Broadcaster, academic, naturalist, legend: David Attenborough has been captivating audiences with intriguing tales of exotic animals since 1952. But how much do you really know about the man – the myth – known as Sir David Attenborough? To celebrate the planet’s most intrepid OAP, we look at some of the lesser known facts about the veteran environmentalist…
- By 2013, Attenborough had collected 32 honorary degrees, more than anyone else in history. He also has 26 post-nominal letters, with his full academic title being Sire David Frederick Attenborough OM CH CVO CBE FRS FRSB FLS FZS FSA.
- He is the only person to have won BAFTAs for programmes in each of black and white, colour, HD, and 3D.
- He is thought to be one of the most travelled human beings in history, having been covering the globe’s entirety since 1979. For 1998’s Life of Birds alone, he travelled 256,000 miles by air – and he’s also visited every single continent, culminating in a journey to the North Pole aged 83.
- He has at least 15 plants and animal species named after him, including a lizard, a fish, a beetle, a shrimp, a locust, a spider, a butterfly, a tree, a carnivorous pitcher plant and a type of daisy.
- He will be returning to our screens as the narrator for Blue Planet II – the hotly anticipated sequel to the 2001 oceangoing odyssey that is hoping to break even more boundaries when it comes to filming some of the sea’s most weird and wonderful creatures.
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