African Deserts • 2024 • episode "S1E7" • Earth Sounds

57:44

Liz meets the animal rogues doing whatever it takes to find food. From kleptomaniac crabs on a stealing spree, tigers deceiving their prey and chimpanzees waging war on their neighbours, the need for a square meal can drive many animals to some seemingly extreme behaviour. Liz sets out to discover the science behind these tactics, joining experts making new discoveries around the world. She sees macaques using psychology to pull off a theft, a spider conning its prey with a chemical disguise and the wedge-billed hummingbird stealing nectar from under the beaks of its rivals. When it comes to finding food, this outrageous behaviour is actually an ingenious way to get ahead.

S1E2 • Animals Behaving Badly • 2018 • Nature

57:50

There is no greater test for life than winter, as temperatures plummet to 70 below and winds reach 200kph. Darkness and ice extend across the polar regions and only a few remarkable survivors gamble on remaining. We join a female polar bear trekking into the Arctic mountains to give birth as the first blizzards arrive. Out on the frozen ocean, the entire world's population of spectacled eider ducks brave the winter in a giant ice hole kept open by ferocious currents. Arctic forests transform into a wonderland of frost and snow - the scene of a desperate and bloody battle between wolf and bison, but also where a remarkable alliance between raven and wolverine is made. Beneath the snow lies a magical world of winter survivors. Here tiny voles dodge the clutches of the great grey owl, but cannot escape the ultimate under-show predator - the least weasel. Midwinter and a male polar bear wanders alone across the dark, empty icescape. Below the snow, polar bear cubs begin life in an icy den while fantastical auroras light the night skies above. In Antarctica, we join male emperor penguins in their darkest hour, battling to protect precious eggs from fierce polar storms. Weddell seals escape to a hidden world of jewel-coloured corals and alien-looking creatures but frozen devastation follows as sinister ice stalactites reach down with deadly effect.

S1E5 • Frozen Planet • 2011 • Nature

118:21

David Attenborough embarks on a sweeping 500-million-year odyssey tracing the rise of vertebrates—from primitive fish to dominant mammals—using stunning fossil discoveries and CGI to reveal how evolutionary innovations shaped us.

2013 • Nature

39:02

In southern Africa, a pride of lions has rewritten the rules - by learning to take down elephants. In this follow up to Africa's Giant Killers, we join the pride at the start of the rainy season. As the elephants depart, a catalogue of dramatic events unfolds. The pride males turn against each other, an inexperienced mum puts her new born cubs in mortal danger, a rival group of lions challenge the pride for its territory and, when lightning strikes, fires burn day and night. When the dust eventually settles, the pride is left with only one choice - to face their old foe the elephants or risk starvation. The final showdown awaits.

Natural World • 2015 • Nature

48:34

Developed over centuries, coral reefs house fragile ecosystems, but they too have to fight to survive.

S1E6 • Blue Planet I • 2001 • Nature

28:41

The final episode explores dinosaurs' extraordinary ability to survive. Featured dinosaurs include the bizarre magyarosaurus, which lived in the shadow of the biggest flying animal - hatzegopteryx - and showed an amazing adaptation to island life; and the weird nothronychus, a carnivore that gave up meat eating. This astonishing capacity to evolve into ever more diverse and bizarre forms meant that dinosaurs not only spread throughout the world, but also dominated life upon it for more than 160 million years. It was only an unprecedented extraterrestrial event that finally saw the end of planet dinosaur.

S1E6 • Planet Dinosaur • 2011 • Nature