100 Iconic Moments From Sir David Attenborough | BBC Earth

And there are snakes here, too.

Lots of them.

These are banded sea crates.

They lay their eggs on land, but they hunt here in the water.

They're too slow to catch fish in a straight chase,

so they seek prey

that is hiding in the nooks

and crannies of the coral.

Their bite is highly venomous and paralyzes their victims.

And on this reef, the snakes do not hunt alone.

Schles of yellow goatfish

and trivali are seeking similar prey

and they attract the snake's attention.

As one group of hunters searches the reef, they're joined by the other.

At least 30 snakes have now joined the caravan.

The big fish scare the prey into cracks

and there the snakes can catch them

and anything fleeing from the crates will swim straight into the mouths of the

waiting tree valley.

There's nowhere to hide.

As the raiders scour the reef, more and more snakes join the hunt.

This cooperation between snakes and fish, spectacular though it is,

has only recently been observed,

for it only happens on the most remote reefs in Indonesia.

Perhaps such hunting alliances were once a common sight,

but today no more than 6% of Indonesia's reefs are in their pristine state.

And now the snakes are on the alert.

This is the best feeding opportunity they will get all year.

On flat ground, a baby iguana can outrun a race of snake.

But others are waiting in ambush.

Another hatchling has its first glimpse of a dangerous world.

A snake's eyes aren't very good, but they can detect movement.

So, if the hatchling keeps its nerve, it may just avoid detection.

Heat.

Heat.

Heat.

Heat.

A near miraculous escape.

The lucky survivors could begin learning the unique way of life demanded by this

hostile island.

Wolves.

These in northern Canada are the largest

and most powerful in the world

and they're setting out to hunt.

The pack is 25 strong, a sign that the prey they're seeking is formidable.

These bison are even bigger than their southern cousins

and the largest land animals in North America.

For generations, wolves and bison here have been shaped by their battles with each

other,

making each the most impressive of its kind.

The bison will not stay long among the trees.

They're not safe here.

The wolves are closing in,

but their chance of ambushing the bison in the woods has passed.

Their prey are now in the open and grouped together for safety.

The wolves will need to work

as a team if they're to make a kill.

They circle the herd, trying to unsettle it and split it up.

But the bison are armed and dangerous.

They will be safe as long as they stick together.

The wolves up their game, harrying the herd,

a ploy to trigger a stampede and split away one of the smaller ones.

The bison form a defensive circle around their young, horns pointing outwards.

The wolves need a bison to break rank.

But the tables are turning and now the wolves have to retreat.

The pack focus their attention on the rear of the herd

and the bison begin to panic.

A young bison falls behind.

Even this yearling dwarfs the wolves.

Running head down, the herd's only thought is escape.

A stroke of luck for the wolves.

The kill will feed the pack for several days,

but then they will have to resume the chase.

Their cover blown, escape seems impossible.

But these particular fish have a unique ability.

They are flying fish.

With an extra thrust from their tails, the flying fish get airborne once more.

With a good wind, they can glide for hundreds of meters.

But this is just what the frigot birds have been waiting for.

When frigots join the hunt,

the flying fish are literally caught between the devil and the deep blue sea.

If the flying fish get too much lift,

they become easy prey for the frigots.

If they dive to evade attack from above,

they could fall into the mouths of the Dorado.

Heat.

Heat.

This peculiar almost alien scene is in fact the emergence of a brood of

orchid mantids from their egg case.

Manteds, like the great majority of animals, play the numbers game.

Having over 60 hatchlings increases the chances

that a few will make it to adulthood.

During these first minutes, they are especially vulnerable.

They must quickly hide away and wait for their soft bodies to harden.

Within 20 minutes they are transformed.

Now the immediate danger is from each other.

Mantids will eat anything that moves, including other mantids.

Time to leave.

This tiny insect is now open to attack from predators lurking in the undergrowth.

Whether an individual mantis survives or not is partly a matter of chance.

Whether it's spotted by a predator, whether it turns right or left.

So far, its luck has held,

but this hungry jumping spider is still in pursuit.

A mantis is born with exceptional eyesight, but the spiders is even better.

Although this young mantis can't yet fly,

its long four legs evolved to catch prey give it reach.

There seems to be no escape.

But this mantis has a surprising line in self-defense.

Kung fu praying mantis style.

Of course, it's all bluff trying to look bigger and confuse its enemy,

but it's got away with it.

Just staying alive for its first few hours is a significant accomplishment for a

newly hatched insect.

But there's still a long way to go.

With a bit of luck, in 2 months time,

it will be as big and beautiful as this orchid manted.

Or maybe not.

After all, mantids are cannibals.

However, there are plenty more where that one came from.

At this time of year,

polar bears on average succeed only once in 20 hunts.

If the hunter is skinny like this one, that may not be often enough.

All she can do is keep trying.

Heat.

Heat.

To prevent her scent betraying her,

she makes a wide sweep to get downwind of the seal.

Getting close.

She's now right behind the seal.

Incredibly, she caught the seal. underwater.

It's only small, but even so, its blubber alone will contain 100,000 calories,

enough to sustain this bear for a week.

And in that time, she might even catch another.

But this can't go on forever.

As summer continues, temperatures are rising.

Each hunt requires more energy, draining the bears of their reserves.

Kenya, famous for its big cats, the supreme hunters.

Cheetahs specialize in hunting at speed.

Though fast, they're fragile creatures built to sprint after small prey.

They don't have the strength

or weight of a lion to bring down larger animals.

This male is different.

He doesn't hunt alone.

He's learned that there is strength in numbers.

But here there are not just two but three cheaters, a band of brothers.

They have changed their tactics

and by doing so have taken their prey by surprise.

They have learned that working together they can bring down large prey.

An ostrich, a bird

that towers over a cheetah

and is more than twice

as heavy.

It can't fly to escape danger,

but it can lash out with a deadly kick.

A female unaware as yet of any danger.

Even with three of them, this is still highly risky.

If one gets injured, the other two couldn't hope to tackle such large prey.

On the other hand, if they get it right, the rewards are huge.

The male has spotted one of the brothers, but only one.

It's not too worried.

Then suddenly there are three The female is slower to realize the danger

and the cheaters switch targets.

It takes the combined effort

and weight of all three brothers to bring down this powerful bird.

Even now, the ostrich could land a fatal kick.

So far, the brothers are winning.

Ostriches have yet to find a way to foil such techniques.

Food is so hard to find this far north

that a wolf pack must search hundreds of square kilometers

if it's to be successful.

And success means raising the next generation.

To do that here, the wolves must work together.

So, the young are raised not only by their parents,

but by their aunts and uncles as well.

Together, they try to ensure

that each pup reaches near adult size before the snow returns.

A growing pup needs more than just a few levers.

The wolves need bigger prey.

And to catch that, they must hunt as a pack.

Woo!

Adult hairs may be easy to spot, but they're far from easy to catch.

They run at 60 km an hour.

To catch one, the wolves work as a team.

One of them gets close enough to bite the hair's tail.

But a hair can change direction in an instant.

If it can continue to sidestep and it may ultimately outlast them.

Finally, it gets away.

For the next hair, the whole pack gives chase.

Now numbers count.

The lead wolves keep up the pace.

Others run on either side so the hair can't change direction.

A tiny meal for the whole pack.

Even when more sea lions arrive,

they can't seem to break down the sardines coordinated defenses.

With a shaw this big, the sea lions need to isolate a smaller,

more manageable group of fish.

But with so few predators, the fish still have the advantage.

