Life (UK TV series)
Encyclopedia
Life is a nature documentary series made by BBC television
, first broadcast as part of the BBC's Darwin Season
on BBC One
and BBC HD
from October to December 2009. The series takes a global view of the specialised strategies and extreme behaviour that living things have developed in order to survive; what Charles Darwin
termed "the struggle for existence". Four years in the making, the series was shot entirely in high definition
.
The UK broadcast of Life consists of ten 50-minute episodes. The opening programme gives a general introduction to the series, a second looks at plants, and the remainder are dedicated to the major animal groups. They aim to show common features that have contributed to the success of each group, and to document intimate and dramatic moments in the lives of selected species chosen for their charisma or their extraordinary behaviour. A ten-minute making-of
feature Life on Location aired at the end of each episode, taking the total running time to 60 minutes.
Life is produced by the BBC Natural History Unit
in association with the Discovery Channel
, Skai TV
and the Open University
. The original script, used in the British and Canadian versions of the series, was written and narrated by David Attenborough
.
, just weeks after he took up the post in March 2005. It was reportedly one of the most expensive documentaries ever ordered by the broadcaster, with a budget of £
10 million (though the BBC have never confirmed this figure).
The Natural History Unit's production team includes series producer Martha Holmes
(Life in the Freezer
, The Blue Planet
) and executive producer Mike Gunton
(Galápagos
, Life in the Undergrowth
). Individual episodes were produced by Rupert Barrington, Adam Chapman, Martha Holmes, Neil Lucas, Patrick Morris and Ted Oakes. The specially-commissioned score was composed by George Fenton
and performed by the Band of Life. The opening titles and brand imaging were created by Burrell Durrant Hifle.
In February 2007, Gunton revealed that the BBC were looking for a new narrator for the series owing to Attenborough's imminent retirement. However, later that year it was announced that the veteran narrator would be collaborating on both this series and the forthcoming Frozen Planet
.
New camera technology was used to build on the cinematic techniques first employed in Planet Earth
, notably the pioneering use of stabilised helicopter-mounted cameras. The Life crew succeeded in using gyroscopic stabilisation
to create steady shots from moving vehicles, even on rough terrain, allowing the cameras to track alongside reindeer and elephant herds for the first time. Miniature high-definition cameras were used extensively for the "Insects" programme. In the forests of Mexico
, the crew erected a spider's web of cables in the canopy to give the sense of flying alongside millions of monarch butterflies. In Zambia, they filmed from a hot air balloon to avoid disturbing the huge flocks of straw-coloured fruit bats.
Following recent debate about the use of artifice in natural history programmes, the BBC were more candid about sequences which had not been filmed in the wild. Close-ups of wild clownfish would have disturbed their natural behaviour, so captive animals were filmed in an aquarium at a Welsh university.
Despite the best efforts of the film-makers, some sequences ended up on the cutting room floor. Scientists in Arctic
Scandinavia
had accumulated enough evidence to suggest that golden eagle
s were the main predators of reindeer calves, but an attack had never been witnessed. After two summers tracking the herds in Finland
, cameraman Barrie Britton finally filmed a hunt in full. However, the attack had taken place nearly a mile away, and the footage was too distant to be considered for broadcast.
Some involved highly-specialised hunting behaviour that has only recently been discovered. In the shallow, muddy waters of Florida Bay
, one pod of bottlenose dolphins have learned a unique hunting technique called mud-ring feeding. Aerial photography
shows the lead dolphin circling a shoal of mullet
, flicking its tail flukes to disturb mud on the seabed. The fish trapped inside the mud ring panic and leap out of the water to escape the trap, straight into the waiting mouths of the pod. In Kenya
's Lewa Wildlife Conservancy
, three cheetah brothers have learned to take on prey many times their own size. They are filmed bringing down an ostrich, but also hunt zebra, eland and oryx. A film crew travelled to the Falkland Islands
to follow up reports of an orca that had learned to take elephant seal pups from a nursery pool. On the Indonesia
n island of Rinca, the first footage of komodo dragons hunting a water buffalo corroborated new scientific evidence suggesting the dragons used venom to kill their prey.
Other sequences had previously proved too difficult to film. The humpback whale heat run has been dubbed "the biggest battle on Earth", but the whales move so fast that underwater cameras struggle to keep up. The Life crew used cameras mounted on helicopters and boats along with a team of free-divers
to follow the action. The biggest filming challenge was to show a year in the life of an oak
woodland using timelapse photography. After capturing real-world footage of a Devon
wood, the crew rebuilt the entire scene in a studio in Exeter
and digitally superimposed 96 separate layers of footage to create the final one-minute sequence. The whole project took two years.
Super high-speed cameras capable of shooting up to 8,000 frames each second were used to slow down dramatic action. For the first time, these were used underwater to reveal the hunting behaviour of sailfish. They were also used to show 'Jesus Christ lizards' running on water, the courtship flight of the marvellous spatuletail
and flying fish leaving the water. The first footage showing Antarctic Killer whales hunting a Crabeater seal, but the seal survived.
The pebble toad's strange escape method had been caught on tape for the first time.
and a high-definition simulcast on BBC HD
.
The series was sold to international broadcasters by the BBC's commercial arm, BBC Worldwide
, and marketed under the BBC Earth brand used for all BBC-produced natural history content. The global success of Life was noted as one of the key factors behind BBC Worldwide's record profits in 2010.
The series received its North American premiere on Discovery Channel Canada
on 15 November 2009. In the USA, the series premiered on 21 March 2010 with Attenborough's narration replaced by Oprah Winfrey
reading from a different script tailored to American audiences. Each episode was curtailed in length to accommodate commercial breaks. The behind-the-scenes shorts were dropped for the same reason, and instead were compiled into an eleventh episode.
Life was also acquired by several Latin America
n broadcasters and debuted on 18 March 2010 on Discovery Channel Latin America and Discovery HD Theater, with narration by Colombian singer Juanes
.
In Israel
the series aired on July 2010 as part of the new IBA
channel Channel 1 HD
and it was narrated by Orna Banay.
In Turkey
, the series aired on May 2010 on NTV (Turkey). It was narrated by famous Turkish actor Tuncel Kurtiz
.
In Australia, an edited version (without Life On Location) with Attenborough's narration aired on ABC1
each Sunday at 7:30pm from 25 July 2010.
In Croatia the series aired each Saturday from 2 October 2010 on HRT1
.
The opening episode introduces the series by showing examples of extraordinary feeding, hunting, courting and parenting behaviour from across the animal kingdom and around the globe. In Florida Bay
, bottlenose dolphin
s catch leaping fish as they attempt to escape a corral of encircling mud, whipped up with the lead dolphin’s tail. Other unusual collaborative hunting techniques include three cheetah
s combining to bring down an ostrich
and Antarctic killer whales attacking a crabeater seal
. In Brazil
, tufted capuchin
s have learned to crack open palm nuts by smashing them with rocks. High speed camera
s reveal flying fish taking an aerial route to avoid predatory sailfish
, Venus flytrap
s ensnaring their unwitting victims and two male hippo
s clashing over the territorial rights to a stretch of river. In some species, parents go to great lengths to protect their young. A mother strawberry poison-dart frog
carries each of her six tadpoles high into the rainforest canopy to the safety of a bromeliad pool, then provides them with nutritious unfertilised eggs. A female Giant Pacific Octopus makes the ultimate sacrifice, starving to death as she guards her eggs. On Deception Island, young chinstrap penguin
s are trapped on a beach by ice-strewn seas. Abandoned by their parents, they must reach open water to feed. A lone chick fights its way through the ice, only to be ambushed by a leopard seal
. Life on Location shows how the filmmakers collaborated with a French yachtsman and the Royal Navy
to film Antarctica's top predators.
In the opening sequence, an aerial camera zooms in on a solitary Komodo dragon
from afar. This, states Attenborough, is the last place on Earth still ruled by reptile
s. Though they may seem primitive, reptiles and amphibian
s still thrive thanks to diverse survival strategies. In Venezuela
, a pebble toad evades a tarantula
by free-falling down a steep rock face. The basilisk, nicknamed the Jesus Christ lizard
, can literally run on water and the Brazil
ian pygmy gecko
is so light it does not break the surface. Reptiles are cold-blooded
, and some have developed unusual strategies to absorb heat. Namaqua chameleon
s darken the skin of the side of their body facing the sun. A male red-sided garter snake
masquerades as a female using fake pheromone
s, attracting rival males which help raise its body temperature and thus its chance of breeding. Malagasy collared lizard
s conceal their eggs by burying them, but egg-eating hognose snake
s stake out their favourite laying sites. Niue Island
sea krait
s lay theirs in a chamber only accessible via an underwater tunnel. Other reptiles guard their eggs. Horned lizard
s drive off predators, but larger adversaries such as coachwhip
snakes prompt a different reaction – the lizard plays dead. Komodo dragons prey on water buffalo
in the dry season. They stalk a buffalo for three weeks as it slowly succumbs to a toxic bite, then strip the carcass in four hours. In Life on Location, the Komodo film crew tell of the harrowing experience of filming the dragon hunt.
Intelligence, warm blood and strong family bonds have made mammal
s the most successful group of animals on the planet: they can even survive the Antarctic
winter. Here, a Weddell seal
leads her pup on its first swim beneath the ice. In East Africa, a rufous sengi
uses a mental map of the pathways it has cleared to outwit a chasing lizard. A young aye-aye
takes four years to learn how to find and extract beetle
grubs, food no other mammal can reach. Reindeer
move through the Arctic
tundra
, making the longest overland migration of any animal. Other mammals have evolved different ways of travelling long distances: ten million fruit bat
s congregate at Zambia
's Kasanka
swamps to gorge on fruiting trees. Mammals employ different strategies to find food. At night on the African savannah
, hyena
s force lion
s off a kill through sheer weight of numbers, whilst in the Arctic, dozens of polar bear
s take advantage of a bowhead whale
carcass. Raising young is another important factor in mammals' success. Coati
s and meerkat
s form social groups to share the burden of childcare. A first-time African elephant mother needs the experience of the herd's matriarch to get her young calf out of trouble. The largest animals in the ocean are also mammals. The seas around Tonga
are both a nursery and mating ground for humpback whale
s. A female leads her potential suitors on a chase, the males battling for dominance behind her. Life on Location follows the never-before filmed humpback heat run.
.jpg)
Fish
, the most diverse group of vertebrate
animals, thrive in the world’s river
s, lake
s and ocean
s. Slow-motion footage reveals the behaviour of some of the fastest fish in the sea, sailfish
and flying fish. The latter gather in large numbers to lay their eggs on a floating palm frond, which sinks under the weight. The eggs of weedy sea dragons, found in the shallow waters off southern Australia, are carried by the male. In the fertile seas of the western Pacific, competition is fierce. A sarcastic fringehead
defends its home, an old shell, from a passing octopus
and a rival. In Japan, mudskipper
s have carved a niche on the rich mudflat
s. Freshwater fish
are also featured. Tiny gobies
are filmed climbing Hawaiian waterfalls to colonise the placid pools upstream, while in East Africa, barbels pick clean the skin of the resident hippo
s and feed on their rich dung in return. Wrasse
s perform the cleaning duties on coral reef
s, but jacks
also remove parasites by scratching against the rough skin of silvertip shark
s. Clownfish
, whose life cycle is filmed in intimate detail using macro cameras, are protected by the fronds of an anemone
, but other species seek safety in numbers. A shoal of ever-moving anchovies
proves too difficult a target for sea lion
s. Sometimes, predators have the edge: ragged tooth shark
s are shown attacking sardine
s trapped in shallow waters off South Africa. Life on Location looks at the efforts of underwater cameramen to capture the sailfish and flying fish sequences.
