Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Pirncess Dinaia

She had just what it took to be a royal princess - she was from a pedigreed bloodline and was fertile. Nothing else is required.
Diana was born into British nobility, and grew up close to the royal family on their Sandringham estate. In 1981, while working as a nursery teacher's assistant, she became engaged to Charles, the eldest son of Elizabeth II. Their wedding took place at St Paul's Cathedral in July 1981 and made her Princess of Wales, a role in which she was enthusiastically received by the public. The couple had two sons, William and Harry, who were then respectively second and third in the line of succession to the British throne. Diana's marriage to Charles suffered due to their incompatibility and extramarital affairs. They separated in 1992, soon after the breakdown of their relationship became public knowledge. Their marital difficulties were widely publicised, and the couple divorced in 1996.
These amphibians are often called "dart frogs" due to the aboriginal South Americans' use of their toxic secretions to poison the tips of blowdarts. However, out of over 170 species, only four have been documented as being used for this purpose (curare plants are more commonly used for aboriginal South American darts) all of which come from the genus Phyllobates, which is characterized by the relatively large size and high levels of toxicity of its members.[5][6]

Characteristics

Dyeing poison dart frog (Dendrobates tinctorius)
Most species of poison dart frogs are small, sometimes less than 1.5 cm (0.59 in) in adult length, although a few grow up to 6 cm (2.4 in) in length. They weigh 1 oz. on average.[7] Most poison dart frogs are brightly colored, displaying aposematic patterns to warn potential predators. Their bright coloration is associated with their toxicity and levels of alkaloids. For example, frogs of the genus Dendrobates have high levels of alkaloids, whereas Colostethus species are cryptically colored and are not toxic.[4]

Poison dart frogs are an example of an aposematic organism. Their bright coloration advertises unpalatability to potential predators. Aposematism is currently thought to have originated at least four times within the poison dart family according to phylogenetic trees, and dendrobatid frogs have since undergone dramatic divergences – both interspecific and intraspecific – in their aposematic coloration. This is surprising given the frequency-dependent nature of this type of defense mechanism.[3][8]

Adult frogs lay their eggs in moist places, including on leaves, in plants, among exposed roots, and elsewhere. Once the eggs hatch, the adult piggybacks the tadpoles, one at a time, to suitable water: either a pool, or the water gathered in the throat of bromeliads or other plants. The tadpoles remain there until they metamorphose, in some species fed by unfertilized eggs laid at regular intervals by the mother.[9]

Habitat
Poison dart frogs are endemic to humid, tropical environments of Central and South America.[5] These frogs are generally found in tropical rainforests, including in Bolivia, Costa Rica, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Venezuela, Suriname, French Guiana, Peru, Panama, Guyana, Nicaragua, and Hawaii (introduced).[5][10]

Natural habitats include moist, lowland forests (subtropical and tropical), high-altitude shrubland (subtropical and tropical), moist montanes and rivers (subtropical and tropical), freshwater marshes, intermittent freshwater marshes, lakes and swamps. Other species can be found in seasonally wet or flooded lowland grassland, arable land, pastureland, rural gardens, plantations, moist savanna and heavily degraded former forest. Premontane forests and rocky areas have also been known to hold frogs. Dendrobatids tend to live on or close to the ground, but also in trees as much as 10 m (33 ft) from the ground.[11]

Taxonomy
Dart frogs are the focus of major phylogenetic studies, and undergo taxonomic changes frequently.[1] The family Dendrobatidae currently contains 16 genera, with about 200 species.[12][13]