All the sea lions can do is keep the sardines at the surface

and wait for others to join them.

Tuna, their arrival changes everything.

Tuna attack from below, cutting off the sardines escape route down to deep water.

Next to appear, she waters.

Excellent flyers, but also surprisingly agile underwater.

With so many predators attacking from all sides,

the advantage starts to shift away from the sardines.

As the fish pack ever tighter,

their shing strategy now makes it easier for the hunters.

Copper sharks.

They've scented blood in the water.

Surprisingly perhaps, the predators never attack one another.

They work together to corral the ball of fish,

taking turns to grab a mouthful, common dolphins.

As the shell gets ever smaller,

each sardine scrambles desperately to hide in the middle.

But now there's no escape.

A Buddha's whale finishes off the feast.

Tons of sardines devoured in less than an hour.

During the dry season,

over half a million turns crowded onto this remote atal in the Indian Ocean.

Their chicks are still in their dark juvenile plumage.

They vary in age.

Whilst the more advanced chicks take to the air, others aren't quite ready yet.

Those just starting to learn to fly use the shallow lagoon

that occupies the center of the atal

as their training ground.

It's difficult for some of them to stay aloft for long.

Giant tree valleys.

Usually they are solitary hunters,

but about 50 of them have come here from neighboring reefs,

attracted by this abundance of potential prey.

The fledglings stay out of the water if they can.

They even drink on the wing.

If the Travali are to catch one now, they have to up their game.

So there is a fish here

that amazingly has a brain capable of calculating the air speed,

altitude and trajectory of a bird.

The time comes when every fledgling has to take to the air

and collect food for itself.

Their parents lead them to the training grounds.

Heat.

Heat.

Come on.

Heat.

If they are to survive, they must learn quickly.

After a month of practicing over the lagoon,

the youngsters start to leave and take their chances out over the open sea.

And leopards are the most versatile of all the big cats,

adept at finding cover in the most unpromising places.

The steep walls of the gully are now her cover for an ambush.

The male puku is close enough, but he's too big to tackle.

She needs to slip past him without being seen.

If he spots her, he'll blow her cover.

Slowly does it.

To succeed here, she needs to find prey grazing close to the edge.

or better still in the gully itself. frustration.

Success would have saved off hunger for a week.

But while there's prey around, there's hope.

Peeking over the top is a risk,

but it's the quickest way to find a new target.

A burst of speed of 65 km an hour

and it's all over in less than 6 seconds.

Except it isn't.

Dazed and disorientated, the impala makes a miraculous escape.

The Namib Desert, one of the most exposed places on Earth.

As the sun climbs high, everybody takes cover from the extreme heat.

Everybody except the hot rod ant.

As others take refuge, their day is just beginning.

Cleaning out the nest, the sand can reach a scorching 70 centrade.

The ants long legs raise their bodies above the surface where it's 10° cooler.

But if they stand still, they will fry.

They must keep moving or risk the same fate as their quarry,

the creatures that have collapsed from heat stroke.

Too deeply buried, but a good place to cool off.

Foraging decisions must be fast.

Too big.

Perfect.

Back to the nest before they also die.

But they've strayed into a minefield.

Each of these strange cone-shaped pits is a death trap with a brutal predator

at its center.

Here lie ant lion lavi, tiny ambush predators with venomfilled pincers.

Some ants manage to escape, but the ant lion has other tricks.

Flinging sand into the air, it creates an avalanche.

In this cone of death,

the walls are so angled that the sand slips beneath the ant's feet.

As boulders rain from the sky, escape seems almost impossible.

Phew.

It occurs in phenomenal quantity. billions of individuals in a single swarm

and swarms can stretch for miles.

Fur seals also collect this rich, super abundant food.

Cruel swarms are very patchy, but once found, feeding is easy.

Humpbacks engulf hundreds of thousands of them in a single gargantuan mouthful.

When the going is good, the whales feed continuously,

each eating up to two tons of krill in 24 hours.

Further south near the continent, the sea ice is still sound.

Here, where the ice remains for most of the summer,

emperor penguins make their home.

These have been feeding out at sea

and are now ready to make their way back to the colony to feed

their chicks.

Instead of heading straight for the ice edge,

the penguins hesitate some distance from it.

They're nervous.

They dive down and investigate the ice edge.

And for good reason.

Leopard seals patrol this border.

Leopard seals are the Antarctic's equivalent of polar bears.

They're the top predators, but they hunt most successfully in the water.

So, by and large,

the animals they prey on are safer out on the ice.

They have a lazy grace that belies their ferocious nature.

Confident that the coast is clear, the emperor penguins head for the ice.

But they certainly don't linger.

Heat up here.

Now they have a long walk back to the colony.

Emperor penguin colonies are some way back from the ice edge.

In winter they may be as much as a 100 miles from it,

but as the summer progresses and the ice melts,

the edge comes ever closer to the colony.

So by the time the chicks are fledged

and ready to take their first swim,

the water is close by.

This colony is in the lee of a headland

and that prevents the ice from being broken up by ocean currents.

The returning adults are so full of food that they can barely walk.

But with no predator to threaten them now, they can take their time.

Somehow in this melee of 60,000 or so penguins,

a parent has to find its chick.

It returns to the place where it last left its chick in the hope

that it might still be close by.

But chicks tend to wonder, so the adult has to call to it.

The chick responds and they slowly home in on one another.

The plaintiff intreates of the chick stimulates the adult to regurgitate a mouthful of

fish.

With the return of one parent,

the other is free to go to sea to feed for itself.

Aware of the leopard seal's presence, the penguins pressed together at the ice edge,

unwilling to be the first to risk diving in.

Occasionally, the seal comes out onto the ice and attempts to grab one.

But its most successful strategy by far is to lie in weight.

It hides behind a corner of ice.

The emperors gain confidence and make a dash for it.

The first wave of penguins escape once in open water.

They will be safe.

Now the seal is alerted by the noise

and through the massive bubbles it makes its attack.

Almost invariably, it makes a kill.

Encouraged by the absence of the seal,

the remaining penguins make a break for the open sea.

In time, their chicks will fledge.

And when the Antarctic autumn is near its end,

these adults will walk across the newly formed ice to endure yet another winter

on the frozen sea.

For sea lions to venture into deep water here is very dangerous indeed.

It's much safer to stay in the shallows if they can.

In one or two places,

channels enable the whales to get really close to the beach.

Those are the danger spots.

To get off the beach, the killer has to thrash its body.

No other whale deliberately beaches itself in this way

or has perfected this method of getting back to the sea.

As long as the sea lions stay well up the beach,

you might think they would be safe.

But the hungry whales are very daring.

Now, several of the whales are hunting in a

That sea lion was keeping just ahead of one of the whales,

but was caught by another it probably hadn't seen.

Heat.

Heat.

This savage beating may be to separate hide from flesh.

>> The army ant This may look like a ball of a million individuals,

but make no mistake.

The colony acts as one.

A super organism with a sensory system of 2 million antenni.

A skeleton made from the living bodies of workers.

A defense system of soldier ants ready to act at any sign of danger.

A digestive system processing piles of food deep inside.

Even a coordinated system for dealing with all the waste.

These are insects that by working together transcend individual size.

The colony can search the entire jungle and flush out its wildlife.

Each day it sends out a silent probe into the forest in quest of

food.

It doesn't use scouts like other ants.

Instead, a vast search party pushes into virgin territory.

Seeking out the signs of anything alive.

They spread out along a 10 m front, sweeping across the forest floor.

To find prey, the ants must first touch it.