Bird
s, whose feather
s have made them extremely adaptable and enabled them to fly, are the subject of programme five. The courtship flight of the marvellous spatuletail hummingbird
is shot at high speed to slow down its rapid wing beats. The male must rest every few seconds due to the energy needed to display his elongated tail feathers. Lammergeiers, by contrast, soar on mountain thermals with a minimum of effort. A red-billed tropicbird
bringing a meal back to its chick uses aerial agility to evade the marauding magnificent frigatebird
s. Some birds nest in extreme locations to avoid threats from predators. Kenya
's caustic soda lake
s are a perilous environment for a lesser flamingo
chick, while chinstrap penguin
s breed on a volcanic island off the Antarctic Peninsula
. In South Africa, declining fish stocks force Cape gannet
s to abandon their chicks to search for food, presenting great white pelicans with the chance to snatch an easy meal. Feathers can also be used for display. Male sage grouse
square up to one another at their leks, courting Clark's
and Western Grebe
s perform an elaborate ritual to reaffirm their bond and thousands of lesser flamingos move in a synchronised display. Male Birds of paradise show offtheir brilliant plumes in wild courtship displays (some of this footage is from Planet Earth). In West Papua, the small, drab Vogelkop bowerbird
uses a different strategy. The male decorates his bower with colourful jewels from the forest, and uses vocal mimicry to attract the attention of a female. Mating is filmed for the first time, the end result of a long and difficult quest featured in Life on Location.
The sixth episode enters the world of insect
s. By assuming a variety of body shapes and incorporating armour and wings, they have evolved diverse survival strategies and become the most abundant creatures on Earth. In Chile
an Patagonia
, male Darwin’s beetles lock horns and hurl their rivals from the treetops in search of a mate. A damselfly
’s chance to mate and lay eggs can be cut abruptly short by a leaping frog. Monarch butterflies use their wings to power them on an epic migration to their hibernating grounds in the forests of Mexico
’s Sierra Madre. Many insects carry chemical weapons as a form of defence. High-speed cameras show oogpister beetle
s squirting formic acid
into the face of an inquisitive mongoose
and bombardier beetle
s firing boiling caustic liquid from their abdomens. Some insects gain an advantage through co-operation. When an American black bear
destroys a bee
’s nest, the colony survives by carrying their honey to a new site. Japanese red bug
nymphs will move to a different nest if their mother fails to provide sufficient food. In the Australian outback, male Dawson’s bee
s fight to the death over females emerging from their nest burrows. As a result, all will die, but the strongest mate most often. Argentina
’s grasscutter ants form huge colonies five million strong. They feed on a fungus
which they cultivate underground, in nest structures which have natural ventilation. Life on Location documents the Mexico crew’s attempts to rig up aerial camera shots of the awakening monarch butterflies.
Mammals have adopted diverse strategies to hunt their prey and evade predators. As well as revisiting the cheetah and dolphin hunts first shown in episode one, the programme shows how a sure-footed ibex
kid escapes a hunting fox
by bounding across a precipitous mountainside above the Dead Sea
. Slow motion footage reveals the fishing behaviour of greater bulldog bat
s in Belize
and brown bear
s at an Alaska
n river mouth, the latter awaiting the return of spawning salmon. The play-fighting of juvenile stoat
s helps train them to run down prey such as rabbit
s, which are many times their own size. The alpha female of an Ethiopian wolf
pack stays at the den to wean her cubs while other adults hunt rats on the highland plateau. The extraordinary nasal appendage of a star-nosed mole
enables it to hunt successfully underground and, by using bubbles to detect its prey, underwater. A tiger
’s stealthy approach to a group of feeding chital
deer is thwarted when a langur
, watching from above, raises the alarm. The final sequence shows a female killer whale taking elephant seal
pups from their nursery pool in the Falkland Islands
. This is a risky strategy as she could easily become beached in the shallow water. She is the only killer whale known to hunt this way, but her calf shadows her moves, ensuring her knowledge will be passed on. Also close by were the film crew, who reveal how the sequence was shot for Life on Location.
Marine invertebrates, the descendants of one billion years of evolutionary history, are the most abundant creatures in the ocean. In the Sea of Cortez, packs of Humboldt squid
make night-time raids from the deep to co-operatively hunt sardine
s. Beneath the permanent Antarctic sea ice
of McMurdo Sound
, sea urchin
s, red sea star
s and nemertean worms are filmed scavenging on a seal
carcass. A fried egg jellyfish hunts amongst a swarm of Aurelia
in the open ocean, spearing its prey with harpoon-like tentacles. In the shallows off South Australia, hundreds of thousands of spider crab
s gather annually to moult. Many invertebrates have simple nervous systems, but giant cuttlefish
have large brains and complex mating habits. Large males use flashing stroboscopic colours and strength to win a mate, whereas smaller rivals rely on deceit: both tactics are successful. A Giant Pacific Octopus sacrifices her life to tend her single clutch of eggs for six months. As a Pycnopodia
starfish feeds on her remains, it comes under attack from a king crab
. Coral reef
s, which rival rainforests in their diversity, are the largest living structures on Earth and are created by coral polyp
s. Porcelain crab
s, boxer crab
s and orangutan crabs are shown to illustrate the many specialised ways of catching food on a reef. Marine invertebrates have a lasting legacy on land too – their shells formed the chalk
and limestone
deposits of Eurasia
and the Americas. Life on Location documents the recording of Antarctic sea life and the birth of a reef.
Plants endure a daily struggle for water, nutrients and light. On the forest floor where light is scarce, time-lapse
shots show ivies
and creeper
s climbing into the canopy using sticky pads, hooks or coiled tendrils. Epiphyte
s grow directly on the topmost branches of trees. Their bare roots absorb water and trap falling leaves, which provide nutrients as they decompose. Animals can also be a source of food: the sundew traps mosquito
es with sticky fluid, and venus flytrap
s close their clamshell leaves on unwitting insects. Sandhill milkweed
defends itself against feeding monarch caterpillar
s by secreting sticky latex from its leaves. The milkweed endures the onslaught because, like most plants, it produces flowers, and the newly-hatched butterflies pollinate
them. After flowering, brunsvigia
plants in South Africa are snapped off by strong winds, sending their seed heads cartwheeling across the ground. Saguaro cacti
produce succulent fruit to attract desert animals which ingest and disperse their seeds. Some plants have adapted to survive environmental extremes. Dragon's blood tree
s and desert roses thrive on arid Socotra
, and coastal mangrove
trees survive by filtering salt from seawater. Bristlecone pine
s live above 3,000m in North America’s mountains. They have a six-week growing season and can live for 5,000 years, making them the oldest living things on Earth. Grass
es are the most successful of all plants. Of their 10,000 varieties, two cover more land than any other plant: rice and wheat. Life on Location goes behind the scenes of a time-lapse sequence in an English woodland. Because actually growing plants outdoors would prove a challenge to film (with constantly changing conditions) this scene used plants grown in a studio on a bluescreen
duplicating a real outdoor backdrop. The entire process took two years to make.
Intelligence, curiosity and complex societies have enabled primate
s to exploit many different habitats. In Ethiopia
, male Hamadryas baboon
s restore discipline after a skirmish with a rival troop. In Japanese macaque
society, only those members from the correct bloodlines are permitted to use thermal springs in winter; others are left out in the cold. Examples of primate communication include a silverback gorilla
advertising his territory though vocalisations and chest-beating, and the piercing calls of spectral tarsier
s which help keep their group together. In Thailand
's rainforests, lar gibbon
s use song to reinforce sexual and family bonds. By contrast, ring-tailed lemur
s in Madagascar
broadcast sexual signals using scent glands. A young orangutan
's upbringing equips it with all the skills it needs to survive in the forest, including finding food, moving through the canopy and building a shelter. On South Africa's Cape Peninsula
, chacma baboon
s forage kelp beds exposed by the lowest tides for nutritious shark eggs and mussel
s. White-faced capuchin
s collect clam
s in Costa Rica
's coastal mangrove
s, but lack the powerful jaws to pierce the shells. Their solution is to beat the shellfish against trees or rocks, which eventually exhausts the muscle that holds the shell closed. Life on Location follows camerawoman Justine Evans to Guinea
to film tool use in chimpanzee
s. Dextrous hand movements enable them to dip for ant
s and termite
s using plant stems. They have also learned to crack nuts using precise and efficient blows with a stone. One male chimp is filmed sharing his stone with a female.
and followed young volunteers as they go behind the scenes with the Life production team and accompany the film-makers on expeditions in the field. It began airing on 13 October 2009.
narrated by Daniel Craig
.
s in July 2010. These included a nomination for Outstanding Nonfiction Series along with selections in a number of technical categories. The episode "Challenges of Life" went on to win the Outstanding Cinematography for Nonfiction Programming award.
In June 2010, Life won two Rockies at the Banff World Television Festival for best wildlife and natural history programme and best documentary.
In October 2010, Life was awarded the Jury's Special Prize at the Wildscreen Festival
.
, four-disc DVD (BBCDVD3068) and Blu-ray Disc
(BBCBD0055) box sets by 2Entertain on 30 November 2009. Region 1 DVD and Blu-ray Discs of both the BBC and Discovery versions of the series were released on 1 June 2010. In Australia, a Region 4
, four-disc DVD and Blu-ray Disc
was released by ABC DVD/Village Roadshow on 7 October 2010.
A hardcover book written by producers Martha Holmes and Michael Gunton accompanies the television series. Life was published in the UK by BBC Books
(ISBN 9781846076428) on 1 October 2009.
BBC Television
BBC Television is a service of the British Broadcasting Corporation. The corporation, which has operated in the United Kingdom under the terms of a Royal Charter since 1927, has produced television programmes from its own studios since 1932, although the start of its regular service of television...
, first broadcast as part of the BBC's Darwin Season
BBC Darwin Season
The BBC Darwin Season is a series of television and radio programmes commissioned by the BBC to celebrate the bicentenary of the great naturalist Charles Darwin and the 150th anniversary of the publication of his revolutionary book, On the Origin of Species in November, 1859...
on BBC One
BBC One
BBC One is the flagship television channel of the British Broadcasting Corporation in the United Kingdom. It was launched on 2 November 1936 as the BBC Television Service, and was the world's first regular television service with a high level of image resolution...
and BBC HD
BBC HD
BBC HD is a high-definition television network provided by the BBC. The service was initially run as a trial from 15 May 2006 until becoming a full service on 1 December 2007...
from October to December 2009. The series takes a global view of the specialised strategies and extreme behaviour that living things have developed in order to survive; what Charles Darwin
Charles Darwin
Charles Robert Darwin FRS was an English naturalist. He established that all species of life have descended over time from common ancestry, and proposed the scientific theory that this branching pattern of evolution resulted from a process that he called natural selection.He published his theory...
termed "the struggle for existence". Four years in the making, the series was shot entirely in high definition
High-definition video
High-definition video or HD video refers to any video system of higher resolution than standard-definition video, and most commonly involves display resolutions of 1,280×720 pixels or 1,920×1,080 pixels...
.
The UK broadcast of Life consists of ten 50-minute episodes. The opening programme gives a general introduction to the series, a second looks at plants, and the remainder are dedicated to the major animal groups. They aim to show common features that have contributed to the success of each group, and to document intimate and dramatic moments in the lives of selected species chosen for their charisma or their extraordinary behaviour. A ten-minute making-of
Making-of
In cinema, a making-of, also known as behind-the-scenes, is a documentary film that features the production of a film or television program...
feature Life on Location aired at the end of each episode, taking the total running time to 60 minutes.
Life is produced by the BBC Natural History Unit
BBC Natural History Unit
The BBC Natural History Unit is a department of the BBC dedicated to making television and radio programmes with a natural history or wildlife theme, especially nature documentaries...
in association with the Discovery Channel
Discovery Channel
Discovery Channel is an American satellite and cable specialty channel , founded by John Hendricks and distributed by Discovery Communications. It is a publicly traded company run by CEO David Zaslav...
, Skai TV
Skai TV
Skai TV is a Greek TV station, based in Pireus, Athens. It is part of the Skai Group one of the largest media groups in Greece. It was relaunched in its present form on April 1, 2006 in Athens and gradually managed to spread its coverage nationwide. Besides analog over-the-air transmission, it is...
and the Open University
Open University
The Open University is a distance learning and research university founded by Royal Charter in the United Kingdom...
. The original script, used in the British and Canadian versions of the series, was written and narrated by David Attenborough
David Attenborough
Sir David Frederick Attenborough OM, CH, CVO, CBE, FRS, FZS, FSA is a British broadcaster and naturalist. His career as the face and voice of natural history programmes has endured for more than 50 years...
