January 14 saw the National Geographic premiere of this fascinating documentary, first broadcast on Channel 4 in December but this time shown in HD, so you can witness things never visualised on TV in a quality like never before.
The programme looks the conception, gestation and growth of a labrador, a dolphin and an Asian elephant. Epic in scope but often microscopic in detail, the documentary is packed with visual and factual information. At times it feels like an extended biology lecture, but it’s a gripping one all the same...
The show probably does well to begin with dogs. Despite their domestic familiarity, there is still much to know, especially with their evolutionary origins in the grey wolf. In the Womb explains how dogs’ pack-hunting ancestors go through simultaneous phantom pregnancies so that when a dominant female gives birth for real, the others step in to nurse pups while the mother hunts for food. It ends the segment with plenty of shots of cute puppies and, as if to make us go “aaah” even more, it moves briefly onto bunnies and hares.
The in-womb shots are achieved through a combination of actual camera footage, rare 4-D ultrasound (3-D ultrasound in real time) and computer animation. It plays a little fast and loose with the CGI, never acknowledging when a shot is real or recreated, but it’s quite east to tell and stunning to look at.
The dolphin segment is rich in facts – for example how they never really sleep, why their fins have bones and how their kidneys retain as much water as possible as they cannot drink the salty sea water they live in. It also showed how they ‘fold up’ when near birth, before being born in the sea swimming from the moment they emerge.
There is equally impressive information about the elephant as it goes through its extraordinary 22-month gestation before arriving as a 120kg newborn. Did you know that, in total contrast to this mighty beast, all mammals had a common ancestry in a small shrew-like creature?
Providing you’re not too queasy about the subject matter, this enlightening programme is well worth seeking out when it’s shown again (the next HD showing is Saturday 20 January at 5pm). It’s followed on Sunday 21 with a look at human multiple pregnancies.
Related story: some of National Geographic's other recent HD programmes include, Kalahari: Flooded Desert and Eye of the Leopard.
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