The irony is that this, the most successful hideandsek player in the forest,

is almost completely blind.

It distinguishes the living only by their movement.

As long as an animal remains still, it is safe.

But the slightest twitch will give it away.

Within seconds, the prey is pinned down.

Within minutes, it's torn apart at its joints.

The more the prey struggles, the more the ants engage.

Right across the raid front,

prey of all sizes are driven from their hiding places.

Even wasps must abandon their homes when the ants arrive.

Everything alive in the path of the raiders, overwhelmed by sheer numbers.

It's called Darwin's bark spider, and the female has a remarkable strategy.

Like a real life spiderw woman,

she sprays strands of silk in one long continuous flow.

The threads fan out like a sail

and drift on air currents blowing across the water.

Every few seconds, she crimps the strands together to stop them spreading too widely.

The breeze will do the rest,

blowing the threads into a single line and a 25 m bridge.

Now she must reinforce her bridge because her web will hang from it.

But there's something bouncing the line at the other end.

Another Darwin spider is trying to take advantage of her hard work.

She must deal with the intruder head on.

The cut line is an inconvenience, but no more than that.

With hooks on the tips of each leg, she gathers in the thread.

It won't go to waste as she'll eat it later.

When it's all reeled in, she sprays again.

Outstreams another 25 m bridging line.

How a spider no bigger than a thumbnail can produce

so much silk so quickly has baffled scientists.

And it's no ordinary silk.

It's the toughest natural fiber on the planet, tougher than steel.

And it needs to be tough to span the wide river.

With the bridge tort and the ground anchor in place,

it's time to construct her trap.

These spiders can build the world's largest orb webs up to 2 m wide.

A few hours from the first spray of bridging line, the job is done.

Now her strategy is simple.

Sit and wait.

And there's one final bout of silk production.

Shrink wrapping her food for later.

A Sally Lightfoot crab.

One of thousands of shore crabs just waiting for their moment.

Every day they gather on the tropical shores of Brazil,

waiting for the tide to go out, which exposes their feeding grounds.

Seaweed covered rocks 100 m from the shore.

Getting there is a race against the tide.

They leap from rock to rock.

These crabs seem to be afraid of the water.

And for good reason. the mor eel.

The chain mor is a specialist crab hunter.

Its blunt teeth can easily grip and crush a crab's shell.

It's the crab's deadliest enemy.

But the crabs feeding grounds are still a long way off.

They must press on. halfway.

But their enemy has other ideas. crossing the land to reset the ambush.

To feed, the crabs must keep going.

But nowhere is safe.

An octopus.

Also a crab killer.

The crabs make a dash for it. made it.

Risking life and limb to graze on these seaweed pastures.

But in 2 hours time when the tide starts to turn,

they will have to run the gauntlet all over again.

It's July in the deserts of Nevada in the western United States,

the hottest time of the year.

Bands of wild horses, Mustang,

are converging on one of the last remaining water holes around.

Now water not only offers them the chance to drink,

it can also bring power.

If a stallion can control access to water,

he will have secured mating rights to the entire herd.

So stallions try to dominate these pools,

fighting off rivals who venture too close. a stranger.

He's traveled 15 kilometers to be here

because the pools where he's come from have already dried up.

With him come his females.

If he can't provide them with water,

they will leave him for the white stallion who already dominates this pool.

>> So he will have to fight.

Fire.

There is everything to lose.

A broken leg or a shattered jaw would mean a slow and painful death.

>> A missed kick and it's all over.

The new arrival has won.

And his prize is more than just a chance to drink.

He has provided for his herd and in the process stolen his rival females.

The white stallion's rule is over.

These males are the troop leaders.

They hold all the power here.

Joining them is every young male's ambition.

To be accepted into this elite is the path to privilege,

but it's a dangerous journey.

The youngster decides to follow.

At first, he has enough sense to keep his distance.

These males are twice his size.

The lowranking chimps retreat before the troop leaders arrive at the water hole.

Dominant males have a highly stressful life

as they constantly squabble to protect their position.

The youngster can't take his eyes off them.

This is his chance to get himself noticed.

If he can impress even one of the big males with a show of

strength,

he might just be accepted into their ranks.

His best attempt at a macho display has certainly caught their attention,

but they are not impressed.

In fact, this drumming means they're getting rather angry and they attack.

The youngster is not quick enough.

He gets a short sharp lesson about how hard it can be to break

into this close-knit gang.

He's lucky to escape with just an injured hand.

For the moment, he's neither big enough nor strong enough to be taken seriously

by the troop leaders.

Without status, he will never enjoy the privileges of the best food

or the attention of females.

Losing its fear of humans has enabled one animal to spread into cities everywhere

and in huge numbers.

Pigeons are by far the most successful urban bird.

Here in Albi in the south of France,

the pigeons come to the river to bathe.

They need to prein their flight feathers, clean off the city dust,

and cool themselves down.

But death lies in weight.

A predator that has taken advantage of the very thing

that has led to the pigeon's success. their lack of fear.

As the pigeons bathe, oil from their plumage flows downstream and is detected.

A monstrous Wells catfish. introduced here just 40 years ago.

They have proliferated, virtually exterminated the local fishtocks,

and they've now developed a taste for pigeon.

Their eyesight is poor,

so they use their barbles to sense the movements of their victims.

Heat.

Heat.

Heat up here.

This is a radical new hunting strategy for what is normally a bottomdwelling fish.

After a thousand years of living in this city,

pigeons are now having to learn to avoid a fish.

A lone gravis zebra.

He weighs close to half a ton

and could go for 3 days without drinking.

Like the macaks, his forebears were refugees from the advancing Sahara.

The land is scrubby and dry.

But this stallion has claimed it as his own.

He's been waiting months for visitors.

Female visitors.

If they like his territory, they might stay a while.

It's his first chance to mate for a very long time.

Hardly a success.

Perhaps his visitors are looking for a more impressive partner.

There's another setback.

The females were being followed.

A posy of young males.

Everyone arrival.

It's time to separate the men from the boys.

One by one, the stallion seized them off.

The females had ringside seats and his prowess has not gone unnoted.

Machismo gives way to tenderness around here.

You have to take every opportunity be it for food,

for water or for mates.

Female gravies are a fickle bunch.

The herd have decided to move on.

All of them.

The stallion may never see them again,

but there's a chance that one is now carrying his fo.

In a far corner of Southeast Asia lies the coral triangle,

a cluster of the richest coral reefs in the world.

Undersea cities crammed full of life.

As in any crowded metropolis, there is fierce rivalry for space, for food,

and for a partner.

But the reef is also a place full of opportunity.

A cuttlefish.

It specializes in hunting crabs.

But a large crab is a dangerous quarry.

It has powerful claws.

The cuttlefish, however, has a remarkable talent.

Its skin contains millions of pigment cells with

which it can create ever changing colors

and patterns.

And that apparently hypnotizes the crab.

A cuttlefish may be clever, but a shark is bigger and it eats cuttlefish.

Time to disappear.

Back to the hunt.

A new target, but the same memeing technique.

For those that manage to establish themselves in these bustling undersea cities,

there can be great rewards.

This is a poison dart frog.

Males raise their young in a very special way.

A father will place each one of his tadpoles in its own tiny pool

of water.

This is one.

Nice and safe.

He might have up to five other tadpoles,

but he needs to remember where he put each one of them.

This one isn't doing so well.

Its tiny puddle has all but dried out.

The tadpo will die unless its father can find a better place for it.

If dads are good for one thing, it's piggyback rides.

Fathers are no bigger than a human thumbnail,

but this enables them to get to places that others can't.

