Happy 100th Birthday Sir David Attenborough!

Estimated read time: 2 minutes

Sir David Attenborough is 100 today! David Attenborough has devoted his life to educating the world about wildlife, using the power of storytelling and discovery to inspire generations to value, protect, and preserve the natural world for the future. His work appears in our Year 6 unit: Looking After the Environment.

Our very own Mike Linley has previously been Sir David Attenborough's scientific advisor! He sent us this to celebrate his very special birthday... 

“I first met David while planning “Life on Earth” in 1978. I was a researcher at the University of Bristol, just up the road from the BBC Natural History Unit. The producer had heard I bred unusual frogs and asked if I would help in the filming of episode 6, “Invasion of the Land”. Over the next 2 years, I facilitated the filming of several frog species and their unusual breeding habits. This included Darwin’s frogs from Chile, in which the male protects the eggs and tadpoles in his vocal sac before spitting out babies a few months later. This had rarely been seen and never filmed. The BBC brought in several specimens for me from Chile and I installed them into an environmental tank I had built for them. Their habitat was cool birch forests around shallow streams and after a few months, I had males with developing tadpoles in their vocal sacs. After a few weeks, the tadpoles were active and you could see them wriggling under the male’s skin. I had to guess when they would emerge and took 2 of them down to Plymouth where the cameraman was able to get the remarkable shot you see in the film. David shared my passion for frogs and was absolutely fascinated by their varied breeding strategies. Apparently, he dubbed me “The Frog Whisperer”!”

Mike appears in many of our expert films in our Science units. Experience our lessons for yourself with a free Developing Experts trial. If you’re new to Developing Experts, you can explore all our content - including lessons in Science, History and Geography - with a free two-week trial. Simply visit www.developingexperts.com to sign up today - it’s quick, easy and free.