Charles Darwin and the Tree of Life

00:00:02 Our Earth is the only known planet that sustains life

00:03:00 explains how this wonderful diversity came about.

00:05:34 In one day, in a small area

00:07:42 which enabled it to reach up to higher vegetation.

00:10:33 Here he wrote an account of his travels

00:13:02 has a big, heavy beak which enables it to crack them.

00:15:56 so what might have started out as we would consider to be breeds

00:18:33 "yours affectionately, CR Darwin."

00:21:27 and dealt with the works of Jane Austen and Lord Byron

00:23:42 He knew perfectly well that the whole idea of evolution raised a lot of questions.

00:26:26 is of a particular age.

00:28:43 But occasionally, when you split them apart

00:31:07 The hoatzin nests in the swamps of tropical South America.

00:33:05 of missing links, it also posed a major problem.

00:35:39 In fact, it seems to have been something like the sea pens

00:38:09 the method of dating by measuring

00:40:36 "I will consider it, But until then, the idea is sheer moonshine, dear boy!"

00:42:57 But if a patch of such spots formed even the shallowest of pits

00:45:13 and observing how they changed from one generation to the next.

00:47:54 That insect-eating shrews have cousins that took to the air

00:50:10 So now the seas were filled with a great variety of animals.

00:52:49 a small, seemingly insignificant group of survivors began to increase in numbers on the ground beneath.

00:56:05 Richard Owen brought it into existence, but over a century later

01:09:05 laboratories, two young researchers