This could be perfect.

The only problem is that there's no food here.

Fathers need help.

Somewhere in this forest is mom.

A female could do something a male cannot.

But first, dad must lead his partner to their hungry tadpole.

and mother deals with the problem.

She lays a single unfertilized egg. and her tadpole gets a much needed meal.

For the next 6 weeks, parents continue their rounds.

An extraordinary test of teamwork and memory.

Sailfish 3 m long are closing in on prey.

They will only use just enough energy to make their kill,

never wasting a fin stroke.

Nearly 100 sailfish have surrounded a single school of bait fish.

It's very rare to see so many of these hunters in one place.

To herard their prey, the predators raise their huge dorsal fins.

A mistimed strike by one sailfish could fatally damage another,

but each continually changes its color from blue to striped to black.

That warns its companions of its intentions and also confuses the prey.

As the shaw is driven nearer the surface,

it comes within the range of the seabirds.

Out here in the open ocean,

there is nowhere for the bait fish to hide.

Eat.

Sailfish live a high octane life.

To survive, they must find prey daily.

So, their entire existence will be spent on the move.

And many animals here choose the simplest option of all,

staying hidden all day and only venturing out in the cool of the night.

As darkness falls, animals appear from seemingly nowhere.

And among them inevitably are hunters.

One of the most voracious nocturnal predators is also one of the hardest to

see.

This mysterious creature hardly ever appears on the surface of the dunes.

But there are signs on the sand that can give it away.

It lives only here where the sand grains are

so perfectly dry and polished

that they flow almost like water.

It's no bigger than a pingpong ball, a golden mole.

It's totally blind, but there's nothing to see underground anyway.

Instead, it has superb hearing.

Its entire head acts as an amplifier that picks up vibrations through the sand.

So to locate prey on the surface of the dune,

it has paradoxically to thrust its face into the dune.

Termites not easy to catch when you're blind.

Far better to go into stealth mode.

Once below the sand, it can detect the slightest movement,

allowing it to strike with pinpoint accuracy.

Well, most of the time.

It can travel a kilometer a night in search of its dinner.

And right now, it has just detected its main course.

Little wonder is sometimes called the shark of the dunes.

Lizards, for the most part, are not known for being caring parents,

but there are exceptions.

It's spring in the woodlands of North America.

An American robin is nesting,

warming her eggs with the heat generated by her own body.

And below on the forest floor,

a five lined skink is warming her cold blooded body by basking in the

sunshine so that she can do the same thing.

She has a nest below the lock.

It can get quite chilly in these woodlands

and she warms her eggs by transferring to them the heat

that she's collected from the sun.

She takes just as much care of her eggs as the robin does.

A month later and her eggs are hatching.

The robin's eggs have hatched, too.

Her nestlings are helpless. and need constant feeding.

The young skinks, however, are already capable of finding food for themselves.

Within a day or so,

they've left their mother and are independently exploring the woodland floor for themselves.

Back in the Australian rainforest,

this weaver ant fortress sits at the heart of a rich territory.

Hunting parties go out to gather food to fuel their growing numbers.

Some canopy caterpillars are not killed but farmed by the ants.

They exude a sugary secretion that the ants collect.

In return, the ants mount a guard to protect the caterpillar wherever it goes.

But a successful colony inevitably attracts enemies.

This jumping spider's body shape resembles that of an ant.

A disguise good enough to fool these nursery guards.

It's after one of the colony's most valuable assets, the grubs.

In a colony numbering tens of thousands, a single grub is an insignificant loss.

But the rich territory of a successful colony draws more destructive enemies.

Raiders from a neighboring weaver ant colony looking to expand their own empire.

Invaders are quickly spotted.

The guard releases pherommones to alert the rest of the colony.

They stream out of the nest to defend their home.

If the home defenses fail, the colony will be wiped out.

Some of the defenders deploy their most potent weapon.

They squirt formic acid.

The stinging liquid halts the invaders in their tracks.

And now the home guard can go on the offensive.

Home and territory are secure once again.

A colony may lose many workers in defense of its home,

but their sacrifice helps safeguard the next generation.

It's now midsummer, and the sun is shining at full strength.

The increasing warmth is the cue for an Atlantic lobster to start on a

long journey.

She spent the winter 250 m down far beyond the reach of the storms,

but it was cold down there and now she needs to find warmer water.

So she's marching towards the shallows.

They however are 150 kilome away.

After a month of walking, she finally arrives at her favorite sandbank.

But she's not the first here.

Dozens of other lobsters have already dug themselves homes in the sand,

and they don't intend to surrender them to newcomers. size counts for everything in

these battles.

The new arrival is in urgent need of a pit.

And since she weighs a hefty 7 kilos,

she stands a good chance of getting one.

She's won.

These battles continue for the next two months,

and they're crucial for the females must have both shelter

and warm water if they're to raise their young.

For the last 7 months,

each of these females has been carrying around about 20,000 fertilized eggs.

But their task is approaching its end.

The warmth of the shallows is speeding the egg's development.

Two more months and the eggs are ready to hatch.

At first, they're not very good at swimming, but within a few minutes,

the babies are able to set off in a purposeful way.

This is one of them.

From the purposeful way in which he's walking,

it's clear that the search for prey has started.

The other members of the team are not far away.

They've been steadily following the monkeys for about 20 minutes, looking for an opportunity.

The technique they'll almost certainly use is

that one of them will be driving the colibus ahead of him.

Then there will be others

that go up on either side who are the blockers who won't make any

attempt to catch the monkeys.

And then there are chasers who go

and grab at the monkey

if they can.

And finally there's one male who will go up ahead and ambush it.

So, uh, bringing the whole trap close.

The monkeys are now getting alarmed.

A driver is going up to prevent the group from settling

and to drive them towards an area where they're more easily trapped.

That's That's one of the blockers that's now quietly come ahead of the colibus.

He's halfway up the tree now.

He's deliberately making himself conspicuous.

Now it looks as though they're all in position.

The driver's gone up.

The blockers have gone up.

And now the one who's going to make the ambush and close the ring,

he's gone up too.

Calibus will be very lucky if they escape now.

They got one.

The hunters are tearing it apart.

Everyone, the hunters in the trees

and the spectators on the ground are screaming with excitement.

And now the kill is brought down

so that the females

and others can share it.

And there's the reward for that long chase.

The divided body of a colibus monkey.

These bloodstained faces may well horrify us,

but we might also see in them the face of our long-distant hunting ancestors.

And if we are appalled by that mob violence and blood lust,

we might also see in

that too perhaps the origins of the teamwork

that have in the end brought human beings many of their greatest triumphs.

This is the South African dwarf chameleon, a male in full courtship costume.

This somewhat less colorful is a female.

She is not welcoming his advances.

As her mood darkens, so does her skin.

She's driven him away.

But why?

There is a reason she's pregnant.

Her home, the South African Cape, can get quite cold.

So instead of laying her eggs on the ground, as most chameleons do,

she retains them within her body

and warms them by seeking out the sunniest places

and sunbathing.

Now they're ready to emerge alive.

Producing babies in the branches might seem to be a risky business,

but the membrane enclosing each one will stick to a twig

if it hits one.

And when at last the babies disentangle themselves,

they immediately deploy their formidable chameleon grip.

Heat.

Heat.

By the time they are properly dried out,

the babies are as much at home in the branches as their mother.

Out here on the sand flats, there is safe accommodation for some.

A family of saddleback clown fish have found an excellent home.

The tentacles of this carpet anemone can kill,

but the clown fish are immune to the poison.

so they can shelter from danger.