.
Production team
Life was the first series commissioned by the then Network Controller of BBC One, Peter FinchamPeter Fincham
Peter Fincham is a British television producer and executive, currently the Director of Television for the ITV network. He was also formerly the Controller of BBC One, the primary television channel of the British Broadcasting Corporation, until his resignation on 5 October 2007, following...
, just weeks after he took up the post in March 2005. It was reportedly one of the most expensive documentaries ever ordered by the broadcaster, with a budget of £
Pound (currency)
The pound is a unit of currency in some nations. The term originated in England as the value of a pound of silver.The word pound is the English translation of the Latin word libra, which was the unit of account of the Roman Empire...
10 million (though the BBC have never confirmed this figure).
The Natural History Unit's production team includes series producer Martha Holmes
Martha Holmes (broadcaster)
Martha Holmes is a BAFTA award winning BBC Television producer and writer known for her wildlife documentaries.-Biography:Holmes studied for a PhD in marine biology at the University of York....
(Life in the Freezer
Life in the Freezer
Life in the Freezer is a BBC nature documentary series written and presented by David Attenborough, first transmitted in the UK from 18 November 1993....
, The Blue Planet
The Blue Planet
The Blue Planet is a BBC nature documentary series narrated by David Attenborough, first transmitted in the UK from 12 September 2001.Described as "the first ever comprehensive series on the natural history of the world's oceans", each of the eight 50-minute episodes examines a different aspect of...
) and executive producer Mike Gunton
Mike Gunton
Michael Gunton is a British television producer and a senior executive at the BBC Natural History Unit, the world's largest production unit dedicated to wildlife film-making...
(Galápagos
Galápagos (TV series)
Galápagos is a three-part BBC nature documentary series exploring the natural history of the Galápagos Islands and their important role in the formation of Charles Darwin's theory of evolution. It was first transmitted in the UK on BBC Two in September 2006...
, Life in the Undergrowth
Life in the Undergrowth
Life in the Undergrowth is a BBC nature documentary series written and presented by David Attenborough, first transmitted in the UK from 23 November 2005....
). Individual episodes were produced by Rupert Barrington, Adam Chapman, Martha Holmes, Neil Lucas, Patrick Morris and Ted Oakes. The specially-commissioned score was composed by George Fenton
George Fenton
George Fenton is a British composer best known for his work writing film scores and music for television, although he also writes music for the theatre. His real name is George Howe but he is better known by his pseudonym of George Fenton.-Selected film and television credits:Fenton has composed...
and performed by the Band of Life. The opening titles and brand imaging were created by Burrell Durrant Hifle.
In February 2007, Gunton revealed that the BBC were looking for a new narrator for the series owing to Attenborough's imminent retirement. However, later that year it was announced that the veteran narrator would be collaborating on both this series and the forthcoming Frozen Planet
The Frozen Planet
Frozen Planet is a nature documentary series, co-produced by the BBC, the Discovery Channel and The Open University. It was filmed by the BBC Natural History Unit. Other production partners are the Discovery Channel Canada, ZDF , Antena 3 and Skai TV...
.
Filming
The first year of production was spent researching possible stories for the series. The Life team contacted scientists and experts around the world in search of new discoveries to film, and new approaches to familiar subjects. Nearly three years of filming followed, involving 150 shoots on all seven continents, many of them full-scale expeditions to remote wilderness areas.New camera technology was used to build on the cinematic techniques first employed in Planet Earth
Planet Earth (TV series)
Planet Earth is a 2006 television series produced by the BBC Natural History Unit. Five years in the making, it was the most expensive nature documentary series ever commissioned by the BBC, and also the first to be filmed in high definition...
, notably the pioneering use of stabilised helicopter-mounted cameras. The Life crew succeeded in using gyroscopic stabilisation
Gyroscope
A gyroscope is a device for measuring or maintaining orientation, based on the principles of angular momentum. In essence, a mechanical gyroscope is a spinning wheel or disk whose axle is free to take any orientation...
to create steady shots from moving vehicles, even on rough terrain, allowing the cameras to track alongside reindeer and elephant herds for the first time. Miniature high-definition cameras were used extensively for the "Insects" programme. In the forests of Mexico
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
, the crew erected a spider's web of cables in the canopy to give the sense of flying alongside millions of monarch butterflies. In Zambia, they filmed from a hot air balloon to avoid disturbing the huge flocks of straw-coloured fruit bats.
Following recent debate about the use of artifice in natural history programmes, the BBC were more candid about sequences which had not been filmed in the wild. Close-ups of wild clownfish would have disturbed their natural behaviour, so captive animals were filmed in an aquarium at a Welsh university.
Despite the best efforts of the film-makers, some sequences ended up on the cutting room floor. Scientists in Arctic
Arctic
The Arctic is a region located at the northern-most part of the Earth. The Arctic consists of the Arctic Ocean and parts of Canada, Russia, Greenland, the United States, Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Iceland. The Arctic region consists of a vast, ice-covered ocean, surrounded by treeless permafrost...
Scandinavia
Scandinavia
Scandinavia is a cultural, historical and ethno-linguistic region in northern Europe that includes the three kingdoms of Denmark, Norway and Sweden, characterized by their common ethno-cultural heritage and language. Modern Norway and Sweden proper are situated on the Scandinavian Peninsula,...
had accumulated enough evidence to suggest that golden eagle
Golden Eagle
The Golden Eagle is one of the best known birds of prey in the Northern Hemisphere. Like all eagles, it belongs to the family Accipitridae. Once widespread across the Holarctic, it has disappeared from many of the more heavily populated areas...
s were the main predators of reindeer calves, but an attack had never been witnessed. After two summers tracking the herds in Finland
Finland
Finland , officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden in the west, Norway in the north and Russia in the east, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland.Around 5.4 million people reside...
, cameraman Barrie Britton finally filmed a hunt in full. However, the attack had taken place nearly a mile away, and the footage was too distant to be considered for broadcast.
Television firsts
The budget and timescale for the series enabled the producers to set ambitious filming challenges, and expedition crews brought back several sequences which have never been shown before.Some involved highly-specialised hunting behaviour that has only recently been discovered. In the shallow, muddy waters of Florida Bay
Florida Bay
Florida Bay is the bay located between the southern end of the Florida mainland and the Florida Keys. Its area is variously stated to be , or , or . Nearly all of Florida Bay is included in Everglades National Park. The southern edge, along the Florida Keys is in the Florida Keys National Marine...
, one pod of bottlenose dolphins have learned a unique hunting technique called mud-ring feeding. Aerial photography
Aerial photography
Aerial photography is the taking of photographs of the ground from an elevated position. The term usually refers to images in which the camera is not supported by a ground-based structure. Cameras may be hand held or mounted, and photographs may be taken by a photographer, triggered remotely or...
shows the lead dolphin circling a shoal of mullet
Mullet (fish)
The mullets or grey mullets are a family and order of ray-finned fish found worldwide in coastal temperate and tropical waters, and in some species in fresh water. Mullets have served as an important source of food in Mediterranean Europe since Roman times...
, flicking its tail flukes to disturb mud on the seabed. The fish trapped inside the mud ring panic and leap out of the water to escape the trap, straight into the waiting mouths of the pod. In Kenya
Kenya
Kenya , officially known as the Republic of Kenya, is a country in East Africa that lies on the equator, with the Indian Ocean to its south-east...
's Lewa Wildlife Conservancy
Lewa Wildlife Conservancy
The Lewa Wildlife Conservancy is located in northern Kenya. It was formed in 1995. It is a wildlife sanctuary incorporating the Ngare Ndare Forest and covering over . The Conservancy is home to a wide variety of wildlife including the rare and endangered black rhino, Grevy’s zebra and sitatunga...
, three cheetah brothers have learned to take on prey many times their own size. They are filmed bringing down an ostrich, but also hunt zebra, eland and oryx. A film crew travelled to the Falkland Islands
Falkland Islands
The Falkland Islands are an archipelago in the South Atlantic Ocean, located about from the coast of mainland South America. The archipelago consists of East Falkland, West Falkland and 776 lesser islands. The capital, Stanley, is on East Falkland...
to follow up reports of an orca that had learned to take elephant seal pups from a nursery pool. On the Indonesia
Indonesia
Indonesia , officially the Republic of Indonesia , is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania. Indonesia is an archipelago comprising approximately 13,000 islands. It has 33 provinces with over 238 million people, and is the world's fourth most populous country. Indonesia is a republic, with an...
n island of Rinca, the first footage of komodo dragons hunting a water buffalo corroborated new scientific evidence suggesting the dragons used venom to kill their prey.
Other sequences had previously proved too difficult to film. The humpback whale heat run has been dubbed "the biggest battle on Earth", but the whales move so fast that underwater cameras struggle to keep up. The Life crew used cameras mounted on helicopters and boats along with a team of free-divers
Free-diving
Freediving is any of various aquatic activities that share the practice of breath-hold underwater diving. Examples include breathhold spear fishing, freedive photography, apnea competitions and, to a degree, snorkeling...
to follow the action. The biggest filming challenge was to show a year in the life of an oak
Oak
An oak is a tree or shrub in the genus Quercus , of which about 600 species exist. "Oak" may also appear in the names of species in related genera, notably Lithocarpus...
woodland using timelapse photography. After capturing real-world footage of a Devon
Devon
Devon is a large county in southwestern England. The county is sometimes referred to as Devonshire, although the term is rarely used inside the county itself as the county has never been officially "shired", it often indicates a traditional or historical context.The county shares borders with...
wood, the crew rebuilt the entire scene in a studio in Exeter
Exeter
Exeter is a historic city in Devon, England. It lies within the ceremonial county of Devon, of which it is the county town as well as the home of Devon County Council. Currently the administrative area has the status of a non-metropolitan district, and is therefore under the administration of the...
and digitally superimposed 96 separate layers of footage to create the final one-minute sequence. The whole project took two years.
Super high-speed cameras capable of shooting up to 8,000 frames each second were used to slow down dramatic action. For the first time, these were used underwater to reveal the hunting behaviour of sailfish. They were also used to show 'Jesus Christ lizards' running on water, the courtship flight of the marvellous spatuletail
Marvellous Spatuletail
The Marvellous Spatuletail is a medium-sized white, green and bronze hummingbird adorned with blue crest feathers, a brilliant turquoise gorget, and a black line on its white underparts. It is the only member of the monotypic genus Loddigesia.A Peruvian endemic, this species is found in the...
and flying fish leaving the water. The first footage showing Antarctic Killer whales hunting a Crabeater seal, but the seal survived.
The pebble toad's strange escape method had been caught on tape for the first time.
Broadcast
Life debuted on British television on 12 October 2009, with a standard definition broadcast on BBC OneBBC One
BBC One is the flagship television channel of the British Broadcasting Corporation in the United Kingdom. It was launched on 2 November 1936 as the BBC Television Service, and was the world's first regular television service with a high level of image resolution...
and a high-definition simulcast on BBC HD
BBC HD
BBC HD is a high-definition television network provided by the BBC. The service was initially run as a trial from 15 May 2006 until becoming a full service on 1 December 2007...
.
The series was sold to international broadcasters by the BBC's commercial arm, BBC Worldwide
BBC Worldwide
BBC Worldwide Limited is the wholly owned commercial subsidiary of the British Broadcasting Corporation, formed out of a restructuring of its predecessor BBC Enterprises in 1995. In the year to 31 March 2010 it made a profit of £145m on a turnover of £1.074bn. The company had made a profit of £106m...
, and marketed under the BBC Earth brand used for all BBC-produced natural history content. The global success of Life was noted as one of the key factors behind BBC Worldwide's record profits in 2010.