Genus name and authority Common name Species
Adelphobates (Grant, et al., 2006)
3
Andinobates (Twomey, Brown, Amézquita & Mejía-Vargas, 2011)
15
Ameerega (Bauer, 1986)
30
Colostethus (Cope, 1866) Rocket frogs
15
Dendrobates (Wagler, 1830) Poison dart frogs
5
Ectopoglossus (Grant, Rada, Anganoy-Criollo, Batista, Dias, Jeckel, Machado, and Rueda-Almonacid, 2017)
7
Epipedobates (Myers, 1987) Phantasmal poison frogs
8
Excidobates (Twomey and Brown, 2008)
3
Leucostethus Grant, Rada, Anganoy-Criollo, Batista, Dias, Jeckel, Machado, and Rueda-Almonacid, 2017
6
Hyloxalus (Jiménez de la Espada, 1870)
60
Minyobates (Myers, 1987)
1
Oophaga (Bauer, 1994)
12
Paruwrobates (Bauer, 1994)
3
Phyllobates (Duméril and Bibron, 1841) Golden poison frogs
5
Ranitomeya (Bauer, 1986) Thumbnail dart frogs
16
Silverstoneia (Grant, et al., 2006)
8
Color morphs
Some poison dart frogs species include a number of conspecific color morphs that emerged as recently as 6,000 years ago.[14] Therefore, species such as Dendrobates tinctorius, Oophaga pumilio, and Oophaga granulifera can include color pattern morphs that can be interbred (colors are under polygenic control, while the actual patterns are probably controlled by a single locus).[15] Differing coloration has historically misidentified single species as separate, and there is still controversy among taxonomists over classification.[16]

Variation in predation regimens may have influenced the evolution of polymorphism in Oophaga granulifera,[17] while sexual selection appears to have contributed to differentiation among the Bocas del Toro populations of Oophaga pumilio.[18][19][20]

Toxicity and medicine

The skin of the phantasmal poison frog contains epibatidine
The chemical defense mechanisms of the Dendrobates family are the result of exogenous means.[21] Essentially, this means that their ability to defend has come through the consumption of a particular diet - in this case, toxic arthropods - from which they absorb and reuse the consumed toxins.[21] The secretion of these chemicals is released by the granular glands of the frog.[21] The chemicals secreted by the Dendrobatid family of frogs are alkaloids that differ in chemical structure and toxicity.[21]

Many poison dart frogs secrete lipophilic alkaloid toxins such as allopumiliotoxin 267A, batrachotoxin, epibatidine, histrionicotoxin, and pumiliotoxin 251D through their skin. Alkaloids in the skin glands of poison dart frogs serve as a chemical defense against predation, and they are therefore able to be active alongside potential predators during the day. About 28 structural classes of alkaloids are known in poison dart frogs.[5][22] The most toxic of poison dart frog species is Phyllobates terribilis. It is believed that dart frogs do not synthesize their poisons, but sequester the chemicals from arthropod prey items, such as ants, centipedes and mites – the diet-toxicity hypothesis.[23][24] Because of this, captive-bred animals do not possess significant levels of toxins as they are reared on diets that do not contain the alkaloids sequestered by wild populations. Nonetheless, the captive-bred frogs retain the ability to accumulate alkaloids when they are once again provided an alkaloidal diet.[25] Despite the toxins used by some poison dart frogs, some predators have developed the ability to withstand them. One is the snake Erythrolamprus epinephalus, which has developed immunity to the poison.[26]

Chemicals extracted from the skin of Epipedobates tricolor may have medicinal value. Scientists use this poison to make a painkiller.[27] One such chemical is a painkiller 200 times as potent as morphine, called epibatidine; however, the therapeutic dose is very close to the fatal dose.[28] A derivative, ABT-594, developed by Abbott Laboratories, was named as Tebanicline and got as far as Phase II trials in humans,[29] but was dropped from further development due to dangerous gastrointestinal side effects.[30] Secretions from dendrobatids are also showing promise as muscle relaxants, heart stimulants and appetite suppressants.[31] The most poisonous of these frogs, the golden poison frog (Phyllobates terribilis), has enough toxin on average to kill ten to twenty men or about twenty thousand mice.[32] Most other dendrobatids, while colorful and toxic enough to discourage predation, pose far less risk to humans or other large animals.[citation needed]


Ranitomeya amazonica
Conspicuousness
Conspicuous coloration in these frogs is further associated with diet specialization, body mass, aerobic capacity, and chemical defense.[8] Conspicuousness and toxicity may be inversely related, as polymorphic poison dart frogs that are less conspicuous are more toxic than the brightest and most conspicuous species.[33] Energetic costs of producing toxins and bright color pigments lead to potential trade-offs between toxicity and bright coloration,[34] and prey with strong secondary defenses have less to gain from costly signaling. Therefore, prey populations that are more toxic are predicted to manifest less bright signals, opposing the classical view that increased conspicuousness always evolves with increased toxicity.[35]

