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A STUDYGUIDE by Andrew Fildes

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A STUDYGUIDE by Andrew Fildes A STUDYGUIDE BY ANDREW FILDES 2 www.metromagazine.com.au www.theeducationshop.com.au Overview Planet Earth is a BBC production with five episodes in the first series, and a second series to follow in 2007. Each episode examines a range of environments, focussing on key species or relationships in each habitat, the challenges they face, the behaviours they exhibit and the adaptations that enable them to survive. Recent advances in photography are used to achieve some spectacular ‘first sights’ – in particular, stabilized aerial photography gives us remarkable views of migrating animals and the techniques used by their predators to hunt them. The series is suitable for middle secondary students studying Science and SOSE/HSIE, and for senior secondary students of Biology, Environmental Science and Geography. SCREEN EDUCATION 2 Episode Two: Mountains goats leap across the faces of the Panda Adaptation peaks pursued by the magnificent Resources In the second episode we travel snow leopard, its family life filmed for across the high peaks of the Earth’s the first time in the wild. Other preda- Teacher Links mountain ranges to see the animals tors such as wolves and huge eagles and habitats that survive at high alti- make life precarious for these goats. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/ tude. Some of the rarest animals are query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db= found here and their lifestyle is filmed At the far end of the same ranges, PubMed&list_uids=6279804& in detail, often for the first time. The in China, the giant panda feeds, and dopt=Abstract processes that form, shape and erode feeds, in the struggle to get enough the ranges are examined in detail, in nutrition from its poor diet – huge Student Links particular the great glaciers. quantities of bamboo. In another first, we see film of a wild panda nursing http://www.athro.com/evo/pthumb. This time the journey begins in Africa her single cub deep in her mountain html at its lowest point – the Danakil de- den. Finally we fly with the cranes as http://giant-panda.com/pandalink. pression in the Rift Valley of Ethiopia they attempt not to settle in the moun- html where the earth has split, volcanoes tains but to cross the high Himalayas http://nationalzoo.si.edu/Animals/ have formed and chemicals bubble in their annual migration south. This GiantPandas/PandaFacts/default. to the surface as new land is made, time we experience an aerial hunt as cfm creating lakes of sulphuric acid. This eagles select, stalk and take their prey http://library.thinkquest.org/27396/ same volcanic action forced up a in the clear, cold mountain air and feedhab.htm massive dome mountain formation, watch as the survivors clear the final the Ethiopian highlands. This is the peak to begin the long glide down. Species List homeland of the gelada baboons who have adapted to the high country by Episode 2: Mountains Time Log • Gelada Baboon – Theropithecus becoming grazers on the high grass- gelada land, roaming in herds by day and Intro and Climbers 00:00 - 01:00 • Walia Ibex – Capra walie sleeping on the cliff faces by night. • Ethiopian Wolf – Canis simensis Danakil Depression 01:00 - 02:25 • Guanaco – Lama guanicoe Across the Atlantic are the Andes of Ethiopian Highlands 02:25 - 03:15 • Puma – Puma concolor South America, formed as the Pacific • Grizzly Bear – Ursus arctos Gelada Baboons 03:15 - 08:00 Plate slides beneath the continent • Moths – Chorizagrotis auxiliaris and forces it upwards. In the south, Andes and Patagonia 08:00 - 09:15 • Markhor – Capra falconeri the Patagonian highlands experience • Snow Leopard – Uncia uncia Guanaco and Puma 09:15 - 13:15 extremes of weather, even in summer • Golden Eagle – Aquila chrysaetos as a female puma with her grown cubs Rockies and Avalanche 13:15 - 14:50 • Wolf – Canis lupus stalks guanacos, a type of llama. In • Giant Panda – Ailuropoda melano- North America a similar drama takes Grizzly Bear with Cubs 14:50 - 20:20 leuca place in the Rockies when a female European Alps and Glaciers 20:20 - 23:25 • Snub-nosed Monkey – Rhinopithe- grizzly bear emerges with her two cus roxellana cubs. They must feed quickly but they Himalayas and Karakhoram 23:25 - 25:15 • Himalayan Monal – Lophophorus climb and seek out an unusual source Markhor and Snow Leopard 25:15 - 32:45 impeyanus of food, the large, fat moths that hide • Tragopan – Tragopan melano- among the loose rocks of the slopes. Himalayas and Monsoon 32:45 - 34:30 cephalus Pandas and Chinese Forests 34:30 - 40:40 • Blood Pheasant – Ithaginis creun- SCREEN EDUCATION In Europe, the high