Tuesday 13 December 2011

Naughty Attenborough?

There seems to be an unholy fuss about the Polar bear cub sequence in 'Frozen Planet' being filmed in a Dutch zoo (http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/dec/12/frozen-planet-polar-bear-bbc?newsfeed=true). I must admit to being less than surprised about this section of the programme. Many 'natural history' films involve quite a lot of artifice - how did that convenient prey insect just land there as the cameras roll? I have argued that one could, by selection of footage, make even an erroneous tale seem convincing. The BBC did detail the origins of the cub shots in a brief item on their web (more than you get in many instances) and I don't think the actual sequence misinforms about what usually happens. Perhaps Sir David's crime is to irritate sections of the media with his observations on climate change?

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What's In a Critter's Name? 11. Comma butterfly

The Comma butterfly ( Polygonia c-album) gets its name from the punctuation-like mark, on the underside of its wings.