The series received its North American premiere on Discovery Channel Canada
Discovery Channel Canada
Discovery Channel is a Canadian English language Category A specialty channel devoted to nature, adventure, science and technology programming. Discovery Channel is currently owned by CTV Specialty Television Inc...
on 15 November 2009. In the USA, the series premiered on 21 March 2010 with Attenborough's narration replaced by Oprah Winfrey
Oprah Winfrey
Oprah Winfrey is an American media proprietor, talk show host, actress, producer and philanthropist. Winfrey is best known for her self-titled, multi-award-winning talk show, which has become the highest-rated program of its kind in history and was nationally syndicated from 1986 to 2011...
reading from a different script tailored to American audiences. Each episode was curtailed in length to accommodate commercial breaks. The behind-the-scenes shorts were dropped for the same reason, and instead were compiled into an eleventh episode.
Life was also acquired by several Latin America
Latin America
Latin America is a region of the Americas where Romance languages – particularly Spanish and Portuguese, and variably French – are primarily spoken. Latin America has an area of approximately 21,069,500 km² , almost 3.9% of the Earth's surface or 14.1% of its land surface area...
n broadcasters and debuted on 18 March 2010 on Discovery Channel Latin America and Discovery HD Theater, with narration by Colombian singer Juanes
Juanes
Juan Esteban Aristizábal Vásquez , better known as Juanes is a Colombian musician who was a member of heavy metal band Ekhymosis and is now a solo artist. In 2000, his solo debut album Fíjate Bien won three Latin Grammy Awards.Juanes has sold more than 13 million albums...
.
In Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
the series aired on July 2010 as part of the new IBA
Israel Broadcasting Authority
Israel Broadcasting Authority is Israel's state broadcasting network.It grew out of the radio station Kol Yisrael, which made its first broadcast as an independent station on . The name of the organisation operating Kol Yisrael was changed to Israel Broadcasting Service in 1951...
channel Channel 1 HD
Channel 1 (Israel)
Channel 1 is one of the oldest television channels in Israel and one of five terrestrial channels in the country...
and it was narrated by Orna Banay.
In Turkey
Turkey
Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...
, the series aired on May 2010 on NTV (Turkey). It was narrated by famous Turkish actor Tuncel Kurtiz
Tuncel Kurtiz
Tuncel Kurtiz is a Turkish theatre, movie and TV series actor, playwright and film director. Since 1964, he has acted in more than 70 movies, including many international productions.- Biography :...
.
In Australia, an edited version (without Life On Location) with Attenborough's narration aired on ABC1
ABC1
ABC1 was a United Kingdom based television channel from Disney using the branding of the Disney owned American network, ABC.The channel initially launched exclusively on the British digital terrestrial television platform Freeview on 27 September 2004. On 10 December 2004 it was launched on...
each Sunday at 7:30pm from 25 July 2010.
In Croatia the series aired each Saturday from 2 October 2010 on HRT1
HRT1
HRT 1 is a Croatian public mainstream TV channel operated by HRT. Its varied line-up contains all kinds of programming .-News shows:...
.
Episodes
1. "Challenges of Life"
- UK broadcast 12 October 2009, 6.84 million viewers (26.4% audience share)
The opening episode introduces the series by showing examples of extraordinary feeding, hunting, courting and parenting behaviour from across the animal kingdom and around the globe. In Florida Bay
Florida Bay
Florida Bay is the bay located between the southern end of the Florida mainland and the Florida Keys. Its area is variously stated to be , or , or . Nearly all of Florida Bay is included in Everglades National Park. The southern edge, along the Florida Keys is in the Florida Keys National Marine...
, bottlenose dolphin
Common Bottlenose Dolphin
Tursiops truncatus, commonly known as the Common Bottlenose Dolphin, is the most well-known species from the family Delphinidae.Common bottlenose dolphins are the most familiar dolphins due to the wide exposure they receive in captivity in marine parks, dolphinarias, in movies, and television...
s catch leaping fish as they attempt to escape a corral of encircling mud, whipped up with the lead dolphin’s tail. Other unusual collaborative hunting techniques include three cheetah
Cheetah
The cheetah is a large-sized feline inhabiting most of Africa and parts of the Middle East. The cheetah is the only extant member of the genus Acinonyx, most notable for modifications in the species' paws...
s combining to bring down an ostrich
Ostrich
The Ostrich is one or two species of large flightless birds native to Africa, the only living member of the genus Struthio. Some analyses indicate that the Somali Ostrich may be better considered a full species apart from the Common Ostrich, but most taxonomists consider it to be a...
and Antarctic killer whales attacking a crabeater seal
Crabeater Seal
The crabeater seal, Lobodon carcinophagus, is a true seal with a circumpolar distribution around the coast of Antarctica. They are medium to large-sized , relatively slender and pale-colored, found primarily on the free floating pack ice that extends seasonally out from the Antarctic coast, which...
. In Brazil
Brazil
Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...
, tufted capuchin
Tufted Capuchin
The tufted capuchin , also known as brown capuchin or black-capped capuchin is a New World primate from South America...
s have learned to crack open palm nuts by smashing them with rocks. High speed camera
High speed camera
A high speed camera is a device used for recording fast moving objects as a photographic image onto a storage media. After recording, the images stored on the media can be played back in slow-motion...
s reveal flying fish taking an aerial route to avoid predatory sailfish
Sailfish
'Sailfish' are two species of fish in the genus Istiophorus, living in warmer sections of all the oceans of the world. They are predominately blue to gray in color and have a characteristic erectile dorsal fin known as a sail, which often stretches the entire length of the back...
, Venus flytrap
Venus Flytrap
The Venus Flytrap , Dionaea muscipula, is a carnivorous plant that catches and digests animal prey—mostly insects and arachnids. Its trapping structure is formed by the terminal portion of each of the plant's leaves and is triggered by tiny hairs on their inner surfaces...
s ensnaring their unwitting victims and two male hippo
Hippo
A hippo or hippopotamus is either of two species of large African mammal which live mainly in and near water:* Hippopotamus* Pygmy HippopotamusHippo may also refer to:-Given names:...
s clashing over the territorial rights to a stretch of river. In some species, parents go to great lengths to protect their young. A mother strawberry poison-dart frog
Strawberry Poison-dart Frog
The strawberry poison frog or strawberry poison-dart frog is a species of small amphibian poison dart frog found in Central America. It is common throughout its range, which extends from eastern central Nicaragua through Costa Rica and northwestern Panama...
carries each of her six tadpoles high into the rainforest canopy to the safety of a bromeliad pool, then provides them with nutritious unfertilised eggs. A female Giant Pacific Octopus makes the ultimate sacrifice, starving to death as she guards her eggs. On Deception Island, young chinstrap penguin
Chinstrap Penguin
The Chinstrap Penguin is a species of penguin which is found in the South Sandwich Islands, Antarctica, the South Orkneys, South Shetland, South Georgia, Bouvet Island and Balleny...
s are trapped on a beach by ice-strewn seas. Abandoned by their parents, they must reach open water to feed. A lone chick fights its way through the ice, only to be ambushed by a leopard seal
Leopard Seal
The leopard seal , also referred to as the sea leopard, is the second largest species of seal in the Antarctic...
. Life on Location shows how the filmmakers collaborated with a French yachtsman and the Royal Navy
Royal Navy
The Royal Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Founded in the 16th century, it is the oldest service branch and is known as the Senior Service...
to film Antarctica's top predators.
2. "Reptiles and Amphibians"
- UK broadcast 19 October 2009, 4.93 million viewers (18.9% audience share)
In the opening sequence, an aerial camera zooms in on a solitary Komodo dragon
Komodo dragon
The Komodo dragon , also known as the Komodo monitor, is a large species of lizard found in the Indonesian islands of Komodo, Rinca, Flores, Gili Motang and Gili Dasami. A member of the monitor lizard family , it is the largest living species of lizard, growing to a maximum length of in rare cases...
from afar. This, states Attenborough, is the last place on Earth still ruled by reptile
Reptile
Reptiles are members of a class of air-breathing, ectothermic vertebrates which are characterized by laying shelled eggs , and having skin covered in scales and/or scutes. They are tetrapods, either having four limbs or being descended from four-limbed ancestors...
s. Though they may seem primitive, reptiles and amphibian
Amphibian
Amphibians , are a class of vertebrate animals including animals such as toads, frogs, caecilians, and salamanders. They are characterized as non-amniote ectothermic tetrapods...
s still thrive thanks to diverse survival strategies. In Venezuela
Venezuela
Venezuela , officially called the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela , is a tropical country on the northern coast of South America. It borders Colombia to the west, Guyana to the east, and Brazil to the south...
, a pebble toad evades a tarantula
Tarantula
Tarantulas comprise a group of often hairy and often very large arachnids belonging to the family Theraphosidae, of which approximately 900 species have been identified. Some members of the same Suborder may also be called "tarantulas" in the common parlance. This article will restrict itself to...
by free-falling down a steep rock face. The basilisk, nicknamed the Jesus Christ lizard
Plumed basilisk
The plumed basilisk, Basiliscus plumifrons, also called a green basilisk, double crested basilisk, or Jesus Christ lizard, is a species of corytophanid to Latin America.-Taxonomy and etymology:...
, can literally run on water and the Brazil
Brazil
Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...
ian pygmy gecko
Coleodactylus
Coleodactylus is a genus of South American geckos.-Classification:Coleodactylus is placed in the family Sphaerodactylidae and contains the following species:*Goias Gecko, Coleodactylus brachystoma...
is so light it does not break the surface. Reptiles are cold-blooded
Poikilotherm
A poikilotherm is an organism whose internal temperature varies considerably. It is the opposite of a homeotherm, an organism which maintains thermal homeostasis. Usually the variation is a consequence of variation in the ambient environmental temperature...
, and some have developed unusual strategies to absorb heat. Namaqua chameleon
Namaqua Chameleon
The Namaqua Chameleon is a ground living lizard found in the Namib Desert of Namibia and southern Angola.-Survival Techniques:...
s darken the skin of the side of their body facing the sun. A male red-sided garter snake
Common Garter Snake
The Common Garter Snake is a snake indigenous to North America. Most garter snakes have a pattern of yellow stripes on a brown or green background and their average length is about , maximum about .-Subspecies:...
masquerades as a female using fake pheromone
Pheromone
A pheromone is a secreted or excreted chemical factor that triggers a social response in members of the same species. Pheromones are chemicals capable of acting outside the body of the secreting individual to impact the behavior of the receiving individual...
s, attracting rival males which help raise its body temperature and thus its chance of breeding. Malagasy collared lizard
Chalarodon
Chalarodon is a genus of Malagasy terrestrial iguanian lizard. Its only species is Chalarodon madagascariensis.Its Malagasy relatives are the iguanians of the genus Oplurus.It is common in some of the drier areas of Madagascar....
s conceal their eggs by burying them, but egg-eating hognose snake
Leioheterodon
Leioheterodon is a genus of harmless colubrids found only on the island of Madagascar. Three species are currently recognized.- Species :* Speckled Hognose Snake, Leioheterodon geayi...
s stake out their favourite laying sites. Niue Island
Niue
Niue , is an island country in the South Pacific Ocean. It is commonly known as the "Rock of Polynesia", and inhabitants of the island call it "the Rock" for short. Niue is northeast of New Zealand in a triangle between Tonga to the southwest, the Samoas to the northwest, and the Cook Islands to...
sea krait
Laticauda
Laticauda is a genus of snakes from the family Hydrophiidae. Laticauda are the least adapted to sea life of all the members of Hydrophiidae; they retain the wide ventral scales typical of terrestrial snakes and have only a poorly developed tail fin...
s lay theirs in a chamber only accessible via an underwater tunnel. Other reptiles guard their eggs. Horned lizard
Horned lizard
Horned lizards are a genus of lizards which are the type genus of the family Phrynosomatidae. The horned lizard is popularly called a "horned toad", "horny toad", or "horned frog", but it is neither a toad nor a frog. The popular names come from the lizard's rounded body and blunt snout, which...
s drive off predators, but larger adversaries such as coachwhip
Masticophis flagellum
Masticophis flagellum is a species of nonvenomous colubrid snakes commonly referred to as coachwhips or whip snakes, with seven recognized subspecies.- Geographical range :...
snakes prompt a different reaction – the lizard plays dead. Komodo dragons prey on water buffalo
Water buffalo
The water buffalo is a domesticated bovid widely kept in Asia, Europe and South America.Water buffalo can also refer to:*Wild water buffalo , the wild ancestor of the domestic water buffalo...
in the dry season. They stalk a buffalo for three weeks as it slowly succumbs to a toxic bite, then strip the carcass in four hours. In Life on Location, the Komodo film crew tell of the harrowing experience of filming the dragon hunt.