Aposematism
Skin toxicity evolved alongside bright coloration,[36] perhaps preceding it.[3] Toxicity may have relied on a shift in diet to alkaloid-rich arthropods,[23] which likely occurred at least four times among the dendrobatids.[23] Either aposematism and aerobic capacity preceded greater resource gathering, making it easier for frogs to go out and gather the ants and mites required for diet specialization, contrary to classical aposematic theory, which assumes that toxicity from diet arises before signaling. Alternatively, diet specialization preceded higher aerobic capacity, and aposematism evolved to allow dendrobatids to gather resources without predation.[8] Prey mobility could also explain the initial development of aposematic signaling. If prey have characteristics that make them more exposed to predators, such as when some dendrobatids shifted from nocturnal to diurnal behavior, then they have more reason to develop aposematism.[3] After the switch, the frogs had greater ecological opportunities, causing dietary specialization to arise. Thus, aposematism is not merely a signaling system, but a way for organisms to gain greater access to resources and increase their reproductive success.[37]

Other factors
Dietary conservatism (long-term neophobia) in predators could facilitate the evolution of warning coloration, if predators avoid novel morphs for a long enough period of time.[38] Another possibility is genetic drift, the so-called gradual-change hypothesis, which could strengthen weak pre-existing aposematism.[39]

Sexual selection may have played a role in the diversification of skin color and pattern in poison frogs.[40][41][42][43] With female preferences in play, male coloration could evolve rapidly. Sexual selection is influenced by many things. The parental investment may shed some light on the evolution of coloration in relation to female choice. In Oophaga pumilio, the female provides care for the offspring for several weeks whereas the males provides care for a few days, implying a strong female preference. Sexual selection increases phenotypic variation drastically. In populations of O. pumilio that participated in sexual selection, the phenotypic polymorphism was evident.[44] The lack of sexual dimorphism in some dendrobatid populations however suggests that sexual selection is not a valid explanation.[45]

Functional trade-offs are seen in poison frog defense mechanisms relating to toxin resistance. Poison dart frogs containing epibatidine have undergone a 3 amino acid mutation on receptors of the body, allowing the frog to be resistant to its own poison. Epibatidine-producing frogs have evolved poison resistance of body receptors independently three times. This target-site insensitivity to the potent toxin epibatidine on nicotinic acetylcholine receptors provides a toxin resistance while reducing the affinity of acetylcholine binding.[46]

As Princess of Wales, Diana undertook royal duties on behalf of the Queen and represented her at functions across the Commonwealth realms. She was celebrated in the media for her unconventional approach to charity work. Her patronages were initially centred on children and the elderly, but she later became known for her involvement in two particular campaigns: one involved the social attitudes towards and the acceptance of AIDS patients, and the other for the removal of landmines, promoted through the International Red Cross. She also raised awareness and advocated for ways to help people affected by cancer and mental illness. Diana was initially noted for her shyness, but her charisma and friendliness endeared her to the public and helped her reputation survive the public collapse of her marriage. Considered photogenic, she is regarded as a fashion icon of the 1980s and 1990s.

In August 1997, Diana died in a car crash in Paris; the incident led to extensive public mourning and global media attention. An inquest returned a verdict of unlawful killing following Operation Paget, an investigation by the Metropolitan Police. Her legacacy
Diana Frances Spencer was born on 1 July 1961, the fourth of five children of John Spencer, Viscount Althorp (1924–1992), and Frances Spencer, Viscountess Althorp (née Roche; 1936–2004).[2] She was delivered at Park House, Sandringham, Norfolk.[3] The Spencer family had been closely allied with the British royal family for several generations;[4] her grandmothers, Cynthia Spencer, Countess Spencer, and Ruth Roche, Baroness Fermoy, had served as ladies-in-waiting to Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother.[5] Her parents were hoping for a boy to carry on the family line, and no name was chosen for a week until they settled on Diana Frances after her mother and Lady Diana Spencer, a many-times-great-aunt who was also a prospective Princess of Wales as a potential bride for Frederick, Prince of Wales.[6] Within the family, she was also known informally as "Duch", a reference to her duchess-like attitude in childhood.[7]

