1: The Great Dying

Documentaries

Factual: Science & Nature: Nature & Environment

The Great Dying

Episode 1

Episode 1: The Great Dying

BBC Four - Survivors: Nature's Indestructible Creatures, The Great Dying

Richard Fortey focuses on a series of cataclysms over a million-year period.

Richard Fortey travels to find the survivors of mass extinction events. He focuses on a series of cataclysms over a million-year period 250 million years ago.

It is estimated that 99 per cent of species have become extinct, and there have been times when life's hold on earth has been so precarious it has seemed to hang on by a thread. 

This series focuses on the survivors, the old-timers whose biographies stretch back millions of years, and who show how it is possible to survive a mass extinction event which wipes out nearly all of their neighbours. The Natural History Museum's Professor Richard Fortey discovers what allows the very few to carry on going - perhaps not forever, but certainly far beyond the life expectancy of normal species. What makes a survivor when all around drop like flies? 

In the opening episode, Professor Fortey focuses on 'the great dying' - a series of cataclysms over a million-year period 250 million years ago.

BBC Four

Knowledge, arts, music and culture from the UK and the world.

BBC Four reflects arts, music and culture with an ambitious range of intellectually and culturally enriching programmes, taking an expert and in-depth approach to its subjects.

Richard Fortey travels across the globe to find the survivors of mass extinction events

Professor Richard Fortey travels across the globe to find the survivors of mass extinction events

Accessibility links

Programme Index

Survivors: Nature's Indestructible Creatures

Episode 1: The Great Dying

Contributors

Genres

Formats

Series

BBC HD