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THE LIVING WORLD
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MISSED A PROGRAMME?
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PROGRAMME INFO |
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The Living WorldÌýis a gentle weekend natural history programme, presented by Lionel Kelleway, which aims to broadcast the best, most intimate encounters with British wildlife.
nhuradio@bbc.co.uk |
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LISTEN AGAIN Ìý25min |
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PRESENTER |
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"The Living World is the next best thing to being there. Our contributors are skilled naturalists who are able to reveal those fascinating facts about animals and plants that you don't always find in books. It's like having a personal guided tour of the countryside, without needing to leave the house."
Lionel Kelleway
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PROGRAMME DETAILS |
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| Lionel working a centrifuge, supervised by Phil Gates |
MossesÌýand liverworts are not only some of the oldest and most fascinating plants on our planet, but they also provide refuge for some of the most bizarre creatures alive.Ìý Lionel KellewayÌýjoins botanist Phil Gates and his open air laboratory for a journey into the miniature world of Slitt Wood in Weardale.
Slitt Wood is a long, narrow, steep-sided SSSI wood (bird's nest orchid grows there) on either side of Middlehope Burn.Ìý Wet and damp, it’s an ideal habitat for mosses and liverworts.
Liverworts were the first plants to colonise the land and are as old as some of the rocks hereabouts, unequalled in terms of pure durability.Ìý They have survived five major mass extinction events, were trampled underfoot by dinosaurs and still thrive as they have always done, clinging to mud and bare rock. The thalloid liverworts are so called because they look like lobes of green liver and, according to the Medieval Doctrine of Signatures, this was a sign that they were put on earth for curing liver diseases.
Carpeting the stone walls of the wood are huge numbers of mosses: velvety coverings of cypress-leaves feather moss with spore capsules, golden woolly mats of Camptothecium sericeumÌýÌý and hemispherical cushions of Grimmia pulvinataÌý to name but a few.
Shrink down to the size of a moss, and you find yourself in a miniature rainforest.Ìý Phil Gates sets up an impromptu open–air lab to explore the creatures which inhabit this forest.Ìý Using a hand-cranked centrifuge, he and Lionel give the foliage mini-beasts the fairground ride of their lives, concentrating them into a small volume of water which they examine under a miniature field microscope.Ìý Peering though the eye-piece, they watch water bears (strange eight-legged, bear-like animals with claws and sharp teeth) clambering about the debris; rotifers, which with their wheel organs working, create the most amazing vortices dragging food into their gullet and dozens of nematode worms moving through the film of water. ÌýIt’s a fascinating microscopic world!
So if you thought mosses and liverworts were just boring green stuff with long, unpronounceable Latin names, prepare toÌýthink again!
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RELATED LINKS
91Èȱ¬ Science & Nature
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