Meeting the giants of planet Earth
Biologist Patrick Aryee travels the world to track down the largest of them all.
Big Beasts: Last of the Giants TV Sky 1 Three parts starting 13 June
It’s usually Earth’s biggest and most charismatic creatures that capture our imaginations. In his fourth natural-history outing for Sky, biologist Patrick Aryee presents a whistle-stop tour of the giants of the natural world – and what their super size means for survival.
“I wanted to investigate why humans are so taken aback by large animals, and what makes us so in awe of them,” says Patrick. “This series is a celebration of our biggest species, looking at how they have adapted to their habitats, how they fit into the environment and what the future holds for them.”
Jumping from the Americas to Africa to Australasia, the list of the large is accompanied by back-to-basics accounts of how size affects behavioural biology: great whites, for instance, are able to hunt energy-rich seals in the chilly waters off South Africa because their bulky bodies conserve more heat; giant pandas have evolved huge heads (and thus appropriately huge bodies) to accommodate the jawbone required to deliver a bamboo-crunching bite. Along the way, we learn not only of the big beasts from history that no longer walk, slither or swim among us (such as the excitingly named Titanoboa, a relative of the green anaconda; and Megalodon, a shark three times larger than a great white), but also some nice new science. DNA research, for example, is revealing that male Angolan giraffes travel up to 1,000km a year in search of food and females, which is why they are faring comparatively well in Namibia’s vast open deserts; sperm whales play an important role in mitigating climate change because their nitrogen-rich faeces nourishes plant plankton at the ocean surface, which in turn locks in carbon dioxide as it photosynthesises.
“Large animals take a long time to grow and reproduce, and have evolved to thrive in large spaces,” says Patrick. “They occupy their niche wonderfully, but if conditions change quickly or become compromised – from ocean plastic to climate change – they are first to go. We are living through a period of unrivalled change, and we want to remind viewers that we must preserve ecosystems. I hope this series allows people not only to marvel at our planet, but also to understand it a little more.” Sarah McPherson
IF CONDITIONS CHANGE OR BECOME COMPROMISED, LARGE ANIMALS ARE FIRST TO GO.”