In return, the fish keep the anemone clean of debris.

As with all clown fish, the family is ruled by a big female.

Her white face marks her out as the boss.

The dimminitive male has to prove his worth,

so he works tirelessly removing debris and generally keeping on top of the housework.

His greatest challenge is to find a safe place where the boss can lay

her eggs.

But there's nothing solid here for the female to lay them on.

A nearby shell could be the solution.

If only he can move it to the protection of the anemone. too heavy.

Besides, it has a mind of its own.

Hermit crab.

But out here, twice a day, the anemone is swept by tidal currents,

and they bring in new opportunities.

An old plastic bottle.

Perhaps this will do.

Not heavy enough. a coconut shell.

It looks just right,

but it's a long way from home. and he can't move it by himself.

So the pair now work together.

A little adjustment to the anemmonous tentacles in order to clear a space for

it.

And the shell is tucked in.

The female lays.

A safe nursery at last.

He has proved himself worthy to father her young and he fertilizes them.

Now he will meticulously tend the eggs,

keeping them clean and healthy until they hatch.

In 10 days time, 60 million tons of snow now blanket this herd's territory.

Pushing through deep snow is exhausting work and the bison are now slowly starving.

Just keeping warm saps huge amounts of energy.

Their thick coats can insulate them down to minus30.

It's now -40.

The only thing that will keep them alive is buried beneath a meter of

snow.

And that's a problem shared with a surprising neighbor.

The food the fox seeks is also deep beneath the snow.

The survival of both creatures depends on getting through to the ground.

For the bison, it will be a matter of brute strength.

Massive neck muscles enable them to shovel five tons of snow a day.

Their lightweight neighbor needs more precision.

The bison have reached their goal, a mouthful of withered grass.

And where the bison have dug, the fox now spots an opportunity.

Every footstep counts, but he mustn't break through yet.

He listens carefully to pinpoint his target.

It's moving.

A vole, small, but 100 times more nutritious than a mouthful of dried grass.

to get through the winter on these prairies.

Sometimes brain beats brawn.

A kilometer from the surface beyond the reach of the sun.

A giant black void larger than all the rest of the world's habitats combined.

There's life here, but not as we know it.

Alien-like creatures produce dazzling displays of light.

Nearly all animals need to attract mates and repel predators.

This language of light is

so widespread here that these signals are probably the commonest form of communication on

the entire planet.

And yet we still know little about them.

Hunters illuminate themselves and by doing so attract inquisitive prey.

This is fang tooth.

It has the largest teeth for its size of any fish.

There are precious sensors all over its head

and body which can detect anything moving in the surrounding water.

It's the midnight zone's most feracious fish.

But prey use light as a distraction, a decoy of luminous ink.

Down here in this blackness, creatures live beyond the normal rules of time.

Siphonophores are virtually eternal.

They repeatedly clone themselves, some eventually growing longer than a blue whale. down here.

It snows.

Continuous clouds of organic debris drift slowly down from above.

This is food and a whole variety of filter feeders depend on it.

Jellyfish and delicate sea cucumbers.

The 1% of marine snow they miss eventually settles on the sea floor.

Over millions of years,

it forms a layer of mud. up to a kilometer thick.

It's an empty plane that covers half the surface of our planet.

The deep seaed may at first appear lifeless,

but it's home to a unique cast of mud dwellers.

The sea toad.

It is an ambush predator with an enormous mouth and infinite patience.

This fish has been living for

so long here that its fins have changed into something more useful. feet.

They help it shuffle about on the seafloor.

The flapjack octopus.

It hovers just above the surface of the mud

as it delicately sifts through it,

searching for worms.

But it can jet away at the first sign of danger.

In the underwater forests of northern Japan,

the residents of this sunken wreck are waiting for the summer temperatures to reach

16° C.

That for some is the time for mating.

A kind of giant rass called a cobodi.

This is a male and in female terms he is particularly handsome.

He's a meter long

and weighs 15 kilos. much larger than the dimminative female

and he is ready to breed.

He attempts to mate with her

and with any of the other dozen

or so females that live in his territory whenever he gets the chance.

But females from around 10 years old take little notice of his advances.

This is because when any large female reaches a critical body size,

she can begin a dramatic transformation.

Over just a few months,

particular enzymes inside her body cease to work and male hormones start to circulate.

As time passes, her head expands and her chin gets longer.

A she has changed into a he.

And with this comes a change in temperament.

The old male who ruled all the females here is challenged to a face

off.

The more bulbous the head, the more it intimidates an opponent.

The territory has a new ruler.

Only the largest females transform themselves in this way.

But the change enables them to have more mates.

So they will have many more offspring carrying their genes.

But a new male can't afford to be complacent.

Inside the body of every coai female, there is a new male in waiting.

Christmas Island in the Indian Ocean.

For millions of years, this remote speck of land has been ruled by crabs.

Their ancestors came from the sea, but most have now adopted a landbased existence.

Given there are so many of them, they get along relatively harmoniously.

They're the gardeners and caretakers of a tiny crab utopia.

Once a year, they must all return to the sea to breed.

And the March of the Red Crabs is one of the greatest natural spectacles

on Earth.

There are 50 million of them.

It's an event that has brought the island worldwide fame.

But in recent years, millions of red crabs haven't managed to reach the sea.

An invader has occupied this island.

Yellow crazy ants.

They escaped from visiting ships and with no predators to control them,

they have now created fast super colonies in the forest.

When migrating red crabs march into their territory, the ants attack,

squirting acid into the crab's eyes and mouths.

The crabs have no defense.

Blinded and confused, they're doomed.

Humans brought these ant invaders here and now humans are having to control them.

Isolated communities may evolve for millions of years in relative peace,

but when new challenges arrive, they can struggle to cope.

Of all the species that have become extinct in recent years,

around 80% have been islanders.

This tiny poison arrow frog is carrying his tadpole pig.

It hatched on a leaf

and now he's taking it to a pool in a bromeilad high up in

the branches.

The tadpole wiggles off.

He may have half a dozen babies,

each of which he puts into its own tiny pool.

He makes regular tours of all his nurseries, checking on his tadpole's welfare.

This youngster is hungry

and tells him so by nibbling his legs

and vibrating against his body.

But the male can't feed the tadpole himself.

He needs help.

He has to find a female.

There she is.

He calls.

And she follows He has to lead for only he knows exactly where he

deposited each tadpole.

This one is now very hungry indeed.

He calls to the female encouragingly. tree jumps in perhaps to assess the situation.

Out she comes without having done what's required.

So he keeps calling.

In she goes a second time.

This time she produces food for the hungry tadpole.

An infertile egg.

There out she comes and mother and father embrace.

Baby has its dinner.

They're setting off on the greatest overland trek made by any animal.

But wherever grass eaters travel, predators lie in wait.

Here they are.

Arctic wolves.

They must seize their chance while the caribou pass through their territory.

The wolf runs at the herd trying to flesh out the weak

or the slow.

A calf is separated.

At full tilt, 60 km an hour.

The Wolf is just faster.

But the calf has stamina. only a few weeks old

and this calf's will to survive is remarkable

and it needs to be for these young caribou have now started a journey

that will last a lifetime.

Forever chasing the seasonal growth of the grass on which they depend.

Like all grassland creatures,

they are at the mercy of these unpredictable but ultimately bountiful lands.

Grass can survive some of the harshest conditions on Earth, flood, fire, and frost,

and still flourish.

So it is that grasslands provide a stage for the greatest gatherings of wildlife

on planet Earth.