Alps are bare of life tus and snow, they are carved into jagged Crane Migration 40:40 - 44:00 • Musk Deer – Moschus moschiferus shapes by glaciers that gouge out Red Panda – Ailurus fulgens Eagle Hunt 44:00 - 46:05 • huge valleys. But the biggest glaciers • Demoiselle Crane – Anthropoides are in the Himalayas, the highest and Cranes over the Peaks 46:05 - 47:00 virgo largest mountain range on Earth. Wild (TIMINGS ARE APPROXIMatE) 3 1 Blackline Master | Planet Earth | Episode 2: Mountains Viewing Questions SCREEN EDUCATION 4 1a 1. What is in the pools of the Danakil depression thermal 5. What is the baboon’s main predator? zone? 2. Why are there so many volcanoes in this area? 6. Where do the guanaco live, which mountains? 3. What do gelada baboons eat? 7. What is their main predator? 4. How big are the baboon groups up there? SCREEN EDUCATION 8. How long has the female grizzly bear been hibernating? 5 1b 12. What type of animal is a markhor? 9. What food do the bears find among the rocks high on the slopes? 13. What rare animal is hunting it? 10. How high are the European Alps? 11. Where is the biggest glacier in the world? 14. What other predators threaten young markhor? SCREEN EDUCATION 6 1c 15. Why can’t the panda hibernate? 18. What mountains do the cranes migrate across? 16. What do pandas eat? 19. Where are they going? 17. What other kind of panda is there? 20. What hunts them as they cross the ranges? SCREEN EDUCATION 7 2 Case Study | Planet Earth | Episode 2: Mountains Adaptations SCREEN EDUCATION 8 2a The Panda’s Adaptations vegetables – no grass and leaves. Most famous of all is the panda’s But the panda is a highly specialized ‘thumb’. This is sometimes used as Two of the animals in ‘Mountains’, animal that has adapted to live on a a proof of evolutionary theory. It is the second episode of Planet Earth, diet of bamboo alone and bamboo impossible for a normal bear to grip have adopted a vegetarian diet and itself is a giant grass. It contains very the thin stems of bamboo as it has have made significant changes to little nutrition that the bear can use no thumb but the panda has devel- their behaviour in order to sur- – in fact its digestion is one third oped a false thumb, a bony protru- vive. Animals that live on grass as efficient as a cow. It can extract sion and pad on its fore paws, in the and leaves, like sheep and cattle, only twenty per cent of the available thumb position. This enables it to get have evolved complex systems of energy in the bamboo. Because of a firm grip when feeding by clamp- stomachs with special bacteria to this, it has experienced a number of ing the bamboo between its ‘fingers’ help break down the cellulose into physical and behavioural changes and the false thumb. It is argued that digestible carbohydrates. Other to make this lifestyle possible. Note those pandas in the past who had mammals, like ourselves can derive the difference between the panda some elongation at this point on the almost no food energy from green mother and the grizzly bear mother wrist could survive slightly better and material. That is why many success- earlier in the episode – the grizzly passed on the trait to their young. ful slimming diets rely on so-called has two cubs and can go without Constant natural selection for this ‘rabbit food’! food for six months while raising positive feature produced a modern them while the panda has just one animal with a very long bony wrist Baboons in the lowlands of Africa and cannot stop feeding for more protrusion that was useable. live in small tribes and survive by than a few days. As a consequence, working as a group to find food the panda cub is much less likely to Why would it take up eating bamboo and defend themselves. They are survive infancy. in the first place? Because bamboo omnivorous, like humans. But the is widespread, there are very few highland baboons at the start of this In fact, the panda’s diet has been prey animals living in the bamboo episode are now grazers. They live described as ‘suicidal’ because: forest and because few other ani- in large ‘herds’ like other grazers as mals eat it. This one animal adapted this gives them protection during • It can only live in areas with large into a bamboo grazer because the the day from the wolves. It is as if a forests of two or three bamboo food resource was available and group of humans decided to live on species. there was little competition – and lettuce and celery … and nothing • It has to eat a huge amount of a bear is appropriate because it is else. This is a very unusual adapta- vegetation every day – twelve big and strong enough to tear down tion because most animals have to fifteen per cent of its body the tough plant stems.
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