On 30 August 1961,[8] Diana was baptised at St. Mary Magdalene Church, Sandringham.[6] She grew up with three siblings: Sarah, Jane, and Charles.[9] Her infant brother, John, died shortly after his birth one year before Diana was born.[10] The desire for an heir added strain to her parents' marriage, and Lady Althorp was sent to Harley Street clinics in London to determine the cause of the "problem".[6] The experience was described as "humiliating" by Diana's younger brother, Charles: "It was a dreadful time for my parents and probably the root of their divorce because I don't think they ever got over it".[6] Diana grew up in Park House, situated on the Sandringham estate.[11] The family leased the house from its owner, Queen Elizabeth II, whom Diana called "Aunt Lilibet" since childhood.[12] The royal family frequently holidayed at the neighbouring Sandringham House, and Diana played with Princes Andrew and Edward.[13]


Althorp (pictured in 2006), the Spencer family seat
Diana was seven years old when her parents divorced.[14] Her mother later began a relationship with Peter Shand Kydd and married him in 1969.[15] Diana lived with her mother in London during her parents' separation in 1967, but during that year's Christmas holidays, Lord Althorp refused to let his daughter return to London with Lady Althorp. Shortly afterwards, he won custody of Diana with support from his former mother-in-law, Lady Fermoy.[16] In 1976, Lord Althorp married Raine, Countess of Dartmouth.[17] Diana's relationship with her stepmother was particularly bad.[18] She resented Raine, whom she called a "bully". On one occasion Diana pushed her down the stairs.[18] She later described her childhood as "very unhappy" and "very unstable, the whole thing".[19] She became known as Lady Diana after her father later inherited the title of Earl Spencer in 1975, at which point her father moved the entire family from Park House to Althorp, the Spencer seat in Northamptonshire.[20]
Attenborough was a senior manager at the BBC, having served as controller of BBC Two and director of programming for BBC Television in the 1960s and 1970s. First becoming prominent as host of Zoo Quest in 1954, his filmography as writer, presenter and narrator has spanned eight decades; it includes Natural World, Wildlife on One, the Planet Earth franchise, The Blue Planet and its sequel. He is the only person to have won BAFTA Awards in black and white, colour, high-definition, 3D and 4K resolution. Over his life he has collected dozens of honorary degrees and awards, including three Emmy Awards for Outstanding Narration.

While Attenborough's earlier work focused primarily on the wonders of the natural world, his later work has been more vocal in support of environmental causes. He has advocated for restoring planetary biodiversity, limiting population growth, switching to renewable energy, mitigating climate change, reducing meat consumption, and setting aside more areas for natural preservation.

On his broadcasting and passion for nature, NPR stated Attenborough "roamed the globe and shared his discoveries and enthusiasms with his patented semi-whisper way of narrating".[2] He is widely considered a national treasure in the UK, although he himself does not embrace the term.[3][4][5] He is the younger brother of the director, producer and actor Richard Attenborough,[6] and older brother of the motor executive John Attenborough.[7]

Life and family
David Frederick Attenborough was born on 8 May 1926 in Isleworth, Middlesex,[8][9] and grew up in College House on the campus of the University of Leicester, where his father, Frederick, was principal.[10] He is the middle of three sons; his elder brother, Richard (died in 2014), became an actor and director, and his younger brother, John (died in 2012), was an executive at the Italian car manufacturer Alfa Romeo.[7] During the Second World War, through a British volunteer network known as the Refugee Children's Movement, his parents also fostered two Jewish refugee girls from Germany.[11]

Attenborough spent his childhood collecting fossils, stones, and natural specimens.[12] He received encouragement when a young Jacquetta Hawkes admired his collection.[13] He spent much time in the grounds of the university. Aged around 11, he heard that the zoology department needed a large supply of newts, which he offered through his father to supply for 3d each. The source, which he did not reveal at the time, was a pond right next to the department.[14] A year later, his adoptive sister Marianne gave him a piece of amber containing prehistoric creatures; some sixty years later, it would be the focus of his programme The Amber Time Machine.[15]

In 1936, Attenborough and his brother Richard attended a lecture by Grey Owl (Archibald Belaney) at De Montfort Hall, Leicester, and were influenced by his advocacy of conservation. According to Richard, David was "bowled over by the man's determination to save the beaver, by his profound knowledge of the flora and fauna of the Canadian wilderness and by his warnings of ecological disaster should the delicate balance between them be destroyed. The idea that mankind was endangering nature by recklessly despoiling and plundering its riches was unheard of at the time, but it is one that has remained part of Dave's own credo to this day."[16] In 1999, Richard directed a biopic of Belaney entitled Grey Owl.[17]

