{"id":7583,"date":"2026-05-08T00:01:48","date_gmt":"2026-05-07T20:01:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.markbeech.com\/?p=7583"},"modified":"2026-05-11T10:33:07","modified_gmt":"2026-05-11T06:33:07","slug":"we-celebrate-sir-david-attenboroughs-100th-birthday-at-natural-history-museum-abu-dhabi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.markbeech.com\/index.php\/we-celebrate-sir-david-attenboroughs-100th-birthday-at-natural-history-museum-abu-dhabi\/","title":{"rendered":"We celebrate Sir David Attenborough’s 100th Birthday at Natural History Museum Abu Dhabi (8 May 2026)"},"content":{"rendered":"

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On Friday 8th May we celebrated Sir David Attenborough’s 100th Birthday at Natural History Museum Abu Dhabi. Sir David Attenborough was born on the 8th May 1926. A special film highlighting segments from four of his internationally known nature documentary programmes was shown in the Library of Nature inside the Our World\u00a0 gallery at the Natural History Museum Abu Dhabi. This included:\u00a0 “Introduction” (my boyhood journey from the Charnwood Forest), “The Worlds’ First Creatures”, “The magic of fungi”, “The missing link between dinosaurs and birds”, and “How reptiles adapted to survive”. The film was produced by Atlantic Studios in partnership with Natural History Museum Abu Dhabi.<\/p>\n

The film transcript was as follows:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Introduction:<\/strong>
\nA journey that began for me near my boyhood home of Charnwood Forest has taken me around the world and through 600 million years of evolutionary history.<\/p>\n

The world’s first creatures:<\/strong>
\nSingle-celled life dominated the planet for billions of years, till a global ice age triggered the emergence of the first animals. Many animal groups lasted millions of years, but eventually their time ran out and they disappeared.<\/p>\n

The magic of fungi:
\n<\/strong>As the leaves fall, a new world reveals itself from beneath the soil. Fungi. Fungi can’t photosynthesize, because, unlike plants, they have no chlorophyl. In fact, they are more closely related to animals and are made of chitin. The material insects use for their skeletons. They produce powerful chemicals that enable them to break down about 90% of all organic matter, including leaves and wood. In doing this, they release the nutrients into the soil that plants need to fuel their new growth in the spring.\u00a0 So fungi are essential links in the cycle of life.<\/p>\n

The missing link between dinosaurs and birds:
\n<\/strong>Could this strange looking dinosaur with feathers all over it actually fly?\u00a0 Some people think that those feathers on its hind legs would have made it rather difficult for it to walk around on the ground, and that it would have been more at home climbing. But those aerodynamically shaped feathers certainly suggest its arms were being used as wings.\u00a0 This four-wing dinosaur must have been a really extraordinary animal. Its front wings were broad enough to enable it to glide, and its muscles on the chest were sufficiently strong to enable it to flap. Every now and then, and help on its way. Now clearly these dinosaurs were on their way to join the pterosaurs in the sky.<\/p>\n

How reptiles adapted to survive:<\/strong>
\nIn their ancestral rainforest habitat, iguanas are vegetarians. Here, they browse on juicy leaves. But there, at first appeared in the Galapagos, could find no such things,. So these iguanas to survive had to eat the only kind of leaf that was available. Seaweed. And to get the best of that, they had to something even more radical. They had to swim.\u00a0 They even learned to dive.\u00a0 They acquired the ability to hold their breath for up to an hour, so that they could swim down toa\u00a0 depth of 20m.\u00a0 Their claws strengthened so they could cling to the rocks on the seabed. And under the water,\u00a0 they found an endless supply of seaweed, which grew in abundance in the nutrient rich currents that flow around the islands.<\/p>\n

For more information about Sir David Attenborough and his contribution to improving our understanding of the natural world of our planet, please visit the following links:<\/p>\n

David Attenborough – Wikipedia<\/a><\/p>\n

100 years of Sir David Attenborough – BBC (YouTube)<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On Friday 8th May we celebrated Sir David Attenborough’s 100th Birthday at Natural History Museum Abu Dhabi. Sir David Attenborough was born on the 8th May 1926. A special film highlighting segments from four of his internationally known nature documentary programmes was shown in the Library of Nature inside the Our World\u00a0 gallery at the … Continue reading We celebrate Sir David Attenborough’s 100th Birthday at Natural History Museum Abu Dhabi (8 May 2026)<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7583","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.markbeech.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7583","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.markbeech.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.markbeech.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.markbeech.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.markbeech.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7583"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/www.markbeech.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7583\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7601,"href":"https:\/\/www.markbeech.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7583\/revisions\/7601"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.markbeech.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7583"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.markbeech.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7583"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.markbeech.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7583"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}