This far ant has reached the edge of her known world.

Her way forward has now become blocked by the rising waters.

She's one of many.

And in a few minutes, their underground home will be submerged.

Forced to evacuate, workers and soldiers try to save the lawful young.

As their nest floods, the colony seems to be doomed.

But from chaos comes order.

The far ants band together, each locking legs with its neighbors.

They're building a living raft.

Each ant is covered in fine hairs that trap air against its body.

As the raft forms,

this air creates a cushion for them all to float on.

This is the power of the colony.

By working together, they've become unsinkable, and no one gets left behind.

Pulled from the shallows, the colony is now at the mercy of the flood.

Holding tight to the lvi

and keeping their queen hidden at the center of the raft,

the colony drifts into deeper water. where they're vulnerable to fish

that now swim through the flooded forest.

Those that lose their grip must get back to the safety of the raft.

Now, a few females appear.

They're much bigger than the males, and warming will take them longer.

She releases a scent, a pheromone that attracts the males.

They outnumber her 100 to one.

To speed her own return to activity, she will absorb heat from them.

Intoxicated by her scent, the males compete for her, wrapping themselves around her.

She now has hundreds of males on top of her, making mating near impossible.

But she has a way of weeding out the men from the boys.

She'll make a daring ascent of the nearby cliff.

She barges her way through the crowd to get to the rock face.

As she climbs, only the strongest, fittest males can keep up with her.

Heat.

Heat.

She's made it to the top.

Only a few of her suitors have managed to rise to the occasion,

and she may reward them all.

The rare and wonderful golden frog.

It does have a voice, but it's not loud.

Individual males set up their territories beside the river

and then wait for females to turn up.

And since good positions for the territory are not common,

they may have to hold them against intruders.

And here one comes.

Just in case his call is inaudible,

he makes his message clear with a wave.

And his rival waves back.

He repeats his message so there's no misunderstanding.

But rival is not deterred.

Well, that makes things perfectly clear.

Another arrives.

Perhaps at last this is a female.

No, it's another male.

So, there will have to be a wrestling match.

That should teach him.

And his rival signals submission by keeping his head down.

Now, where are those females?

And here she is.

She is pure unblenmished gold and much bigger than he is.

A finch, a female.

Its ancestors, doubtless, were blown here by storms many centuries ago.

Like most finches, they feed on seeds, nectar, and insects.

But there's little food of any kind on wolf.

And since they aren't strong enough flyers to leave the island,

they've had to find food from a very unusual source.

They depend on another of the island's inhabitants, Nazca boobies.

Every day, these seabirds commute between the island

and their fishing grounds out in the open ocean.

Each time a pair meet,

they renew their bond and then catch up with the neighbors.

Now is the time to hop into action. blood.

They are vampire finches.

These little birds have become one of the world's newest species.

She cuts the quill of a large flight feather and the blood flows.

The sight of it attracts the attention of others.

Blood is very nutritious, worth fighting for.

So with this neverending supply of food,

the vampire finches can flourish on an island where otherwise they could not survive.

Why the boobies don't object, nobody knows.

Perhaps the fish's behavior started

when they helped the boobies to remove parasites from their plumage.

Maybe the boobies think that the little vampires are still providing a service.

Who can tell?

In just 3 weeks, half a million calves are born on these ashri plains.

That's 24,000 a day.

A thousand an hour.

Calves stand up within a few minutes of being born,

though some need a little more time to find their feet.

But a mother won't let her calf suckle until it's mastered a few physical

skills,

walking, trotting, and running.

Wilderbeast calves must run if they're to stay alive.

For these planes also support the greatest assembly of hunters on the planet.

Each species has its own special hunting technique,

but all have the same aim. to make the most of this brief super

abundance of life.

Heat.

Heat.

Only one in 10 wilderbeast calves will survive to adulthood.

But that is enough to maintain the million strong herd of wilderbeast.

and the planet's highest density of predators,

a little red flying fox.

Their ancestors flew here,

traveling along the chain of volcanic islands that links Asia to Australia.

But their huge wings, which stretch from their fingers to their toes,

make it difficult for them to walk or take off from the ground.

So when they want to rest, they hang upside down in trees.

But the bats have to drink every day

and they do so on the wing.

They swoop just low enough to wet their bellies

and then back in their roosts they will suck out the water.

Each evening 10,000 of them come here.

Not all of them return.

Every 2 m of river there is a crocodile.

They were here long before the bats.

Survivors from Australia's prehistoric past.

These dramas have been taking place for millions of years.

Aerial agility versus patience and deadly speed.

Australia's forests are hostile places in which to make your home.

St.

Andrews Beach is one of the most crowded on the planet

and so holding a territory here is a constant battle.

This bull elephant seal holds the mating rights to 60 females.

For 2 months, he's guarded this stretch of beach.

Unable to feed, he's losing 10 kilos a day, and he's exhausted.

But other bulls are lying around waiting their chance. hey, Hey,

Lubber 15 cm thick is protection against the cold

but not from the impact of a 4 toner opponent.

He holds his ground and forces the intruder back out to sea.

Life in the Antarctic is harsh indeed.

But all these creatures come here

because the Southern Ocean is one of the richest on Earth. 3 weeks ago,

these mile wide sand bars didn't exist.

In another 3 months, they'll be back underwater.

But now, they provide a crucial opportunity for giant river turtles.

They've been coming here at precisely this time of year for generations. 50,000 of

them,

a quarter of the world's population.

They're all here for one reason, but their window of opportunity is short,

so timing is everything.

Scaling the 3 m high banks will take this female higher

and drier than she's been for months.

She's come here to lay her eggs, but others have beaten her to it.

The early arrivals have already claimed nearly every inch of the beach,

and there are still many more turtles to come.

Whenever she turns, the space is taken.

But being fashionably late does have an advantage.

Had she arrived earlier,

her eggs might have been dug up by those searching for somewhere to lay.

She's found her spot.

Settling down, she lays nearly 100 eggs.

Burying them keeps them safe from predators, and the warm sand incubates the clutch.

They must hatch before the river rises again and floods the sand bar.

Any turtles that lay after her may have left it too late.

Hopefully Sheen has got her timing right.

Two months on and the hatchings emerge into the world.

They were laid at the perfect time.

Hundreds scramble for the river just as the water starts to rise.

Those still to hatch aren't so lucky.

A baby North American painted turtle.

It and the rest of its clutch have only just hatched.

But it's late in the year and the chill of winter has already begun.

If the hatchlings clambled out of their hole now,

they would find nothing to eat.

So they stay where they are.

The temperature will fall to -10°.

Ice crystals grow around the babies and even inside their bodies,

but their tissues are protected by a kind of antifreeze.

This would kill any mammal or bird.

They remain in this deep freeze for up to 6 months.

But spring comes at last.

The ice melts around them and eventually within them.

Slowly they begin to come to life.

It takes quite a time for them to become fully functional,

but eventually they're ready to face the outside world.

So by allowing their bodies to cool, they have avoided the hard times.

With the arrival of spring, their parents are now preparing to breed again.

The male courts the female by gently strumming her cheeks with his long claws.

and she responds.

Cold blood is clearly no barrier to affection.

In fact, reptiles can conduct

as complex and as sensitive a courtship

as many a mammal.

Off the south coast lies by far the biggest of them, Tasmania.

And that has its own special marsupial, one that seldom appears until after dark.

The Tasmanian devil.

Many predators inhabit a territory packed with prey,

but here there's nothing like that for them.

Each may travel for miles, night after night,

prepared to eat anything it can find, dead or alive.