Attenborough was educated at Wyggeston Grammar School for Boys in Leicester.[18] He won a scholarship to Clare College, Cambridge in 1945 to study geology and zoology and obtained a degree in natural sciences.[19] In 1947, he was called up for national service in the Royal Navy and spent two years stationed in North Wales and the Firth of Forth.[13] In 1950, Attenborough married Jane Elizabeth Ebsworth Oriel. The couple had two children, Robert and Susan. Jane died in 1997.[20] Robert is a senior lecturer in bioanthropology for the School of Archaeology and Anthropology at the Australian National University in Canberra.[21][22] Susan is a former primary school headmistress.[18]

Attenborough had a pacemaker fitted in June 2013 as well as a double knee replacement in 2015.[23] In September 2013, he commented: "If I was earning my money by hewing coal I would be very glad indeed to stop. But I'm not. I'm swanning round the world looking at the most fabulously interesting things. Such good fortune."[24]

Career
Early years at the BBC
After leaving the navy, Attenborough took a position editing children's science textbooks for a publishing company. He soon became disillusioned with the work and in 1950 applied for a job as a radio talk producer with the BBC.[25] Although he was rejected for this job, his CV later attracted the interest of Mary Adams, head of the Talks (factual broadcasting) department of the BBC's fledgling television service.[26] Attenborough, like most Britons at that time, did not own a television, and he had seen only one programme in his life.[27]

He accepted Adams' offer of a three-month training course. In 1952 he joined the BBC full-time. Initially discouraged from appearing on camera because Adams thought his teeth were too big,[25] he became a producer for the Talks department, which handled all non-fiction broadcasts. His early projects included the quiz show Animal, Vegetable, Mineral? and Song Hunter, a series about folk music presented by Alan Lomax.[25]

Attenborough's association with natural history programmes began when he produced and presented the three-part series Animal Patterns. The studio-bound programme featured animals from London Zoo, with the naturalist Julian Huxley discussing their use of camouflage, aposematism and courtship displays. Through this programme, Attenborough met Jack Lester, the curator of the zoo's reptile house, and they decided to make a series about an animal-collecting expedition. The result was Zoo Quest, first broadcast in 1954, where Attenborough became the presenter at short notice due to Lester being taken ill.[28]

In 1957, the BBC Natural History Unit was formally established in Bristol. Attenborough was asked to join it, but declined, not wishing to move from London where he and his young family were settled. Instead, he formed his own department, the Travel and Exploration Unit,[29] which allowed him to continue to front Zoo Quest as well as produce other documentaries, notably the Travellers' Tales and Adventure series.[29] In the early 1960s, Attenborough resigned from the permanent staff of the BBC to study for a postgraduate degree in social anthropology at the London School of Economics, interweaving his study with further filming.[30] However, he accepted an invitation to return to the BBC as controller of BBC Two before he could finish the degree.[31]

BBC administration
Attenborough became Controller of BBC Two in March 1965, succeeding Michael Peacock.[32] He had a clause inserted in his contract that would allow him to continue making programmes on an occasional basis. Later the same year he filmed elephants in Tanzania, and in 1969 he made a three-part series on the cultural history of the Indonesian island of Bali. For the 1971 film A Blank on the Map, he joined the first Western expedition to a remote highland valley in New Guinea to seek out a lost tribe.[33]

BBC Two was launched in 1964, but had struggled to capture the public's imagination. When Attenborough arrived as controller, he quickly abolished the channel's quirky kangaroo mascot and shook up the schedule. With a mission to make BBC Two's output diverse and different from that offered by other networks, he began to establish a portfolio of programmes that defined the channel's identity for decades to come. Under his tenure, music, the arts, entertainment, archaeology, experimental comedy, travel, drama, sport, business, science and natural history all found a place in the weekly schedules. Often, an eclectic mix was offered within a single evening's viewing. Programmes he commissioned included Man Alive, Call My Bluff, Chronicle, Match of the Day, The Old Grey Whistle Test, Monty Python's Flying Circus and The Money Programme.[34] With the addition of colour television, Attenborough brought snooker to the BBC to show the benefits of the format, as the sport uses coloured balls.[35] The show – Pot Black – was later credited with the boom of the sport into the 1980s.[36]

