![]() With encounters with predators and man a constant danger, life for a young moose is a daily battle for survival. You’ll also learn how dogs’ finely tuned senses are serving humans and saving lives.įollow two moose families as they negotiate the perils of wild and suburban Alaska. In Part Two, “Dogs by Design,” you’ll discover how these hard-wired behaviors help different types of dogs, from hounds to herders, excel at different tasks (and why it can sometimes be so difficult to train them to do otherwise). By tinkering with its genetics, humans made the dog the most varied animal species on the planet - and also created a host of hereditary health problems.ĭespite the plethora of new shapes and sizes, dogs have retained the instincts bred into their ancestors by thousands of years of work: the urge to herd or hunt, to dig and to guard. Most of these breeds exploded onto the scene over the past 150 years, spurred by the Victorian-era passion for the “dog fancy” - the selective breeding of dogs to enhance particular characteristics. Over 400 breeds of dog are recognized around the world, each unique for its personality, habits, and form. You’ll also discover 14 dog breeds that controversial genetic studies show are the most ancient - and the best living representatives of the ancestors to all living dogs. The genetic analysis of Peter Savolainen of the Royal Institute of Technology in Sweden has placed the origins of domesticated dogs - and those of the first dog - in East Asia. ![]() ![]() In Part One, “The Rise of the Dog,” you’ll learn about how the domestication of dogs might have taken place, including the theory of biologist Raymond Coppinger that it was the animals themselves - and human trash - that inspired the transformation. And yet, according to genetics, all dogs evolved from the savage and wild wolf - in a transformation that occurred just 15,000 years ago. NATURE’s two-part special Dogs That Changed the World tells the epic story of the wolf’s evolution, how “man’s best friend” changed human society and how we in turn have radically transformed dogs.įrom the tiniest Chihuahua to the powerful and massive English Mastiff, modern domesticated dogs come in a bewildering array of shapes and sizes, with an equally diverse range of temperaments and behaviors. Nature of Australia: a Portrait of the Island Continent: the Sunburnt Country ![]() The nursery for nearly all life in Australia is the rainforest, of which only a few patches remain today - th last remnants of vast, dense forests that covered Australia when it first broke away from the ancestral super-continent of Gondwana, and voyaged north into isolation.įrom among its proliferation of plants emerged the eucalypts, the characteristic gum trees - and from among the forest animals arose a great and varied company of marsupials, adapting to every kind of environment that evolved in response to Australia's changing, drying climate. The program tells the story of how the island continent's wooded margins came to be dominated by one unique type of tree growing in a great variety of forms - the eucalypt. How that odd partnership evolved is one of the strands woven into this episode of Nature Of Australia. A koala up a gumtree is the classic image of the Australian bush. ![]()
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