The shoreline is a good place to search.

There might be some small creatures to catch here

or maybe something that the tide has brought in.

The carcass of a walabe has been washed ashore.

Tasmanian devils can eat 40% of their body weight in one session.

And they have hugely powerful jaws.

They tackle everything, even bones.

Back at the den, there are other hungry mouths.

Her two youngsters are 6 months old.

They still rely on their mother's milk, but they're feeling peckish.

There must be something solid they could find for themselves

while they're waiting for a drink.

Is this food?

That psum smells tasty, but it's a little high up.

This looks more promising.

At last, a giant stick.

Not bad for a first go.

Their mother will protect and feed these youngsters for another 3 months.

Their survival is important to her,

but also for us

because these are one of the last devil families in the world.

Tasmanian devils are now endangered, found in only a few places,

such as this remote island off the coast of Tasmania.

The oceans around southern Asia are also feeling this pressure.

These seas feed billions of people around the world.

For many fishermen here, their catch is their only source of livelihood.

And there is one fish here that they prize above all others.

The whale shark.

It swims slowly, gently harvesting the plankton.

It's almost 20 m long, the largest fish in the world.

They are also under threat.

Like many shark species in Asia,

populations have declined by more than half in recent years.

They are an easy and valuable catch.

But here there is a respect for the seas and their inhabitants.

Whale shark hunting has now been banned across Indonesia's waters.

This whale shark plays a different part in the lives of these fishermen.

They feed him and the relationship seems to bring joy to both parties.

And with this new protection has come something truly remarkable.

Whale sharks from far away are seeking out these fishermen.

And in these safe waters, there is a chance for their numbers to increase.

And maybe one day other shark species will be protected too.

The people here have made a simple but extraordinary choice.

Fishing in a way that is sustainable for themselves and the animals.

Caring for wildlife is surely our shared responsibility across this vast continent

and across the world.

It is decisions like these

that are key to protecting the planet's most precious diversity.

Mother is after eggs, but getting them is not going to be easy.

The geese will risk their lives to protect their eggs.

If they lose them, they can't produce another clutch this season.

The fox wins.

She gives the first eggs to her young pups

and then heads back for more.

Some of the eggs she stashes away.

They will be food to help her through the coming winter.

In just 3 weeks, she will steal over 800 eggs from the geese.

But eating a big egg is not easy if one is rather small.

It's a technique the pups haven't quite yet cracked.

Mom shows how it's done.

Termites, an important source of protein, but perhaps they are an acquired taste.

He's off to search for something he might prefer.

It's hard to know where to look.

Or where it's safe to clamber.

Different levels in the forest contain different foods,

and some of the most delicious are in the very highest parts of the

canopy,

50 m above the ground.

He's a couple of years old and he's already getting adventurous.

His mother could climb right to the top in 10 minutes

or so if she wanted to,

but she lingers to keep an eye on him.

A fall from this height could be fatal.

Where the gaps between the branches are too wide for him,

his mother lets him use her body as a bridge.

Only 10 m to go before the top,

but it's hard going for small hands.

He's had enough.

Time for a rest with mother.

And this is his reward.

Ripe mangoes, sweet and juicy.

There's so much he must learn.

He will depend entirely on his mother until he's seven.

It's the longest of all childhoods except ours.

A leopard gecko.

It, like most geckos, is nocturnal,

and it manages to get all the heat it needs from the rocks,

which retains something of their warmth for several hours after the sun has set.

This male is in search of a mate.

She is less brightly colored.

They inspect one another.

He collects her scent with his tongue

and discovers that not only is she female,

but she's sexually available.

He's interested.

He nibbles her neck and strokes her flanks.

All part of his elaborate courtship routine. population begins.

This is the time in mammals

and birds when the sex of the young is determined,

but not in a number of reptiles, including geckos.

Once again, it's temperature that profoundly influences their lives.

The female goes away to lay her eggs.

She has chosen a place where the temperature is about 31°.

As her body is the same temperature as her environment,

she can't heat her eggs by sitting on them as warm-blooded birds do.

So, they're exactly the same temperature as the rocks beneath.

After a couple of months, both eggs begin to hatch.

The first to emerge is a male and the second will be two.

It's the temperature which has determined

that if it had been a few degrees lower both eggs would have developed

into females. not Much remains of the porcus after the whales are through with

it.

Killer whales don't just target prey smaller than themselves.

Off the coast of California,

a grey whale and her baby are in serious danger.

Once again, computer images give the underwater view of an extraordinary hunt.

The grey whale calf is just a few weeks old.

It's following its mother north towards the summer feeding grounds in Alaska.

They've reached Mterrey Bay, where a deep trench cuts in from the sea.

As they move beyond the trench wall, the grey whales lose their cover.

Out in the bay, the killer whales are listening for that telltale sound,

the breathing of a great whale.

Immediately, their behavior changes.

The killers close ranks like a hunting wolf pack.

The killer whales have caught up with the mother and calf.

And now the chase is on.

The grey whales try to outswim their attackers.

Fast swimming pushes up the grey whales breathing rate.

A breathless calf is easier to catch.

The killers work as a team.

Their first goal is to separate the baby from its mother.

The grey whale mother is a formidable adversary.

She could seriously harm a killer whale with just one slap of her massive

tail fluke.

One of the attackers pushes between mother and calf.

The strategy is working.

The grey whales are forced apart.

With the baby separated, the killer whales change strategy.

Now their goal is to drown the calf.

A snow leopard, the rarest of Himalayan animals.

It's a female returning to her lair.

These are the first intimate images of snow leopard ever filmed in the wild.

She greets her one-year-old cub.

Her den is well chosen.

It has exceptional views of the surrounding cliffs.

On these treacherous slopes,

no hunter other than a snow leopard would have a chance of catching such

agile prey.

A female with young makes an easier target.

Her large paws give an excellent grip.

And that long tail helps her balance.

Silently she positions herself above her prey.

She returns with nothing.

Here there are other challenges.

St.

Andrews Bay on South Georgia is packed with half a million king penguins.

In spring, the chicks are left for days whilst their parents are away collecting

food for them.

There is a simple arrangement.

The chicks must stay exactly where their parents left them to be sure of

being found again.

But this chick has decided to look around.

There is a lot to be investigated.

Heat.

Heat.

But it must not stray too far from its meeting place.

This parent has returned with food in its crop.

But its chick isn't where it left it.

It's hard to stay put when there's so much to play with.

Elephant seals are here too.

Very mysterious.

Finding it in the crowd of youngsters is not going to be easy.

They must recognize each other by their calls.

But to hear these in such a noisy colony,

they must be within 15 m of each other. reunited.

This is a South American redeyed tree frog. a close match for the leaves

on which it habitually sits.

The eggs are not very conspicuous either, just little blobs in transparent jelly.

And they're always laid over water.

They develop very rapidly.

In less than a week, they've become recognizable tadpoles, almost ready for freedom.

Then the jelly liquefies and they simply drop into the water beneath.

But some don't survive long enough to do so.

Wasps raid the cluster and carry off the unhatched tadpoles to feed their young.

But the tadpoles are not entirely helpless.

By the time they're 5 days old, they know when they're under attack.

And what's more, they can do something about it.

There.

Quick wrigle and a tadpole drops to safety.

The alarm spreads quickly through the whole cluster and they all take a dive.

Their tails are not yet fully developed,

but they can swim well enough to take refuge beneath the leaves of the

water plants.

So, if there's a choice between being carried off by a wasp

and taking an early bath,

there's no competition.