One of his most significant decisions was to order a 13-part series on the history of Western art, to show off the quality of the new UHF colour television service that BBC Two offered. Broadcast to universal acclaim in 1969, Civilisation set the blueprint for landmark authored documentaries, which were informally known as "sledgehammer" projects.[37][38] Others followed, including Jacob Bronowski's The Ascent of Man (also commissioned by Attenborough), and Alistair Cooke's America. Attenborough thought that the story of evolution would be a natural subject for such a series. He shared his idea with Christopher Parsons, a producer at the Natural History Unit, who came up with a title Life on Earth and returned to Bristol to start planning the series. Attenborough harboured a strong desire to present the series himself, but this would not be possible so long as he remained in a management post.[39]

While in charge of BBC Two, Attenborough turned down Terry Wogan's job application to be a presenter on the channel, stating that there weren't any suitable vacancies. The channel already had an Irish announcer, with Attenborough reflecting in 2016: "To have had two Irishmen presenting on BBC Two would have looked ridiculous. This is no comment whatsoever on Terry Wogan's talents."[40] Attenborough has also acknowledged that he sanctioned the wiping of television output during this period to cut costs, including a series by Alan Bennett, which he later regretted.[41]

In 1969, Attenborough was promoted to director of programmes, making him responsible for the output of both BBC channels.[42] His tasks, which included agreeing budgets, attending board meetings and firing staff, were now far removed from the business of filming programmes. When Attenborough's name was being suggested as a candidate for the position of Director-General of the BBC in 1972, he phoned his brother Richard to confess that he had no appetite for the job. Early the following year, he left his post to return to full-time programme-making, leaving him free to write and present the planned natural history epic.[12]

After his resignation, Attenborough became a freelance broadcaster and started work on his next project, a trip to Indonesia with a crew from the Natural History Unit. It resulted in the 1973 series Eastwards with Attenborough, which was similar in tone to the earlier Zoo Quest; the main difference was the introduction of colour. Attenborough stated that he wanted to work in Asia, because previous nature documentaries had mostly focused on Africa.[43] That year, Attenborough was invited to deliver the Royal Institution Christmas Lecture on The Language of Animals.[44] After his work on Eastwards with Attenborough, he began to work on the scripts for Life on Earth.[45]

Due to the scale of his ambition, the BBC decided to partner with an American network to secure the necessary funding. While the negotiations were proceeding, he worked on a number of other television projects. He presented a series on tribal art (The Tribal Eye, 1975) and another on the voyages of discovery (The Explorers, 1975).[45] He presented a BBC children's series about cryptozoology entitled Fabulous Animals (1975), which featured mythical creatures such as mermaids and unicorns.[46] Eventually, the BBC signed a co-production deal with Turner Broadcasting and Life on Earth moved into production in 1976.[47] In 1979, he visited China and reported to the West for the first time about China's one-child policy.[48]

Life series
See also: The Life Collection
Beginning with Life on Earth in 1979, Attenborough set about creating a body of work which became a benchmark of quality in wildlife film-making, and influenced a generation of documentary film-makers. The series established many of the hallmarks of the BBC's natural history output. By treating his subject seriously and researching the latest discoveries, Attenborough and his production team gained the trust of scientists, who responded by allowing him to feature their subjects in his programmes.[49]

Innovation was another factor in Life on Earth's success: new film-making techniques were devised to get the shots Attenborough wanted, with a focus on events and animals that were up till then unfilmed. International air travel enabled the series to be devised so that Attenborough visited several locations around the globe in each episode, sometimes even changing continents in one sequence. Although appearing as the on-screen presenter, he restricted his time on camera to give more time to his subjects.[50]