3. "Mammals"
- UK broadcast 26 October 2009, 5.55 million viewers (21.9% audience share)
Intelligence, warm blood and strong family bonds have made mammal
Mammal
Mammals are members of a class of air-breathing vertebrate animals characterised by the possession of endothermy, hair, three middle ear bones, and mammary glands functional in mothers with young...
s the most successful group of animals on the planet: they can even survive the Antarctic
Antarctic
The Antarctic is the region around the Earth's South Pole, opposite the Arctic region around the North Pole. The Antarctic comprises the continent of Antarctica and the ice shelves, waters and island territories in the Southern Ocean situated south of the Antarctic Convergence...
winter. Here, a Weddell seal
Weddell Seal
The Weddell seal , is a relatively large and abundant true seal with a circumpolar distribution surrounding Antarctica. Weddell seals have the most southerly distribution of any mammal, with a habitat that extends as far south as McMurdo Sound...
leads her pup on its first swim beneath the ice. In East Africa, a rufous sengi
Rufous Elephant Shrew
The Rufous Elephant-shrew or Rufous Sengi is a species of elephant shrew in the Macroscelididae family. It is found in Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, Sudan, Tanzania, and Uganda. Its natural habitats are dry savanna and subtropical or tropical dry shrubland.-External links:* - with video clip from Life...
uses a mental map of the pathways it has cleared to outwit a chasing lizard. A young aye-aye
Aye-aye
The aye-aye is a lemur, a strepsirrhine primate native to Madagascar that combines rodent-like teeth and a special thin middle finger to fill the same ecological niche as a woodpecker...
takes four years to learn how to find and extract beetle
Beetle
Coleoptera is an order of insects commonly called beetles. The word "coleoptera" is from the Greek , koleos, "sheath"; and , pteron, "wing", thus "sheathed wing". Coleoptera contains more species than any other order, constituting almost 25% of all known life-forms...
grubs, food no other mammal can reach. Reindeer
Reindeer
The reindeer , also known as the caribou in North America, is a deer from the Arctic and Subarctic, including both resident and migratory populations. While overall widespread and numerous, some of its subspecies are rare and one has already gone extinct.Reindeer vary considerably in color and size...
move through the Arctic
Arctic
The Arctic is a region located at the northern-most part of the Earth. The Arctic consists of the Arctic Ocean and parts of Canada, Russia, Greenland, the United States, Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Iceland. The Arctic region consists of a vast, ice-covered ocean, surrounded by treeless permafrost...
tundra
Tundra
In physical geography, tundra is a biome where the tree growth is hindered by low temperatures and short growing seasons. The term tundra comes through Russian тундра from the Kildin Sami word tūndâr "uplands," "treeless mountain tract." There are three types of tundra: Arctic tundra, alpine...
, making the longest overland migration of any animal. Other mammals have evolved different ways of travelling long distances: ten million fruit bat
Fruit Bat
Fruit Bat can refer to:* Megabats, a species of bat which eats fruit* Les "Fruitbat" Carter, guitarist of Carter the Unstoppable Sex Machine* Fruit Bats , an American band...
s congregate at Zambia
Zambia
Zambia , officially the Republic of Zambia, is a landlocked country in Southern Africa. The neighbouring countries are the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the north, Tanzania to the north-east, Malawi to the east, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Botswana and Namibia to the south, and Angola to the west....
's Kasanka
Kasanka National Park
Kasanka National Park is a park located in the Serenje District of Zambia’s Northern Province. At roughly 390km2, Kasanka is one of Zambia’s smallest national parks. Kasanka’s situation is interesting as it is the first of Zambia’s national parks to be privately managed...
swamps to gorge on fruiting trees. Mammals employ different strategies to find food. At night on the African savannah
Savannah
Savannah or savanna is a type of grassland.It can also mean:-People:* Savannah King, a Canadian freestyle swimmer* Savannah Outen, a singer who gained popularity on You Tube...
, hyena
Hyena
Hyenas or Hyaenas are the animals of the family Hyaenidae of suborder feliforms of the Carnivora. It is the fourth smallest biological family in the Carnivora , and one of the smallest in the mammalia...
s force lion
Lion
The lion is one of the four big cats in the genus Panthera, and a member of the family Felidae. With some males exceeding 250 kg in weight, it is the second-largest living cat after the tiger...
s off a kill through sheer weight of numbers, whilst in the Arctic, dozens of polar bear
Polar Bear
The polar bear is a bear native largely within the Arctic Circle encompassing the Arctic Ocean, its surrounding seas and surrounding land masses. It is the world's largest land carnivore and also the largest bear, together with the omnivorous Kodiak Bear, which is approximately the same size...
s take advantage of a bowhead whale
Bowhead Whale
The bowhead whale is a baleen whale of the right whale family Balaenidae in suborder Mysticeti. A stocky dark-colored whale without a dorsal fin, it can grow to in length. This thick-bodied species can weigh to , second only to the blue whale, although the bowhead's maximum length is less than...
carcass. Raising young is another important factor in mammals' success. Coati
Coati
Coatis, genera Nasua and Nasuella, also known as the Brazilian aardvark, Mexican tejón, hog-nosed coon, pizotes, crackoons and snookum bears, are members of the raccoon family . They are diurnal mammals native to South America, Central America, and south-western North America...
s and meerkat
Meerkat
The meerkat or suricate, Suricata suricatta, is a small mammal belonging to the mongoose family. Meerkats live in all parts of the Kalahari Desert in Botswana, in much of the Namib Desert in Namibia and southwestern Angola, and in South Africa. A group of meerkats is called a "mob", "gang" or "clan"...
s form social groups to share the burden of childcare. A first-time African elephant mother needs the experience of the herd's matriarch to get her young calf out of trouble. The largest animals in the ocean are also mammals. The seas around Tonga
Tonga
Tonga, officially the Kingdom of Tonga , is a state and an archipelago in the South Pacific Ocean, comprising 176 islands scattered over of ocean in the South Pacific...
are both a nursery and mating ground for humpback whale
Humpback Whale
The humpback whale is a species of baleen whale. One of the larger rorqual species, adults range in length from and weigh approximately . The humpback has a distinctive body shape, with unusually long pectoral fins and a knobbly head. It is an acrobatic animal, often breaching and slapping the...
s. A female leads her potential suitors on a chase, the males battling for dominance behind her. Life on Location follows the never-before filmed humpback heat run.
4. "Fish"
- UK broadcast 2 November 2009, 4.56 million viewers (18.1% audience share)
Fish
Fish
Fish are a paraphyletic group of organisms that consist of all gill-bearing aquatic vertebrate animals that lack limbs with digits. Included in this definition are the living hagfish, lampreys, and cartilaginous and bony fish, as well as various extinct related groups...
, the most diverse group of vertebrate
Vertebrate
Vertebrates are animals that are members of the subphylum Vertebrata . Vertebrates are the largest group of chordates, with currently about 58,000 species described. Vertebrates include the jawless fishes, bony fishes, sharks and rays, amphibians, reptiles, mammals, and birds...
animals, thrive in the world’s river
River
A river is a natural watercourse, usually freshwater, flowing towards an ocean, a lake, a sea, or another river. In a few cases, a river simply flows into the ground or dries up completely before reaching another body of water. Small rivers may also be called by several other names, including...
s, lake
Lake
A lake is a body of relatively still fresh or salt water of considerable size, localized in a basin, that is surrounded by land. Lakes are inland and not part of the ocean and therefore are distinct from lagoons, and are larger and deeper than ponds. Lakes can be contrasted with rivers or streams,...
s and ocean
Ocean
An ocean is a major body of saline water, and a principal component of the hydrosphere. Approximately 71% of the Earth's surface is covered by ocean, a continuous body of water that is customarily divided into several principal oceans and smaller seas.More than half of this area is over 3,000...
s. Slow-motion footage reveals the behaviour of some of the fastest fish in the sea, sailfish
Sailfish
'Sailfish' are two species of fish in the genus Istiophorus, living in warmer sections of all the oceans of the world. They are predominately blue to gray in color and have a characteristic erectile dorsal fin known as a sail, which often stretches the entire length of the back...
and flying fish. The latter gather in large numbers to lay their eggs on a floating palm frond, which sinks under the weight. The eggs of weedy sea dragons, found in the shallow waters off southern Australia, are carried by the male. In the fertile seas of the western Pacific, competition is fierce. A sarcastic fringehead
Sarcastic fringehead
The sarcastic fringehead is a ferocious fish which has a large mouth and aggressive territorial behaviour. When two fringeheads have a territorial battle, they wrestle by pressing their distended mouths against each other, as if they were kissing. This allows them to determine which is the...
defends its home, an old shell, from a passing octopus
Octopus
The octopus is a cephalopod mollusc of the order Octopoda. Octopuses have two eyes and four pairs of arms, and like other cephalopods they are bilaterally symmetric. An octopus has a hard beak, with its mouth at the center point of the arms...
and a rival. In Japan, mudskipper
Mudskipper
Mudskippers are members of the subfamily Oxudercinae , within the family Gobiidae . They are completely amphibious fish, fish that can use their pectoral fins to walk on land...
s have carved a niche on the rich mudflat
Mudflat
Mudflats or mud flats, also known as tidal flats, are coastal wetlands that form when mud is deposited by tides or rivers. They are found in sheltered areas such as bays, bayous, lagoons, and estuaries. Mudflats may be viewed geologically as exposed layers of bay mud, resulting from deposition of...
s. Freshwater fish
Freshwater fish
Freshwater fish are fish that spend some or all of their lives in freshwater, such as rivers and lakes, with a salinity of less than 0.05%. These environments differ from marine conditions in many ways, the most obvious being the difference in levels of salinity...
are also featured. Tiny gobies
Goby
The gobies form the family Gobiidae, which is one of the largest families of fish, with more than 2,000 species in more than 200 genera. Most are relatively small, typically less than 10 cm in length...
are filmed climbing Hawaiian waterfalls to colonise the placid pools upstream, while in East Africa, barbels pick clean the skin of the resident hippo
Hippo
A hippo or hippopotamus is either of two species of large African mammal which live mainly in and near water:* Hippopotamus* Pygmy HippopotamusHippo may also refer to:-Given names:...
s and feed on their rich dung in return. Wrasse
Wrasse
The wrasses are a family, Labridae, of marine fish, many of which are brightly colored. The family is large and diverse, with over 600 species in 82 genera, which are divided into nine subgroups or tribes....
s perform the cleaning duties on coral reef
Coral reef
Coral reefs are underwater structures made from calcium carbonate secreted by corals. Coral reefs are colonies of tiny living animals found in marine waters that contain few nutrients. Most coral reefs are built from stony corals, which in turn consist of polyps that cluster in groups. The polyps...
s, but jacks
Jacks
Jacks is a playground game for children....
also remove parasites by scratching against the rough skin of silvertip shark
Silvertip shark
The silvertip shark is a large species of requiem shark, family Carcharhinidae, with a fragmented distribution throughout the tropical Indian and Pacific Oceans. This species is often encountered around offshore islands and coral reefs, and has been known to dive to a depth of 800 m...
s. Clownfish
Clownfish
Clownfish or anemonefish are fishes from the subfamily Amphiprioninae in the family Pomacentridae. Twenty-eight species are recognized, one in the genus Premnas, while the remaining are in the genus Amphiprion. In the wild they all form symbiotic mutualisms with sea anemones...
, whose life cycle is filmed in intimate detail using macro cameras, are protected by the fronds of an anemone
Sea anemone
Sea anemones are a group of water-dwelling, predatory animals of the order Actiniaria; they are named after the anemone, a terrestrial flower. Sea anemones are classified in the phylum Cnidaria, class Anthozoa, subclass Zoantharia. Anthozoa often have large polyps that allow for digestion of larger...
