Watch Your Inner Animal

Back in 2008 I read paleontologist Neil Shubin's book, Your Inner Fish. (Dave at Times and Seasons invited me to do a joint review of it.) Now PBS and Neil Shubin have teamed up to make a three-part documentary. It began airing in April and is now available online in its entirety.

The three parts are Your Inner--Fish, Reptile, and Primate. It is extremely well done, and Neil Shubin conveys an infectious enthusiasm. You really should watch the whole thing. But if you only watch one, then I think the Primate episode is the best.

For me, the most important issue raised by the series is the proper pronunciation of 'opossum.' All my life I have understood the 'o' to be silent, but now I see two experts in the video saying "uh-possum." On the other hand, according to the National Park Service, the 'o' is silent. Is this a regional thing, or what?

By the way, several years ago I put together a series of posts that I titled, What Separates Humans from the Animals? I was interested to see that a couple of the examples used in the documentary are covered in my series.

I don't want to hear any excuses about how you couldn't find the documentary, so here it is again: Your Inner Fish.

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