Five years after the success of Life on Earth, the BBC released The Living Planet.[51] This time, Attenborough built his series around the theme of ecology, the adaptations of living things to their environment. It was another critical and commercial success, generating huge international sales for the BBC. In 1990, The Trials of Life completed the original Life trilogy, looking at animal behaviour through the different stages of life.[52]
The "LS" nomenclature originally came from the first engine of the Gen III engines, the LS1, which was fitted in the Chevrolet Corvette (C5).[14] The Regular Production Option (RPO) code of the engine, LS, has since been used to generally refer to all Gen III and Gen IV engines;[15] however, Gen V engines are generally referred to as "LT" small-blocks.[16][17] This can sometimes be misleading, as not all engine RPO codes in the three generations begin with LT or LS.[18] LS and LT engines have powered every single generation of the Corvette since the C5, with the exception of the Z06 variant of the eighth generation Corvette, which is powered by an unrelated small-block engine, the Chevrolet Gemini small-block engine.[19] Various other General Motors automobiles have been powered by LS- and LT-based engines, including trucks such as the Chevrolet Silverado, sports cars such as the Holden Commodore, and SUVs such as the Cadillac Escalade.[1]

A clean-sheet design, the only shared components between the Gen III engines and the first two generations of the Chevrolet small-block engine are the connecting rod bearings and valve lifters.[1] However, the Gen III and Gen IV engines were designed with modularity in mind, and several engines of the two generations share a large number of interchangeable parts.[20] Gen V engines do not share as much with the previous two, although the engine block is carried over, along with the connecting rods.[21] The serviceability and parts availability for various Gen III and Gen IV engines have made them a popular choice for engine swaps in the car enthusiast and hot rodding community, and sometimes is known colloquially as an LS swap.[22][23][24] These engines also enjoy a high degree of aftermarket support due to their popularity and affordability.[25]

Background
edit
The brainchild of Chevrolet chief engineer Ed Cole, the first generation of the Chevrolet small-block engine was first unveiled in the 1955 Chevrolet Corvette and Chevrolet Bel Air, both powered by the 265 cu in (4,343 cc) "Turbo-Fire." The 265 Turbo-Fire distinguished itself from other engines of the era such as Cadillac's 331 series of the late 1940s and early 1950s by reducing the size and weight of various components within the engine; a compact engine block combined with a light valvetrain gave the Turbo-Fire a 40 lb (18 kg) weight reduction compared to the inline-sixes that initially powered the first generation of the Corvette, alongside a significant horsepower increase of 25%. This contributed to lowering the Corvette's 0–60 mph (0–97 km/h) from 11 seconds to 8.7.[26][27][28]

Nicknamed the "Mighty Mouse," the Turbo-Fire soon became popular within the hot rodding community too, along with scoring wins in stock car racing.[28] A larger version of the Turbo-Fire arrived in 1957, now bored out to 3.875 in (98.4 mm), gave the new engine a total displacement of 283 cu in (4,638 cc); this engine was dubbed the "Super Turbo-Fire." The Super Turbo-Fire was also the first engine offered with mechanical fuel injection, with the top-of-the-line model producing 283 hp (211 kW; 287 PS), giving it a 1:1 cubic inch to horsepower ratio.[14] This further lowered the Corvette's 0–60 mph (0–97 km/h) to 7.2 seconds.[27]

General Motors would produce more powerful and larger displacement iterations of the small-block, until the advent of stringent emission regulations in the late 1960s severely limited performance. The Malaise era, as it was known (roughly 1973 to 1983), saw some of the lowest horsepower figures in several muscle/pony car engines, including the Corvette whose power output dropped below 200 hp (149 kW; 203 PS) despite a displacement of 350 cu in (5,735 cc).[29]

1992 saw the second generation of Chevrolet small-block hit the market in that year's Chevrolet Corvette in the form of the LT1 small-block. It featured reverse-flow cylinder heads, a new ignition system, and new engine block, but the valvetrain and engine mounts were carried over in order to maintain a degree of compatibility with the previous generation. Other modifications such as a better flowing intake manifold and cylinder heads gave the LT1 a power output of 300 hp (224 kW; 304 PS).[30][14] The second generation culminated in the LT4 small-block, which gained a minor power increase of 30 hp (22 kW; 30 PS), alongside other changes such as a lighter valvetrain and strengthened crankshaft.[30]

