Friends and Rivals • 1990 • episode "9/12" • Trials of Life

Category: Nature
Download:

From vampire bats to baboons, Sir David Attenborough investigates the importance of recognising friends and respecting the power of rivals throughout the animal kingdom.

Trials of Life • 1990 • 13 episodes •

Arriving
48:46
Arriving

An examination of the diverse techniques employed by animals to disperse and protect offspring.

1990 • Nature

Growing Up
48:38
Growing Up

For animals, there is no greater challenge than surviving the vulnerable first years of life. This episode demonstrates that nature's solutions are as varied as those in human society.

1990 • Nature

Finding Food
49:28
Finding Food

The search for food in the animal world. With leaves defended by poisons and seeds clad in thorns, animals fight back in very innovative ways.

1990 • Nature

Hunting and Escaping
49:16
Hunting and Escaping

Life-and-death duels are fought daily in the wild: an orchid turns out to be a predator, killer whales ambush sea lions and chimps pursue colobus monkeys.

1990 • Nature

Finding the Way
48:27
Finding the Way

How animals ranging from albatrosses to ants can navigate themselves over long distances.

1990 • Nature

Home Making
49:22
Home Making

How all animal architects aim to keep both the elements and intruders at bay through features that include defensive moats.

1990 • Nature

Living Together
49:13
Living Together

Examining some of the weird relationships that develop between species, from birds that relieve clients of hangers-on to hermit crabs that enlist stinging anemones to repel octopuses.

1990 • Nature

Fighting
49:00
Fighting

How many animals - including zebras, moose and stalk-eyes flies - assess their opponents' fighting prowess before making an attack that risks injury or death.

1990 • Nature

Friends and Rivals
47:45
Friends and Rivals

From vampire bats to baboons, Sir David Attenborough investigates the importance of recognising friends and respecting the power of rivals throughout the animal kingdom.

1990 • Nature

Talking to Strangers
49:25
Talking to Strangers

From the love songs of fish to the flashes of millions of tiny beetles, Sir David Attenborough examines methods of communication used by animals.

1990 • Nature

Courting
48:57
Courting

This edition looks at the various methods employed by species to attract a mate, including whales that sing "songs", hamsters that emit an odour, and manakins that do acrobatic dances.

1990 • Nature

Continuing the Line
49:16
Continuing the Line

A look at the many and varied ways in which animals procreate in order to ensure that their genes are passed on to the next generation.

1990 • Nature

Once More into the Termite Mound
49:27
Once More into the Termite Mound

The inside of a termite mound proved especially challenging for Attenborough: it was so cramped that he could only face in one direction. He therefore had to slowly crawl backwards out of shot when performing re-takes.

1990 • Nature

You might also like

From Heaven to Hell
58:38
From Heaven to Hell

In the balmy tropical Atlantic, everything from dolphins, manatees and whale sharks to sunbathing jellyfish thrive in the Caribbean's warm, sheltered waters, fringed with coral reefs and rich mangrove forests. But extreme heat in Africa unleashes terrifying hurricanes, causing chaos across the region.

3/3 • Atlantic: The Wildest Ocean on Earth • 2015 • Nature

Living with Predators (Conservation)
57:52
Living with Predators (Conservation)

Looking at the planet's top predators through the eyes of scientists trying to save them.

7/7 • The Hunt • 2015 • Nature

The Great Salmon Run
59:18
The Great Salmon Run

A look at the annual return of millions of salmon to the streams where they were born.

2/6 • Nature's Great Events • Nature

Part 3
58:40
Part 3

For the last leg of their journey, the team search for the most iconic animal of them all, the tiger. To find it, they must split up. Wildlife camerawoman Justine Evans and the science team head to the tangled jungles of northern Burma, one of the largest swathes of unbroken forest in Southeast Asia. Wildlife cameraman Gordon Buchanan heads to the only other place in Burma where tigers may still exist, the far south. The forests of Karen State were once home to a thriving population of tigers, but this region has been isolated by war for over 60 years and little is known about the fate of the animals. The team must overcome intense physical hardship and tough field conditions to find the evidence they need to help preserve this unique and largely untouched wilderness. What they discover could change the future of Burma's forests forever.

S1E3 • Wild Burma: Nature's Lost Kingdom • 2013 • Nature

Building Bodies
53:45
Building Bodies

The next programme explores the various sea-living invertebrates. In Morocco, the limestones are 600 million years old, and contain many invertebrate fossils. They fall broadly into three categories: shells, crinoids and segmented shells. The evolution of shelled creatures is demonstrated with the flatworm, which eventually changed its body shape when burrowing became a necessity for either food or safety. It then evolved shielded tentacles and the casings eventually enveloped the entire body: these creatures are the brachiopods. The most successful shelled animals are the molluscs, of which there are some 80,000 different species.

2/13 • Life on Earth • 1979 • Nature

The Open Ocean
54:50
The Open Ocean

Attenborough goes underwater to observe the ocean's life forms and comment on them at first hand.

11/12 • The Living Planet • 1984 • Nature