, but other species seek safety in numbers. A shoal of ever-moving anchovies
Anchovy
Anchovies are a family of small, common salt-water forage fish. There are 144 species in 17 genera, found in the Atlantic, Indian, and Pacific Oceans. Anchovies are usually classified as an oily fish.-Description:...
proves too difficult a target for sea lion
Sea Lion
Sea lions are pinnipeds characterized by external ear-flaps, long fore-flippers, the ability to walk on all fours, and short thick hair. Together with the fur seal, they comprise the family Otariidae, or eared seals. There are six extant and one extinct species in five genera...
s. Sometimes, predators have the edge: ragged tooth shark
Grey nurse shark
The sand tiger shark or grey nurse shark is a species of shark that inhabits coastal waters worldwide. It lives very close to the shorelines and beaches of North America, hence the name, sand tiger shark. Despite a fearsome appearance and strong swimming abilities, it is a relatively placid and...
s are shown attacking sardine
Sardine
Sardines, or pilchards, are several types of small, oily fish related to herrings, family Clupeidae. Sardines are named after the Mediterranean island of Sardinia, around which they were once abundant....
s trapped in shallow waters off South Africa. Life on Location looks at the efforts of underwater cameramen to capture the sailfish and flying fish sequences.
5. "Birds"
- UK broadcast 9 November 2009, 4.33 million viewers (17.6% audience share)
Bird
Bird
Birds are feathered, winged, bipedal, endothermic , egg-laying, vertebrate animals. Around 10,000 living species and 188 families makes them the most speciose class of tetrapod vertebrates. They inhabit ecosystems across the globe, from the Arctic to the Antarctic. Extant birds range in size from...
s, whose feather
Feather
Feathers are one of the epidermal growths that form the distinctive outer covering, or plumage, on birds and some non-avian theropod dinosaurs. They are considered the most complex integumentary structures found in vertebrates, and indeed a premier example of a complex evolutionary novelty. They...
s have made them extremely adaptable and enabled them to fly, are the subject of programme five. The courtship flight of the marvellous spatuletail hummingbird
Marvellous Spatuletail
The Marvellous Spatuletail is a medium-sized white, green and bronze hummingbird adorned with blue crest feathers, a brilliant turquoise gorget, and a black line on its white underparts. It is the only member of the monotypic genus Loddigesia.A Peruvian endemic, this species is found in the...
is shot at high speed to slow down its rapid wing beats. The male must rest every few seconds due to the energy needed to display his elongated tail feathers. Lammergeiers, by contrast, soar on mountain thermals with a minimum of effort. A red-billed tropicbird
Red-billed Tropicbird
The Red-billed Tropicbird, Phaethon aethereus, also known as the Boatswain Bird is a tropicbird, one of three closely related seabirds of tropical oceans.-Distribution and habitat:...
bringing a meal back to its chick uses aerial agility to evade the marauding magnificent frigatebird
Magnificent Frigatebird
The Magnificent Frigatebird was sometimes previously known as Man O'War, reflecting its rakish lines, speed, and aerial piracy of other birds....
s. Some birds nest in extreme locations to avoid threats from predators. Kenya
Kenya
Kenya , officially known as the Republic of Kenya, is a country in East Africa that lies on the equator, with the Indian Ocean to its south-east...
's caustic soda lake
Rift Valley lakes
The Rift Valley lakes are a group of lakes in the Great Rift Valley formed by the East African Rift which runs through the whole eastern side of the African continent from north to south...
s are a perilous environment for a lesser flamingo
Lesser Flamingo
The Lesser Flamingo is a species in the flamingo family of birds that resides in Africa and in southern Asia...
chick, while chinstrap penguin
Chinstrap Penguin
The Chinstrap Penguin is a species of penguin which is found in the South Sandwich Islands, Antarctica, the South Orkneys, South Shetland, South Georgia, Bouvet Island and Balleny...
s breed on a volcanic island off the Antarctic Peninsula
Antarctic Peninsula
The Antarctic Peninsula is the northernmost part of the mainland of Antarctica. It extends from a line between Cape Adams and a point on the mainland south of Eklund Islands....
. In South Africa, declining fish stocks force Cape gannet
Cape Gannet
The Cape Gannet, Morus capensis, originally Sula capensis, is a large seabird of the gannet family, Sulidae.They are easily identified by their large size, black and white plumage and distinctive yellow crown and hindneck...
s to abandon their chicks to search for food, presenting great white pelicans with the chance to snatch an easy meal. Feathers can also be used for display. Male sage grouse
Sage Grouse
The Sage Grouse is the largest grouse in North America, where it is known as the Greater Sage-Grouse. Its range is sagebrush country in the western United States and southern Alberta and Saskatchewan, Canada. A population of smaller birds, known in the U.S. as Gunnison Sage-Grouse, were recently...
square up to one another at their leks, courting Clark's
Clark's Grebe
Clark's Grebe is a North American species in the grebe family. Until the 1980s, it was thought to be a pale morph of the Western Grebe, which it resembles in size, range, and behavior...
and Western Grebe
Western Grebe
The Western Grebe, , is a species in the grebe family of water birds. Folk names include "dabchick", "swan grebe" and "swan-necked grebe"....
s perform an elaborate ritual to reaffirm their bond and thousands of lesser flamingos move in a synchronised display. Male Birds of paradise show offtheir brilliant plumes in wild courtship displays (some of this footage is from Planet Earth). In West Papua, the small, drab Vogelkop bowerbird
Vogelkop Bowerbird
The Vogelkop Bowerbird , also known as the Vogelkop Gardener Bowerbird, is a medium-sized, bowerbird of the mountains of the Vogelkop Peninsula at Western New Guinea, Indonesia.-Description:...
uses a different strategy. The male decorates his bower with colourful jewels from the forest, and uses vocal mimicry to attract the attention of a female. Mating is filmed for the first time, the end result of a long and difficult quest featured in Life on Location.
6. "Insects"
- UK broadcast 16 November 2009, 3.80 million viewers (14.6% audience share)
The sixth episode enters the world of insect
Insect
Insects are a class of living creatures within the arthropods that have a chitinous exoskeleton, a three-part body , three pairs of jointed legs, compound eyes, and two antennae...
s. By assuming a variety of body shapes and incorporating armour and wings, they have evolved diverse survival strategies and become the most abundant creatures on Earth. In Chile
Chile
Chile ,officially the Republic of Chile , is a country in South America occupying a long, narrow coastal strip between the Andes mountains to the east and the Pacific Ocean to the west. It borders Peru to the north, Bolivia to the northeast, Argentina to the east, and the Drake Passage in the far...
an Patagonia
Patagonia
Patagonia is a region located in Argentina and Chile, integrating the southernmost section of the Andes mountains to the southwest towards the Pacific ocean and from the east of the cordillera to the valleys it follows south through Colorado River towards Carmen de Patagones in the Atlantic Ocean...
, male Darwin’s beetles lock horns and hurl their rivals from the treetops in search of a mate. A damselfly
Damselfly
Damselflies are insects in the order Odonata. Damselflies are similar to dragonflies, but the adults can be distinguished by the fact that the wings of most damselflies are held along, and parallel to, the body when at rest...
’s chance to mate and lay eggs can be cut abruptly short by a leaping frog. Monarch butterflies use their wings to power them on an epic migration to their hibernating grounds in the forests of Mexico
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
’s Sierra Madre. Many insects carry chemical weapons as a form of defence. High-speed cameras show oogpister beetle
Ground beetle
Ground beetles are a large, cosmopolitan family of beetles, Carabidae, with more than 40,000 species worldwide, approximately 2,000 of which are found in North America and 2,700 in Europe.-Description and ecology:...
s squirting formic acid
Formic acid
Formic acid is the simplest carboxylic acid. Its chemical formula is HCOOH or HCO2H. It is an important intermediate in chemical synthesis and occurs naturally, most notably in the venom of bee and ant stings. In fact, its name comes from the Latin word for ant, formica, referring to its early...
into the face of an inquisitive mongoose
Mongoose
Mongoose are a family of 33 living species of small carnivorans from southern Eurasia and mainland Africa. Four additional species from Madagascar in the subfamily Galidiinae, which were previously classified in this family, are also referred to as "mongooses" or "mongoose-like"...
and bombardier beetle
Bombardier beetle
Bombardier beetles are ground beetles in the tribes Brachinini, Paussini, Ozaenini, or Metriini—more than 500 species altogether—which are most notable for the defense mechanism that gives them their name: When disturbed, the beetle ejects a noxious chemical spray in a rapid burst of pulses from...
s firing boiling caustic liquid from their abdomens. Some insects gain an advantage through co-operation. When an American black bear
American black bear
The American black bear is a medium-sized bear native to North America. It is the continent's smallest and most common bear species. Black bears are omnivores, with their diets varying greatly depending on season and location. They typically live in largely forested areas, but do leave forests in...
destroys a bee
Bee
Bees are flying insects closely related to wasps and ants, and are known for their role in pollination and for producing honey and beeswax. Bees are a monophyletic lineage within the superfamily Apoidea, presently classified by the unranked taxon name Anthophila...
’s nest, the colony survives by carrying their honey to a new site. Japanese red bug
Hemiptera
Hemiptera is an order of insects most often known as the true bugs , comprising around 50,000–80,000 species of cicadas, aphids, planthoppers, leafhoppers, shield bugs, and others...
nymphs will move to a different nest if their mother fails to provide sufficient food. In the Australian outback, male Dawson’s bee
Amegilla
Amegilla is a genus of bees in the tribe Anthophorini. A few species have blue metallic bands on the abdomen, and are referred to as "Blue banded bees"....
s fight to the death over females emerging from their nest burrows. As a result, all will die, but the strongest mate most often. Argentina
Argentina
Argentina , officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires...
’s grasscutter ants form huge colonies five million strong. They feed on a fungus
Fungus
A fungus is a member of a large group of eukaryotic organisms that includes microorganisms such as yeasts and molds , as well as the more familiar mushrooms. These organisms are classified as a kingdom, Fungi, which is separate from plants, animals, and bacteria...
which they cultivate underground, in nest structures which have natural ventilation. Life on Location documents the Mexico crew’s attempts to rig up aerial camera shots of the awakening monarch butterflies.
7. "Hunters and Hunted"
- UK broadcast 23 November 2009, 4.04 million viewers (15.9% audience share)
Mammals have adopted diverse strategies to hunt their prey and evade predators. As well as revisiting the cheetah and dolphin hunts first shown in episode one, the programme shows how a sure-footed ibex
Nubian Ibex
The Nubian ibex is a desert-dwelling goat species found in mountainous areas of Israel, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Egypt, Ethiopia, Yemen, Sudan, and Pakistan. It is generally considered to be a subspecies of Alpine ibex, but is sometimes considered specifically distinct...
kid escapes a hunting fox
Red Fox
The red fox is the largest of the true foxes, as well as being the most geographically spread member of the Carnivora, being distributed across the entire northern hemisphere from the Arctic Circle to North Africa, Central America, and the steppes of Asia...
by bounding across a precipitous mountainside above the Dead Sea
Dead Sea
The Dead Sea , also called the Salt Sea, is a salt lake bordering Jordan to the east and Israel and the West Bank to the west. Its surface and shores are below sea level, the lowest elevation on the Earth's surface. The Dead Sea is deep, the deepest hypersaline lake in the world...