The decision to stick with pushrod technology was seen as archaic at the time; such engines were seen as outmoded compared to the smaller capacity (but more powerful and fuel efficient) overhead cam engines favored by European and Asian manufacturers. One of GM's domestic rivals, Ford, had announced plans to axe its small block engine from production in the early 1990s,[31] in favor of its Modular engines, while the other domestic rival, Chrysler Corporation, had stopped building passenger cars with V8 engines years prior, relegating them to its trucks and SUVs. Many car enthusiasts also wanted a dual overhead cam engine;[26] GM had developed the Northstar engines for Cadillac, but those engines were initially exclusive to that brand and not originally designed for rear-wheel-drive vehicles. Later on, Sam Winegarden, former General Motors chief engineer for small-blocks, stated that despite the stigma of the pushrod engine being "a symbol of the uncompetitiveness [sic] of the domestic industry," the decision to stick with pushrods was made on the basis that switching to overhead camshafts was unnecessary; the power requirements for the Corvette were satisfied by simply increasing engine displacement.[31] Current General Motors chief engineer for small-blocks Jake Lee also stated that switching to overhead camshafts would also increase the height of the engine by 4 in (102 mm), rendering it too tall to fit under the hood of the Corvette.[32]

Approval for the Gen III was granted in May 1992, after a seat-of-the-pants decision made by General Motors executives who went for a drive in two Corvettes—one equipped with a traditional pushrod engine and one with an avant-garde dual overhead camshaft engine. Tom Stephens, then–executive director of General Motors Powertrains, was the man in charge of the project. Stephens had the task of designing an engine that was not only more powerful than the previous small-block iterations, but one that could also deliver better fuel economy and meet emissions standards. Work soon began in 1993, shortly after the release of the LT1 Gen II engine. A small team hand-picked from the Advanced Engineering department of General Motors was assembled to do much of the initial design work, with initial prototypes hitting test benches by the winter of 1993. Stephens also recruited Ed Koerner, a former NHRA record holder, to help with much of the hands-on work, while Stephens dealt with corporate.[33][34]
In the 1990s, Attenborough continued to use the "Life" title for a succession of authored documentaries. In 1993, he presented Life in the Freezer, the first television series to survey the natural history of Antarctica. Although past normal retirement age, he then embarked on a number of more specialised surveys of the natural world, beginning with plants. They proved a difficult subject for his producers, who had to deliver hours of television featuring what are essentially immobile objects. The result was The Private Life of Plants (1995), which showed plants as dynamic organisms by using time-lapse photography to speed up their growth, and went on to earn a Peabody Award.[53]

Prompted by an enthusiastic ornithologist at the BBC Natural History Unit, Attenborough then turned his attention to birds. As he was neither an birdwatcher nor a bird expert, he decided he was better qualified to make The Life of Birds (1998) on the theme of behaviour. The documentary series won a second Peabody Award the following year.[54] The order of the remaining "Life" series was dictated by developments in camera technology. For The Life of Mammals (2002), low-light and infrared cameras were deployed to reveal the behaviour of nocturnal mammals. The series contains a number of memorable two shots of Attenborough and his subjects, which included [bleep], a blue whale and a grizzly bear. Advances in macro photography made it possible to capture the natural behaviour of very small creatures for the first time, and in 2005, Life in the Undergrowth introduced audiences to the world of invertebrates.[55]

At this point, Attenborough realised that he had spent 20 years unconsciously assembling a collection of programmes on all the major groups of terrestrial animals and plants – only reptiles and amphibians were missing. When Life in Cold Blood was broadcast in 2008, he had the satisfaction of completing the set, brought together in a DVD encyclopaedia called Life on Land. He commented: "The evolutionary history is finished. The endeavour is complete. If you'd asked me 20 years ago whether we'd be attempting such a mammoth task, I'd have said 'Don't be ridiculous!' These programmes tell a particular story and I'm sure others will come along and tell it much better than I did, but I do hope that if people watch it in 50 years' time, it will still have something to say about the world we live in."[56]

However, in 2010 Attenborough asserted that his First Life – dealing with evolutionary history before Life on Earth – should be included within the "Life" series. In the documentary Attenborough's Journey, he stated, "This series, to a degree which I really didn't fully appreciate until I started working on it, really completes the s

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Thanks Captain Cut N Paste

Did anyone actually read all of that? I got about five lines into it and had to stop. Boring!

It says at the top that I posted it all. I did not. I posted the 1st sentence. Someone pasted the rest in after my sentence.

Nice troll by the op.

lol

Almost slumworthy.

She was good in Star Wars