Continents of Wonder • 2020 • Seven Worlds, One Planet
Also known as "The Best of Seven Worlds, One Planet". The most spectacular moments from the Seven Worlds, One Planet series that highlights the incredible rich and wonderful diversity of life found on our planets seven unique continents. Millions of years ago huge forces ripped apart the Earth's crust, creating seven distinct continents. Over time, each one developed its own remarkable wildlife. We see the extraordinary variety of life found in South America and visit the largest of all continents - Asia, so big it still hides rarely seen creatures. We explore the cities of Europe, full of surprises, and the wilds of Africa, home to the greatest gatherings of animals. We travel to the searing heat of Australia with its weird and wonderful wildlife, and witness the pioneering animals of North America that make the most of every opportunity. Finally, we venture to the frozen wilderness of Antarctica were, on the most hostile continent of all, life manages to thrive against the odds. And we reveal how today the biggest challenge faced by wildlife is the impact of human activity on all seven of our incredible continents.
Seven Worlds, One Planet • 2019 - 2020 • 6 episodes •
Antarctica - the coldest, windiest, most hostile continent. Only the toughest can survive here. From Weddell seals that grind back the ice with their teeth, to colourful starfish carpeting the seabed beneath the ice. Huge colonies of king penguins crowd any ice-free land, and four tonne elephant seals fight for territory on the beach. Life comes here because the ocean that surrounds the continent is incredibly rich. Thousands of penguins, seals, albatross, and over a hundred great whales feast on krill baitballs. However, the ocean here is warming and with that comes an uncertain future. (Number of days filming: 236)
Asia - the most varied and extreme continent - stretching from the Arctic Circle to the equator. Walrus gather in huge numbers in the frozen north and brown bears roam remote Russian volcanoes. This is a world of the rarely seen, from yeti-like monkeys in the mountain forests of China to the most bizarre predator in the baking deserts of Iran. Asia is the largest of all continents but it seems there's not enough space for wildlife. The deep jungles provide sanctuary for the last few Sumatran rhino.
South America - the most species rich continent on Earth. From the volcanoes of the Andes to the world's largest rainforest, the Amazon, animals here must specialise to carve out a niche. In Patagonia, a puma mother draws on a lifetime's experience to catch prey three times her weight. In the cloud forest, rarely seen Andean bears clamber thirty metres into the canopy to find elusive fruit. Poison dart frogs use ingenious methods to keep their tadpoles safe, whilst anacondas stalk capuchin monkeys. At Igauzu, swifts make death-defying flights through one of the biggest waterfalls on Earth.
Australia, a land cast adrift at the time of the dinosaurs. Isolated for millions of years, the weird and wonderful animals marooned here are like nowhere else on Earth. In its jungles a cassowary - one of the most dangerous birds in the world – stands six feet tall. Inland, kangaroos and wombats brave snowstorms and gum tree forests are filled with never-before-seen predators. In its red desert heart, reptiles drink through their skin and huge flocks of wild budgerigars swirl in search of water. On secret islands Tasmanian devils roam and offshore, thousands of sharks gather for a rare event.
This crowded continent hides the most surprising animals in pockets of wilderness. Above Gibraltar, Europe's only primate lives a life of kidnapping and high drama, whilst in the cemeteries of Vienna grave robbing European hamsters do battle with each other. Come nightfall, the Italian mountain villages are the hunting grounds for rarely seen wolves, whilst lynx lurk in the forests of Spain. Deep underground in Slovenia's caves, baby dragons live for up to a hundred years. Meanwhile, on the surface the continent has been developed beyond recognition.
Continents of Wonder
The Great Wild Indoors
Within the quiet confines of your home, wild things are afoot. The great struggle to survive, the drama of life and death, the cold calculation of the hunter and the anxiety of the hunted and it goes on all around you. In the Great Indoors, every corner is a potential lair, every carpet a dense forest, and the wide spaces of your kitchen, an open savannah where the food is abundant, but so is the danger. A number of creatures fly in and get trapped; others may enter to dine and dash, but some will be found nowhere else but safe and sound at home in your home. So when you trap that house spider and decide to set it free outside, you may in fact be dooming it to death in a world it's never known.
S56E12 • The Nature of Things • 2017 • Nature
Surrounded by Blue
Land-based African chameleons and coastal cuttlefish both change color and pattern to hide or to advertise their mood. Both fight to win their mate and shoot out tongues or tentacles to snare their prey.
S1E2 • Greece: The Wild Side • 2021 • Nature
David Attenborough concludes his documentary series with a programme about our closest animal relatives, the intelligent great apes, and finds out how their large brains enabled one of their kind, an upright ape, to go on to dominate the planet. David travels to the forests of Borneo to meet a remarkable orangutan with a passion for DIY and a talent for rowing boats. He shifts continent to Africa and takes part in a special nut-cracking lesson with a group of chimps learning survival skills. He discovers how food - and the ways apes find it - has been key to the evolution of our large brains.
S1E10 • The Life of Mammals • 2008 • Nature
Lake Manyara: National Park
Tanzania's Lake Manyara National Park boasts a number of diverse habitats. From woodland savannas to grassy marshes, the region is a special part of the east African ecosystem and provides a wealth of resources to the wildlife that call it home.
2/6 • Extreme Africa • 2017 • Nature
Our Fragile Planet
In the final film, he reflects on the dramatic impact that humankind has had on the natural world within his own lifetime. He tells the surprising and deeply personal story of the changes he has seen, of the pioneering conservationists with who he has worked - and of the global revolution in attitudes towards nature that has taken place within the last six decades. In a journey that takes him from the London Zoo to the jungles of Borneo, Attenborough reveals what inspired him to become a conservationist. He remembers classic encounters with mountain gorillas, blue whales and the giant tortoise, Lonesome George. These are all characters that have helped to change public attitudes to the natural world.
3/3 • Attenborough: 60 Years in the Wild • 2012 • Nature
Yukon Wild
Every year, thousands of salmon make their way upstream along the nearly 2000-mile-long mighty Yukon River, desperate to reach spawning beds. Eagerly checking their progress is a host of hungry predators, from grizzly bears to bald eagles-all desperate to stock up on protein before the long winter months ahead.
7/8 • Arctic Secrets • 2015 • Nature