The broadcaster continues his bug-eyed view of the world of creepy-crawlies, revealing how predators defuse the defences of their prey. Highlights include the cockroach wasp, busy preparing a tasty - and very live - treat for its young, the whirligig beetle, which employs a water-based radar system, and the jumping Portia spider, which feeds on other arachnids.
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David Attenborough employs the latest technologies to explore the violence, rivalries and deadly weaponry existing within the world of bugs. This first episode examines the survival tactics of its terrifying residents including killer ants, trap-setting spiders and beetles with the ability to shoot boiling chemicals at their enemies.
2013 • Nature
The broadcaster continues his bug-eyed view of the world of creepy-crawlies, revealing how predators defuse the defences of their prey. Highlights include the cockroach wasp, busy preparing a tasty - and very live - treat for its young, the whirligig beetle, which employs a water-based radar system, and the jumping Portia spider, which feeds on other arachnids.
2013 • Nature
It’s sexy time with the arthropods! This week David Attenborough takes a look at the courtship rituals of the creatures beneath our feet. But lovebugs won’t want to take tips from these bugs. The male Chilean rose tarantula, for instance, weaves a silk mat; deposits sperm on it, then sucks that sperm into a finger-like appendage near his mouth before he looks for a mate. Then there’s the gruesome, but surprisingly effective, coupling of praying mantis. The cinematography is as amazing as ever, catching the mating battles of tramp ants and providing luminescent footage of the courtship dance of Tanzanian red claw scorpions.
2013 • Nature
A close-up view of sex, bug-style, as David Attenborough talks viewers through the different ways in which creepy-crawlies reproduce. Size matters for the minuscule male orb spider, creepily sneaking up on its intended and trying to mate without her noticing, while there's no rest for the lothario-like butterfly, which has plenty of notches on its proverbial bedpost. However, the harvestman spider has no use for sex at all, and reproduces by cloning itself.
2013 • Nature
While most of the series has focused on conflict, this episode is all about co-operation. The suitably named social spiders spin one enormous, 30m web for the whole colony, a queen bee rules her hive with a strict hierarchy and some green ants show great team spirit to help build a nest together. There are no broken societies here. David Attenborough shifts the focus to bugs that prefer cooperation rather than conflict. They include burrowing cockroaches, the suitably named social spiders - which share a 30-metre web.
2013 • Nature
Watching the fascinating display of leafcutter ants at the Natural History Museum in London is one of my favourite ways to while away a few hours, but David Attenborough is operating on a much grander scale here in the last in the series. In Argentina he observes some cousins of the leafcutters who are part of a community so vast it spans an entire continent. It’s one of the mandible-dropping facts in a look at one of the key inventions of arthropods: colonies. From termites and honey bees to the leafcutters, it seems that if you want to get ahead, you move to the big city.
2013 • Nature
Canada's Devon Island is the largest uninhabited island in the world--and with good reason. Temperatures below freezing for nine months of the year and an annual rainfall comparable to the Gobi Desert leave the icy landscape so barren that NASA uses it to simulate conditions on Mars. Take an exhilarating expedition into a land where only the most experienced Inuit hunters dare set foot.
S1E2 • Arctic Secrets • 2015 • Nature
The wildlife inhabiting the world's oceans, from the shallow seas of the tropics, where predators like the lionfish can become the prey to one of the world's oddest hunters, to the greatest depths, where a massive siphonophore, longer than a blue whale, and a gulper eel with huge jaws are captured on film using specialised vessels designed to withstand the pressure. The episode also features the mating dances of mobula rays and the symbiotic relationship between Columbus crabs and turtles.
S1E2 • Planet Earth III • 2023 • Nature
An aging king must lead his family into hostile territory, but it's how he deals with his treacherous son that will determine his power and pride's legacy.
S2E4 • Savage Kingdom • 2017 • Nature
The Rockies stretch 3,000 miles up the length of North America, and are one of the great mountain ranges of the world. These mountains are home not just to cougars, wolverines, wolves, and grizzly bears, but also daredevil wingsuit flyers, which jump from high peaks, and Native Americans, competing in breakneck horse races.
S1E1 • Kingdoms of the Sky • 2021 • Nature
Few places on earth evoke more mystery and romance than Arabia. This enters the forbidding wilderness and reveals a magical cast of characters. From the snow-white oryx that inspired the myth of the unicorn to the long-legged jerboa leaping ten times its own body length through the star-filled Arabian nights. Horned vipers hunt glow-in-the-dark scorpions, while Bedouin nomads race their camels across the largest sand desert in the world.
S1E1 • Wild Arabia • 2013 • Nature
Pumas are also known by the names of cougar or mountain lion. However, these cats are only distantly related to lions. They're much more closely related to cheetahs. And while pumas are often found in mountains, they're just as at home in the lowlands, dense forests, or deserts.
S1E3 • The Secret Lives of Big Cats • 2019 • Nature