Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ

Africa - Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ ONE

This landmark five-part series aims to reshape the way we think about each region of Africa by revealing never before seen impressions of the world's wildest continent.

From hidden jungles and ice-blue glaciers to erupting volcanoes and lakes of poison, the team explores an astonishing array of previously unknown places and discovers bizarre new creatures and behaviours. Travelling from the Atlas Range to the Cape of Good Hope, from the Mountains of the Moon to a rainforest in Mozambique only discovered a few years ago, amazing new landscapes and extraordinary new creatures are revealed.

Among the surprises in Africa are some of the rarest fish in the world, exploding insects and lizards that hunt on the backs of lions.

Series producer James Honeyborne comments: "Our experienced team from the Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ’s Natural History Unit thought we'd seen it all before. We were wrong. Filming wildlife across the whole of Africa has become our toughest and most surprising assignment yet."

Wild Arabia - Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ TWO

Wild Arabia is a romantic journey into the very heart of a lost world – one of virtually impenetrable wilderness, unimaginable landscapes, surprising wildlife bounty and the most startling juxtaposition of ancient and modern to be found anywhere on earth.

At the crossroads of three continents, Arabia harbours the largest sand desert in the world. Known as the Rub al Khali – or Empty Quarter – it is surrounded by three contrasting seas: the Red Sea, the Arabian Sea and the Persian Gulf.

It’s a land where all living things – including man – face the toughest battle to survive, exposed to oven-like temperatures and with little water at their disposal. From the elusive Arabian leopard in the Jebel Samhan mountains of Oman, to previously undiscovered populations of whale sharks in the Gulf, and the iconic Arabian oryx deep in the dunes of the Empty Quarter, only the most adaptive and specialist wildlife can survive.

Survival - Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ ONE

From the intimacy of a mother killer whale teaching her young calf how to hunt seals by first playing at chasing penguins, to the super fast manakin birds with the complexity of their extravagant courtship dance, Survival is about the great struggle for success – the production of young – that begins for every animal at birth.

The series features the charismatic natural history favourites as well as the more quirky and strange, such as the Mimic octopus, which can morph its body shape and colour so precisely that it appears to turn into the exact animal that an approaching predator most fears.

Disguise is also important for the male manakin bird, which takes six years to learn the courtship dance. During his education as a youngster he can pass himself off as a female and hang around older males. The learning regime is so intense that a male may die of exhaustion long before he has graduated.

Due to incredible new technology, such as miniature cameras mounted on small remote-controlled electric-powered stealth helicopters, the complexities of animal behaviour can be filmed like never before.