. Slow motion footage reveals the fishing behaviour of greater bulldog bat
Greater Bulldog Bat
The greater bulldog bat or fisherman bat is a type of fishing bat native to Latin America. The bat uses echolocation to detect water ripples made by the fish upon which it preys, then uses the pouch between its legs to scoop the fish up and its sharp claws to catch and cling to it...
s in Belize
Belize
Belize is a constitutional monarchy and the northernmost country in Central America. Belize has a diverse society, comprising many cultures and languages. Even though Kriol and Spanish are spoken among the population, Belize is the only country in Central America where English is the official...
and brown bear
Grizzly Bear
The grizzly bear , also known as the silvertip bear, the grizzly, or the North American brown bear, is a subspecies of brown bear that generally lives in the uplands of western North America...
s at an Alaska
Alaska
Alaska is the largest state in the United States by area. It is situated in the northwest extremity of the North American continent, with Canada to the east, the Arctic Ocean to the north, and the Pacific Ocean to the west and south, with Russia further west across the Bering Strait...
n river mouth, the latter awaiting the return of spawning salmon. The play-fighting of juvenile stoat
Stoat
The stoat , also known as the ermine or short-tailed weasel, is a species of Mustelid native to Eurasia and North America, distinguished from the least weasel by its larger size and longer tail with a prominent black tip...
s helps train them to run down prey such as rabbit
Rabbit
Rabbits are small mammals in the family Leporidae of the order Lagomorpha, found in several parts of the world...
s, which are many times their own size. The alpha female of an Ethiopian wolf
Ethiopian Wolf
The Ethiopian wolf , also known as the Abyssinian wolf, Abyssinian fox, red jackal, Simien fox, or Simien jackal is a canid native to Africa...
pack stays at the den to wean her cubs while other adults hunt rats on the highland plateau. The extraordinary nasal appendage of a star-nosed mole
Star-nosed mole
The star-nosed mole is a small mole found in wet low areas of eastern Canada and the north-eastern United States, with records extending along the Atlantic coast as far as extreme southeastern Georgia...
enables it to hunt successfully underground and, by using bubbles to detect its prey, underwater. A tiger
Bengal Tiger
The Bengal tiger is a tiger subspecies native to the Indian subcontinent that in 2010 has been classified as endangered by IUCN...
’s stealthy approach to a group of feeding chital
Chital
The chital or cheetal , also known as chital deer, spotted deer or axis deer is a deer which commonly inhabits wooded regions of Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, and in small numbers in Pakistan...
deer is thwarted when a langur
Gray langur
Gray langurs or Hanuman langurs, the most widespread langurs of South Asia, are a group of Old World monkeys constituting the entirety of the genus Semnopithecus. All taxa have traditionally been placed in the single species Semnopithecus entellus...
, watching from above, raises the alarm. The final sequence shows a female killer whale taking elephant seal
Southern Elephant Seal
The Southern Elephant Seal is one of the two extant species of elephant seal. It is both the most massive pinniped and member of the order Carnivora living today...
pups from their nursery pool in the Falkland Islands
Falkland Islands
The Falkland Islands are an archipelago in the South Atlantic Ocean, located about from the coast of mainland South America. The archipelago consists of East Falkland, West Falkland and 776 lesser islands. The capital, Stanley, is on East Falkland...
. This is a risky strategy as she could easily become beached in the shallow water. She is the only killer whale known to hunt this way, but her calf shadows her moves, ensuring her knowledge will be passed on. Also close by were the film crew, who reveal how the sequence was shot for Life on Location.
8. "Creatures of the Deep"
- UK broadcast 30 November 2009, 3.95 million viewers (15.6% audience share)
Marine invertebrates, the descendants of one billion years of evolutionary history, are the most abundant creatures in the ocean. In the Sea of Cortez, packs of Humboldt squid
Humboldt Squid
The Humboldt squid , also known as jumbo squid, jumbo flying squid, pota or diablo rojo , is a large, predatory squid found in the waters of the Humboldt Current in the Eastern Pacific Ocean. They are most commonly found at depths of , from Tierra del Fuego to California...
make night-time raids from the deep to co-operatively hunt sardine
Sardine
Sardines, or pilchards, are several types of small, oily fish related to herrings, family Clupeidae. Sardines are named after the Mediterranean island of Sardinia, around which they were once abundant....
s. Beneath the permanent Antarctic sea ice
Sea ice
Sea ice is largely formed from seawater that freezes. Because the oceans consist of saltwater, this occurs below the freezing point of pure water, at about -1.8 °C ....
of McMurdo Sound
McMurdo Sound
The ice-clogged waters of Antarctica's McMurdo Sound extend about 55 km long and wide. The sound opens into the Ross Sea to the north. The Royal Society Range rises from sea level to 13,205 feet on the western shoreline. The nearby McMurdo Ice Shelf scribes McMurdo Sound's southern boundary...
, sea urchin
Sea urchin
Sea urchins or urchins are small, spiny, globular animals which, with their close kin, such as sand dollars, constitute the class Echinoidea of the echinoderm phylum. They inhabit all oceans. Their shell, or "test", is round and spiny, typically from across. Common colors include black and dull...
s, red sea star
Sea star
Starfish or sea stars are echinoderms belonging to the class Asteroidea. The names "starfish" and "sea star" essentially refer to members of the class Asteroidea...
s and nemertean worms are filmed scavenging on a seal
Pinniped
Pinnipeds or fin-footed mammals are a widely distributed and diverse group of semiaquatic marine mammals comprising the families Odobenidae , Otariidae , and Phocidae .-Overview: Pinnipeds are typically sleek-bodied and barrel-shaped...
carcass. A fried egg jellyfish hunts amongst a swarm of Aurelia
Aurelia (genus)
Aurelia is a genus of scyphozoan jellyfish . There are at least 13 species in the genus Aurelia including many that are still not formally described...
in the open ocean, spearing its prey with harpoon-like tentacles. In the shallows off South Australia, hundreds of thousands of spider crab
Majidae
Majidae is a family of crabs, comprising around 700 marine species with a carapace that is longer than it is broad, and which forms a point at the front. The legs can be very long in some species, leading to the name "spider crab"...
s gather annually to moult. Many invertebrates have simple nervous systems, but giant cuttlefish
Australian Giant Cuttlefish
Sepia apama, also known as the Australian Giant Cuttlefish, is the world's largest cuttlefish species, growing to 50 cm in mantle length and over 10.5 kg in weight. Using cells known as chromatophores, the cuttlefish can put on spectacular displays, changing colour in an instant.S...
have large brains and complex mating habits. Large males use flashing stroboscopic colours and strength to win a mate, whereas smaller rivals rely on deceit: both tactics are successful. A Giant Pacific Octopus sacrifices her life to tend her single clutch of eggs for six months. As a Pycnopodia
Pycnopodia
Pycnopodia is a genus of sea stars in the family Asteriidae....
starfish feeds on her remains, it comes under attack from a king crab
King crab
King crabs, also called stone crabs, are a superfamily of crab-like decapod crustaceans chiefly found in cold seas. Because of their large size and the taste of their meat, many species are widely caught and sold as food, the most common being the red king crab, Paralithodes camtschaticus.King...
. Coral reef
Coral reef
Coral reefs are underwater structures made from calcium carbonate secreted by corals. Coral reefs are colonies of tiny living animals found in marine waters that contain few nutrients. Most coral reefs are built from stony corals, which in turn consist of polyps that cluster in groups. The polyps...
s, which rival rainforests in their diversity, are the largest living structures on Earth and are created by coral polyp
Polyp
A polyp in zoology is one of two forms found in the phylum Cnidaria, the other being the medusa. Polyps are approximately cylindrical in shape and elongated at the axis of the body...
s. Porcelain crab
Porcelain crab
Porcelain crabs are decapod crustaceans in the widespread family Porcellanidae, which superficially resemble true crabs. They are typically less than wide, and have flattened bodies as an adaptation for living in rock crevices...
s, boxer crab
Boxer crab
Lybia is a genus of small crabs, including Lybia tesselata and Lybia edmondsoni. They are notable for their mutualism with sea anemones, which grow on their claws for defense. In return, the anemones find new places to eat and mate...
s and orangutan crabs are shown to illustrate the many specialised ways of catching food on a reef. Marine invertebrates have a lasting legacy on land too – their shells formed the chalk
Chalk
Chalk is a soft, white, porous sedimentary rock, a form of limestone composed of the mineral calcite. Calcite is calcium carbonate or CaCO3. It forms under reasonably deep marine conditions from the gradual accumulation of minute calcite plates shed from micro-organisms called coccolithophores....
and limestone
Limestone
Limestone is a sedimentary rock composed largely of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different crystal forms of calcium carbonate . Many limestones are composed from skeletal fragments of marine organisms such as coral or foraminifera....
deposits of Eurasia
Eurasia
Eurasia is a continent or supercontinent comprising the traditional continents of Europe and Asia ; covering about 52,990,000 km2 or about 10.6% of the Earth's surface located primarily in the eastern and northern hemispheres...
and the Americas. Life on Location documents the recording of Antarctic sea life and the birth of a reef.
9. "Plants"
- UK broadcast 7 December 2009, 4.30 million viewers (18.0% audience share)
Plants endure a daily struggle for water, nutrients and light. On the forest floor where light is scarce, time-lapse
Time-lapse
Time-lapse photography is a cinematography technique whereby the frequency at which film frames are captured is much lower than that which will be used to play the sequence back. When replayed at normal speed, time appears to be moving faster and thus lapsing...
shots show ivies
Ivy
Ivy, plural ivies is a genus of 12–15 species of evergreen climbing or ground-creeping woody plants in the family Araliaceae, native to western, central and southern Europe, Macaronesia, northwestern Africa and across central-southern Asia east to Japan and Taiwan.-Description:On level ground they...
and creeper
Uncaria tomentosa
Uncaria tomentosa is a woody vine found in the tropical jungles of South and Central America, which derives its name from its claw-shaped thorns...
s climbing into the canopy using sticky pads, hooks or coiled tendrils. Epiphyte
Epiphyte
An epiphyte is a plant that grows upon another plant non-parasitically or sometimes upon some other object , derives its moisture and nutrients from the air and rain and sometimes from debris accumulating around it, and is found in the temperate zone and in the...
s grow directly on the topmost branches of trees. Their bare roots absorb water and trap falling leaves, which provide nutrients as they decompose. Animals can also be a source of food: the sundew traps mosquito
Mosquito
Mosquitoes are members of a family of nematocerid flies: the Culicidae . The word Mosquito is from the Spanish and Portuguese for little fly...
es with sticky fluid, and venus flytrap
Venus Flytrap
The Venus Flytrap , Dionaea muscipula, is a carnivorous plant that catches and digests animal prey—mostly insects and arachnids. Its trapping structure is formed by the terminal portion of each of the plant's leaves and is triggered by tiny hairs on their inner surfaces...
s close their clamshell leaves on unwitting insects. Sandhill milkweed
Asclepias
Asclepias L. , the milkweeds, is a genus of herbaceous perennial, dicotyledonous plants that contains over 140 known species...
defends itself against feeding monarch caterpillar
Caterpillar
Caterpillars are the larval form of members of the order Lepidoptera . They are mostly herbivorous in food habit, although some species are insectivorous. Caterpillars are voracious feeders and many of them are considered to be pests in agriculture...
s by secreting sticky latex from its leaves. The milkweed endures the onslaught because, like most plants, it produces flowers, and the newly-hatched butterflies pollinate
Pollination
Pollination is the process by which pollen is transferred in plants, thereby enabling fertilisation and sexual reproduction. Pollen grains transport the male gametes to where the female gamete are contained within the carpel; in gymnosperms the pollen is directly applied to the ovule itself...
them. After flowering, brunsvigia
Brunsvigia
Brunsvigia is a flowering plant genus in the family Amaryllidaceae, subfamily Amaryllidoideae. It contains about 20 species native to South Africa....
plants in South Africa are snapped off by strong winds, sending their seed heads cartwheeling across the ground. Saguaro cacti
Saguaro
The saguaro is a large, tree-sized cactus species in the monotypic genus Carnegiea. It is native to the Sonoran Desert in the U.S. state of Arizona, the Mexican state of Sonora, a small part of Baja California in the San Felipe Desert and an extremely small area of California, U.S...
produce succulent fruit to attract desert animals which ingest and disperse their seeds. Some plants have adapted to survive environmental extremes. Dragon's blood tree
Dracaena cinnabari
Dracaena cinnabari, the Socotra Dragon Tree or Dragon Blood Tree, is a Dragon Tree native to the Socotra archipelago in the Indian Ocean. It is so called due to the red sap that the trees produce.-Taxonomy:...
s and desert roses thrive on arid Socotra
Socotra
Socotra , also spelt Soqotra, is a small archipelago of four islands in the Indian Ocean. The largest island, also called Socotra, is about 95% of the landmass of the archipelago. It lies some east of the Horn of Africa and south of the Arabian Peninsula. The island is very isolated and through...
