Canada is in the grip of snow and ice, and animals are struggling. But while some animals hunker down, others have babies to raise.
There are 200 million insects for each of us. They are the most successful animal group ever. Their key is an armoured covering that takes on almost any shape. Darwin's stag beetle fights in the tree tops with huge curved jaws. The camera flies with millions of monarch butterflies which migrate 2000 miles, navigating by the sun. Super slow motion shows a bombardier beetle firing boiling liquid at enemies through a rotating nozzle. A honey bee army stings a raiding bear into submission. Grass cutter ants march like a Roman army, harvesting grass they cannot actually eat. They cultivate a fungus that breaks the grass down for them. Their giant colony is the closest thing in nature to the complexity of a human city.
David Attenborough takes a breathtaking journey through the vast and diverse continent of Africa as it has never been seen before. Part 1: Kalahari In Africa's ancient south west corner, two extraordinary deserts sit side by side. Water is in short supply, yet these deserts are somehow full of life because the creatures that live here have turned the rules of survival on their head. This film celebrates nature's ingenuity, no matter how tough it gets. In the Kalahari scrublands, clever meerkats are outsmarted by a wily bird, solitary and belligerent black rhinos get together to party and giant insects stalk huge flocks of birds. Rain almost never falls in the Namib - instead it must make do with vaporous, vanishing fog. The creatures in this, the world's oldest desert, have gone to the extremes, as spiders wheel to escape and a desert giraffe fights to defend his scant resources in the greatest giraffe battle ever filmed.
Have you ever wondered what would happen to life on earth if a doomsday event killed every human on the planet?
The final programme comes from St Abbs in Scotland and looks at whether herring are making a comeback, and there's exploration into the lesser-known British coral reefs.
5/5 • Blue Planet UK • 2019 • Nature
We examine how things taste, and how vital scent is from the animal perspective. But their sense of smell will also detect the scent of odorants carried through the air. In mammals, taste receptor cells are scattered over the tongue but how they work underwater, well, it's a whole other world.
S1E4 • Animal Super Senses • 2020 • Nature
During the dry winter season on the savanna, life is ruled by water. From gargantuan hippos to nimble antelope, explore how the wildlife of South Africa's lowveld adapt to the harsh conditions of their ecosystem.
4/8 • Waterworld Africa • 2017 • Nature