To help her in her quest, she's equipped with three superpowers.

First, an amazing approach to getting about.

Porsche is a jumping spider able to leap up to 50 times her own

body length.

Nowhere seems beyond her reach.

Next, her second superpower.

Superb eyesight.

Essential if she's to distinguish her prey in all this clutter.

Because her prey doesn't stray.

Porsche is a spider eating spider.

This raises a few problems.

Her lunch is three times her size, packed with venom,

and surrounded by a sticky trap.

Mission impossible?

Not at all.

Because of her third superpower, Porsche is a genius.

She can map her world in three dimensions and formulate a plan of attack.

She can have an idea.

The web builder is blind.

It won't have a clue that she's coming.

Right on target and safely behind those fangs.

But a mind as active as Porsches can always do with more brain food.

Here there's no anchor point for the abail.

But Porsche has another idea.

Instead of going to the spider, she will bring the spider to her.

She plucks the strands to imitate struggling prey,

drawing the spider in. to its death.

Here on the coast of Peru,

there are so many seabirds fishing in the offshore waters

that the cliffs are covered in droppings over a meter thick.

Humboldt penguins regard the soft guano

as a good material in

which to dig their nest holes.

But it's a messy business.

It's the breeding season

and more hopeful nesters arrive spotless from swimming in the sea.

Time for the residents to get cleaned up

and catch some fish for themselves

and their chicks. to get to the sea.

They cross the remains of an old nesting ground.

Only 100 m to go.

But the beach is already crowded with sea lions.

They too have come ashore to raise their young

and they don't like being disturbed.

To get through such a minefield needs a bold and courageous leader.

A brave start.

A dead end.

Now he's in trouble.

This is going to need a bit of crowd surfing.

But now all the sea lions aroused.

Getting through them will be tricky.

A cleansing bathe in the ocean.

Well worth the effort.

I'm in Arizona and

that at my feet is a lizard buried in the sand up to its

neck.

Even while it's buried, it can use the sunshine to warm its whole body.

It can control the supply of blood to its head

so that it pools in a cavity behind the eye.

Soon the blood there is

as much as 5° above the temperature of the rest of its body.

Then the animal opens the major blood vessels in its neck

and the hot blood circulates

so that its whole body is thoroughly warmed even

though it's still mostly below ground.

This is a horned lizard and very beautiful too.

This particular species is called the regalhorned lizard

because it has this splendid crown of spikes at the back of his neck.

When he's hidden, they break up the outline of his head

and so you hardly see him at all.

And now in the warmth of my hand and in the sunshine,

I guess he's warmed up quite a lot.

And if I put him down,

he now at last may be able to run for it.

>> And indeed he does.

South African armadillo lizards

which live on these rocky outcrops have a different solution to the problem of

safe sunbathing.

They've turned it into a social activity.

Whole families of them live together in the crevices among the rocks,

and in the morning they all emerge to warm up in the sun.

Of course, there is safety in numbers.

There are lots of eyes to spot danger if it appears.

And when one sunbather takes fright, they all dive for safety.

If a predator is quick, it is possible to grab one.

But even then, an armadillo lizard is not going to be an easy meal.

>> Oh, they have an additional form of defense.

They bite their tails.

The reason they do

that is that it covers up their vulnerable underside

and exposes only these very sharp spiny scales,

which is very good protection against predators like snakes or monguses.

And they stay like this for quite a long time before they're confident enough

to uncurl.

I'll put him down

and see how he does. forest once covered 80% of Europe.

Now only half of it remains. a brown bear. one of only 1,500

that are left in Finland's forests.

Her cubs have recently emerged from their nursery den.

The long summer days means there's plenty of time for play.

With two boisterous cubs, it pays to rest whenever you man.

But their mother must be on her guard.

The cubs have spotted something.

A large male looking for a mate.

The cubs aren't his, so he might try to kill them.

Their cubs are excellent climbers.

And now they're beyond his reach, 15 m up.

Their mother warns him to keep his distance.

But the cubs are coming down too soon.

She can't take any chances.

That was a close call.

Finland's forests give us a glimpse of what Europe was once like.

A land of endless wilderness where large animals roamed far and wide.

The forests of central China, home to the golden snub-nosed monkey.

They will not survive the fast approaching winter unless they stock up on calorier

rich food.

Top of their autumn menu, pine cones.

They grow during the summer sunlight and are rich in fats.

Few are now left and time to gather them is running out.

Dominant males patrol the troop making sure they get the pick of the crop.

As the number of pine cones dwindles, tensions between the rival families increase.

Mere threats between two males may not be enough to settle disputes.

Conflict is in the air.

There's going to be a fight.

Vital food is at stake, so every pine cone is worth fighting for.

The victor and his family enjoy the spoils of war.

The losers get no more than a few dead leaves

and will have fewer energy reserves for the coming winter.

A giant tortoise.

These creatures can float

and live without food

or fresh water for long periods of time.

This isolated atal is the perfect refuge.

Their only enemy is the sun.

Without shade, a tortoise risks being boiled in his shell.

So, after feeding in the cool of the morning

and before the sun becomes too crushingly hot,

they have to find cover.

All of them.

There is very little vegetation,

but caves in the coral rock can provide the shade they so badly need.

He's nearly there.

All that is left is a white knuckle ride to the bottom.

And he's in.

Thousands of others are still out in the sun.

This tree could shade a couple of hundred if they pack tight.

It's bumperto-bumper parking.

Within an hour or so,

all must find shade of some sort if they're to survive. safe.

But the future for Aldabra's tortoises is far from certain.

The climate is changing.

Sea levels are rising.

And Aldabra's tortoises may soon have to find a new refuge or drown.

The water that has kept them safe until now is beginning to dry up.

Each year, in the space of a few short months,

the Yanos is transformed from a flooded paradise to a baking oven.

For some babies, the unrelenting heat

and the lack of water has already been too much.

Any babies that are left alive will certainly die if they stay here.

So, the mother decides to leave.

Calling to her crash, she sets off across the parched land.

In one long cavalcade, they march onwards in search of permanent water.

For the mother, this is certainly exhausting.

For her babies with their tiny legs, it must be a real marathon.

Some start to fall behind, but she stops.

The babies call constantly.

She knows exactly where they all are

and waits until every single one of them has caught up.

Only when all are with her will she set off again.

At last safety.

The babies are close to exhaustion.

Without such devotion from the female,

few if any of these baby cayman would have survived.

And remarkably, most of them aren't even her own.

When parental care was first described in crocodiles,

the reports were dismissed as too extraordinary to be true.

We may call reptiles coldblooded, but they can show great tenderness.

Meadows that only a few weeks ago were buried beneath the snow are now

full of life.

But in these mountains, the good times will not last long.

So the bears must feed as fast as they can.

During the summer months, an adult can put on 180 kilos gorging on plants.

And if they can catch them, a moment or two.

But just now, the bears have something else on their minds.

It's becoming warmer, and the bears are keen to shed their thick winter coats.

Mothers show the cubs what to do about this.

They'll soon catch on.

Some trees, it seems, are particularly suitable for rubbing.

Bears have their favorites and will travel long distances to visit them.

Some itches just have to be scratched.

There are now around 30 bears in this one valley.

As they rub, each leaves an individual and recognizable scent.

So, the tree soon carries a list of who's around,

which might help individuals to avoid a fight.

To best spread their scent, they really have to put their back into it.

Here you are.

But summer is short.

Itches satisfactorily scratched.

It's time to eat.

In a couple of months,

they will have to return to their dens to hibernate.