Magic in the Rocks • 1989 • episode "S1E1" • Lost Worlds, Vanished Lives

49:50

The jungles of the sacred city of Polonnaruwa in Sri Lanka are home to 33 identified troops of toque macaques and one man. This is the extraordinary story of Dr. Wolfgang Dittus, a scientist from the Smithsonian Institution who, over decades, has tracked and documented the lives of thousands of monkeys, revealing a complex society that is in many ways like our own. His journey is captured through his own words, footage he's taken over the course of 50 years, and his interactions with the scrappy, cheeky monkeys he's dedicated his life to.

2018 • Nature

44:33

Supermarkets are stocked with fruit year round in a global permanent summertime, but despite its accessibility, have we lost the diversity that makes it so special? The second episode of The Fruit Hunters will look at what happens when we abandon the Garden of Eden for an industrialized monoculture. In lush jungles of Borneo, Bala Tingang, an elder of one of the last hunter-gatherer tribes, lives of the wild fruits that are the key to his tribe's survival. And yet, all around the world, natural diversity is being replaced with monocultures, plantations of only one variety, bred for long shelf life and transportability rather than their taste or health properties. Not only is this lost of diversity impoverishing our taste buds, but it has catastrophic implications for our food security. In the vast uniform banana fields of Honduras, Juan Aguilar, a banana scientist, frantically tries to breed a banana resistant to a deadly fungus.

S52E12 • The Nature of Things • 2013 • Nature

58:40

David Attenborough takes a breathtaking journey through the vast and diverse continent of Africa as it has never been seen before. (Part 2: Savannah) East Africa is a land which is constantly changing. To survive here, creatures must be able to deal with unpredictable twists and turns - wet turning to dry, feast to famine, cold to hot - no matter how hostile it becomes. From dense forests to snow capped peaks, steamy swamps and endless savannah, this unique and varied land is also a haven for life, supporting large animals in numbers found nowhere else on Earth. But away from the familiar, forever-travelling herds, there are a huge cast of other characters - lizards that steal flies from the faces of lions, vast dinosaur-like birds who stalk catfish through huge wetlands, and an eagle who risks everything on the arrival of ten million bats from a far off rainforest.

S1E2 • Africa • 2013 • Nature

59:24

In the heart of south-east Asia lies the tropical island of Borneo. Twice the size of the British Isles, it is the third largest island on earth and home to possibly the greatest diversity of life of any island. Its huge variety of habitats, from bustling coral reefs and ancient jungles to towering mountains, have given rise to more than 60,000 species of plants and animals - many found nowhere else on Earth. This documentary covers Borneo's rich abundance of wildlife, from frogs to orang-utans.

S1E2 • Earth's Tropical Islands • 2020 • Nature

28:59

John Nettles explores the late naturalist Gerald Durrell's legacy as he follows the work of a small group of people trying to save endangered orangutans on Jersey and Sumatra.

2013 • Nature

88:20

This extended special of the nature documentary series journeys from the equator to the unexplored depths, meeting the best-loved characters from the series.

S1E8 • Blue Planet II • 2018 • Nature