, and coastal mangrove
Mangrove
Mangroves are various kinds of trees up to medium height and shrubs that grow in saline coastal sediment habitats in the tropics and subtropics – mainly between latitudes N and S...
trees survive by filtering salt from seawater. Bristlecone pine
Bristlecone pine
The bristlecone pines are a small group of pine trees that are thought to reach an age far greater than that of any other single living organism known, up to nearly 5,000 years....
s live above 3,000m in North America’s mountains. They have a six-week growing season and can live for 5,000 years, making them the oldest living things on Earth. Grass
Grass
Grasses, or more technically graminoids, are monocotyledonous, usually herbaceous plants with narrow leaves growing from the base. They include the "true grasses", of the Poaceae family, as well as the sedges and the rushes . The true grasses include cereals, bamboo and the grasses of lawns ...
es are the most successful of all plants. Of their 10,000 varieties, two cover more land than any other plant: rice and wheat. Life on Location goes behind the scenes of a time-lapse sequence in an English woodland. Because actually growing plants outdoors would prove a challenge to film (with constantly changing conditions) this scene used plants grown in a studio on a bluescreen
Chroma key
Chroma key compositing is a technique for compositing two images together. A color range in the top layer is made transparent, revealing another image behind. The chroma keying technique is commonly used in video production and post-production...
duplicating a real outdoor backdrop. The entire process took two years to make.
10. "Primates"
- UK broadcast 14 December 2009, 5.14 million viewers (21.9% audience share)
Intelligence, curiosity and complex societies have enabled primate
Primate
A primate is a mammal of the order Primates , which contains prosimians and simians. Primates arose from ancestors that lived in the trees of tropical forests; many primate characteristics represent adaptations to life in this challenging three-dimensional environment...
s to exploit many different habitats. In Ethiopia
Ethiopia
Ethiopia , officially known as the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a country located in the Horn of Africa. It is the second-most populous nation in Africa, with over 82 million inhabitants, and the tenth-largest by area, occupying 1,100,000 km2...
, male Hamadryas baboon
Hamadryas Baboon
The Hamadryas baboon is a species of baboon from the Old World monkey family. It is the northernmost of all the baboons; being native to the Horn of Africa and the southwestern tip of the Arabian Peninsula. These regions provide habitats with the advantage for this species of fewer natural...
s restore discipline after a skirmish with a rival troop. In Japanese macaque
Japanese Macaque
The Japanese macaque , historically known as saru , but now known as Nihonzaru to distinguish it from other primates, is a terrestrial Old World monkey species native to Japan....
society, only those members from the correct bloodlines are permitted to use thermal springs in winter; others are left out in the cold. Examples of primate communication include a silverback gorilla
Western Lowland Gorilla
The western lowland gorilla is a subspecies of the western gorilla that lives in montane, primary, and secondary forests and lowland swamps in Angola, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Congo, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea and Gabon. It is the gorilla usually found in zoos...
advertising his territory though vocalisations and chest-beating, and the piercing calls of spectral tarsier
Spectral Tarsier
The spectral tarsier is a species of tarsier found in Indonesia. It is apparently less specialized than the Philippine tarsier or Horsfield's tarsier; for example, it lacks adhesive toes. It is the type species for the Tarsius genus...
s which help keep their group together. In Thailand
Thailand
Thailand , officially the Kingdom of Thailand , formerly known as Siam , is a country located at the centre of the Indochina peninsula and Southeast Asia. It is bordered to the north by Burma and Laos, to the east by Laos and Cambodia, to the south by the Gulf of Thailand and Malaysia, and to the...
's rainforests, lar gibbon
Lar Gibbon
The lar gibbon , also known as the white-handed gibbon, is a primate in the Hylobatidae or gibbon family. It is one of the better-known gibbons and is often seen in zoos.-Range:...
s use song to reinforce sexual and family bonds. By contrast, ring-tailed lemur
Ring-tailed Lemur
The ring-tailed lemur is a large strepsirrhine primate and the most recognized lemur due to its long, black and white ringed tail. It belongs to Lemuridae, one of five lemur families. It is the only member of the Lemur genus. Like all lemurs it is endemic to the island of Madagascar...
s in Madagascar
Madagascar
The Republic of Madagascar is an island country located in the Indian Ocean off the southeastern coast of Africa...
broadcast sexual signals using scent glands. A young orangutan
Orangutan
Orangutans are the only exclusively Asian genus of extant great ape. The largest living arboreal animals, they have proportionally longer arms than the other, more terrestrial, great apes. They are among the most intelligent primates and use a variety of sophisticated tools, also making sleeping...
's upbringing equips it with all the skills it needs to survive in the forest, including finding food, moving through the canopy and building a shelter. On South Africa's Cape Peninsula
Cape Peninsula
The Cape Peninsula is a generally rocky peninsula that juts out for 75 km into the Atlantic Ocean at the south-western extremity of the African continent. At the southern end of the peninsula are Cape Point and the Cape of Good Hope...
, chacma baboon
Chacma Baboon
The Chacma baboon , also known as the Cape baboon, is, like all other baboons, from the Old World monkey family. With a body length of up to 115 cm and a weight from 15 to 31 kg, it is among the largest and heaviest baboon species. The Chacma is generally dark brown to gray in color,...
s forage kelp beds exposed by the lowest tides for nutritious shark eggs and mussel
Mussel
The common name mussel is used for members of several families of clams or bivalvia mollusca, from saltwater and freshwater habitats. These groups have in common a shell whose outline is elongated and asymmetrical compared with other edible clams, which are often more or less rounded or oval.The...
s. White-faced capuchin
White-headed Capuchin
The white-headed capuchin , also known as the white-faced capuchin or white-throated capuchin, is a medium-sized New World monkey of the family Cebidae, subfamily Cebinae...
s collect clam
Clam
The word "clam" can be applied to freshwater mussels, and other freshwater bivalves, as well as marine bivalves.In the United States, "clam" can be used in several different ways: one, as a general term covering all bivalve molluscs...
s in Costa Rica
Costa Rica
Costa Rica , officially the Republic of Costa Rica is a multilingual, multiethnic and multicultural country in Central America, bordered by Nicaragua to the north, Panama to the southeast, the Pacific Ocean to the west and the Caribbean Sea to the east....
's coastal mangrove
Mangrove
Mangroves are various kinds of trees up to medium height and shrubs that grow in saline coastal sediment habitats in the tropics and subtropics – mainly between latitudes N and S...
s, but lack the powerful jaws to pierce the shells. Their solution is to beat the shellfish against trees or rocks, which eventually exhausts the muscle that holds the shell closed. Life on Location follows camerawoman Justine Evans to Guinea
Guinea
Guinea , officially the Republic of Guinea , is a country in West Africa. Formerly known as French Guinea , it is today sometimes called Guinea-Conakry to distinguish it from its neighbour Guinea-Bissau. Guinea is divided into eight administrative regions and subdivided into thirty-three prefectures...
to film tool use in chimpanzee
Chimpanzee
Chimpanzee, sometimes colloquially chimp, is the common name for the two extant species of ape in the genus Pan. The Congo River forms the boundary between the native habitat of the two species:...
s. Dextrous hand movements enable them to dip for ant
Ant
Ants are social insects of the family Formicidae and, along with the related wasps and bees, belong to the order Hymenoptera. Ants evolved from wasp-like ancestors in the mid-Cretaceous period between 110 and 130 million years ago and diversified after the rise of flowering plants. More than...
s and termite
Termite
Termites are a group of eusocial insects that, until recently, were classified at the taxonomic rank of order Isoptera , but are now accepted as the epifamily Termitoidae, of the cockroach order Blattodea...
s using plant stems. They have also learned to crack nuts using precise and efficient blows with a stone. One male chimp is filmed sharing his stone with a female.
Inside Life
A complementary children's TV series, Inside Life, aired on the CBBC ChannelCBBC Channel
CBBC is a BBC television channel aimed at 6 to 12 year olds. It complements the CBBC programming that continues to air on BBC One and BBC Two. Launched on 11 February 2002, it broadcasts from 7am to 7pm on Freeview, cable, IPTV and digital satellite, occupying the same bandwidth as, but a different...
and followed young volunteers as they go behind the scenes with the Life production team and accompany the film-makers on expeditions in the field. It began airing on 13 October 2009.
One Life
In 2011, BBC Earth used Attenborough's footage of animals to create a documentary film called One LifeOne Life (film)
One Life is a 2011 nature documentary film directed by Michael Gunton and Martha Holmes.-Reception:Rotten Tomatoes reported that 90% of critics gave the film positive reviews based on 10 reviews....
narrated by Daniel Craig
Daniel Craig
Daniel Wroughton Craig is an English actor. His early film roles include Elizabeth, The Power of One, A Kid in King Arthur's Court and the television episodes Sharpe's Eagle, Zorro and The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles: Daredevils of the Desert...
.
Reception
The series was nominated for six Primetime Emmy AwardPrimetime Emmy Award
The Primetime Emmy Awards are awards presented by the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences in recognition of excellence in American primetime television programming...
s in July 2010. These included a nomination for Outstanding Nonfiction Series along with selections in a number of technical categories. The episode "Challenges of Life" went on to win the Outstanding Cinematography for Nonfiction Programming award.
In June 2010, Life won two Rockies at the Banff World Television Festival for best wildlife and natural history programme and best documentary.
In October 2010, Life was awarded the Jury's Special Prize at the Wildscreen Festival
Wildscreen Festival
The Wildscreen Festival, an initiative of The Wildscreen Trust is an international festival of film, television and digital media inspired by nature and natural places...
.
DVD, Blu-ray and book
The series was released in the UK as Region 2DVD region code
DVD region codes are a digital-rights management technique designed to allow film distributors to control aspects of a release, including content, release date, and price, according to the region...
, four-disc DVD (BBCDVD3068) and Blu-ray Disc
Blu-ray Disc
Blu-ray Disc is an optical disc storage medium designed to supersede the DVD format. The plastic disc is 120 mm in diameter and 1.2 mm thick, the same size as DVDs and CDs. Blu-ray Discs contain 25 GB per layer, with dual layer discs being the norm for feature-length video discs...
(BBCBD0055) box sets by 2Entertain on 30 November 2009. Region 1 DVD and Blu-ray Discs of both the BBC and Discovery versions of the series were released on 1 June 2010. In Australia, a Region 4
DVD region code
DVD region codes are a digital-rights management technique designed to allow film distributors to control aspects of a release, including content, release date, and price, according to the region...
, four-disc DVD and Blu-ray Disc
Blu-ray Disc
Blu-ray Disc is an optical disc storage medium designed to supersede the DVD format. The plastic disc is 120 mm in diameter and 1.2 mm thick, the same size as DVDs and CDs. Blu-ray Discs contain 25 GB per layer, with dual layer discs being the norm for feature-length video discs...
was released by ABC DVD/Village Roadshow on 7 October 2010.
A hardcover book written by producers Martha Holmes and Michael Gunton accompanies the television series. Life was published in the UK by BBC Books
BBC Books
BBC Books is an imprint majority owned and managed by Random House. The minority shareholder is BBC Worldwide, the commercial subsidiary of the British Broadcasting Corporation...
(ISBN 9781846076428) on 1 October 2009.
External links
- Official Life website at BBC Online
- Life website at Discovery ChannelDiscovery ChannelDiscovery Channel is an American satellite and cable specialty channel , founded by John Hendricks and distributed by Discovery Communications. It is a publicly traded company run by CEO David Zaslav...
US - Life at the Discovery Channel (Canada) website
- Behind-the-scenes information from Open2.netOpen2.netOpen2.net was a website run by the The Open University in support of collaborations with the BBC and described as an "online learning portal". The site contained a listings guide for TV and radio programmes that aired across the BBC broadcast network, articles by OU academics, interactive learning...
, the BBC/OU online learning portal - "The Wildlife of Life – 62 clips from the series and information on the animals, plants, habitats and adaptations featured" at BBC Online
- A first look at Life, preview video from the Discovery ChannelDiscovery ChannelDiscovery Channel is an American satellite and cable specialty channel , founded by John Hendricks and distributed by Discovery Communications. It is a publicly traded company run by CEO David Zaslav...
(USA) - Sneak Peek: Discovery's "Life" – slideshow by Life magazine