Of over a million species of animals on our planet one species has come to dominate all other life forms and to alter dramatically the face of the Earth. It’s a species that if we remove its protective layer of clothing reveals a rather strange anatomy, a species I once referred to as the naked ape.
Physically the human animal is a purely primate with vulnerable unprotected skin with no natural weapon – no armor, no sharp spines, no venom, no fangs or claws. Yet equipped with a little more than an enlarged brain this compulsively curious creature has come to dominate the natural world.
What is the secret of its lavish unprecedented success?
The Human Animal: A Personal View of the Human Species is a BBC nature documentary series written and presented by Desmond Morris, first transmitted in the UK from 27 July 1994. The series was produced in associaion with Discovery Channel.
from Wikipedia
Observed on equal terms with other animal species the human being turns into a curious and self-revealing story of our place in the animal world. Like it or not human species once lived similarly to its close cousins - the primates and survived only by the favour of nature, hard work and chance..
But eventually we started evolving and distinguished in one respect that drove us light years and on a new existential level compared to the other animal kingdom - we started using our complex brains
And then we starting evolving our beliefs, social and religious traditions, our whole civilization. Until we reached the point of ultimate domination and almost independent existence.
In this series Desmond Morris provides his personal view of the human species and luckily we can watch them on the internet:
The Human Animal - The Language of the Body (1994, Part One)
The Human Animal - The Hunting Ape (1994, Part Two)
The Human Animal - The Human Zoo (1994, Part Three)
The Human Animal - The Biology Of Love (1994, Part Four)
The Human Animal - The Immortal Genes (1994, Part Five)
The Human Animal - Beyond Survival (1994, Part Six)
