Life

In nature, living long enough to breed is a monumental struggle. Many animals and plants go to extremes to give themselves a chance. The strawberry poison arrow frog carries a tadpole high into a tree and drops it in a bromeliad. While fledgling chinstrap penguins undertake a heroic journey through the broken ice to get out to sea. Many can barely swim and the formidable leopard seal lies in wait.

Reptiles and amphibians look like hang-overs from the past. But they overcome their shortcomings through amazing innovation. The pebble toad turns into a rubber ball to roll and bounce from its enemies and extreme slow-motion shows how a Jesus Christ lizard runs on water. In a TV first, komodo dragons hunt a huge water-buffalo, biting it to inject venom, then waiting for weeks until it dies.

Mammals dominate the planet. They do it through having warm blood and by the care they lavish on their young. Filming in the bitter Antarctic winter reveal how a mother Weddell seal wears her teeth down keeping open a hole in the ice so she can catch fish for her pup. A powered hot air balloon captures stunning images of millions of migrating bats as they converge on fruiting trees in Zambia.

Fish dominate the planet's waters through their astonishing variety of shape and behavior. Slow-motion cameras show flying fish gliding through the air and capture the world's fastest swimmer, the sailfish, plucking sardines from a shoal at 70 mph. And the tiny Hawaiian goby undertakes one of nature's most daunting journeys, climbing a massive waterfall to find safe pools for breeding.

Birds owe their global success to feathers - something no other animal has. They allow birds to do extraordinary things. Aerial photography takes us into the sky with an Ethiopian Lammergeier dropping bones to smash them into edible-sized bits, while thousands of pink flamingoes promenade in one of nature's greatest spectacles.

There are 200 million insects for each of us. They are the most successful animal group ever. Their key is an armored covering that takes on almost any shape. Darwin's stag beetle fights in the tree tops with huge curved jaws. The camera flies with millions of monarch butterflies which migrate 2000 miles, navigating by the sun and a honey bee army stings a raiding bear into submission.

Mammals' ability to learn new tricks is the key to survival in the knife-edge world of hunters and hunted. In a TV first, a killer whale off the Falklands sneaks into a pool where elephant seal pups learn to swim and snatches them, saving itself the trouble of hunting in the open sea. Young ibex soon learn the only way to escape a fox is to run up an almost vertical cliff face.

Marine invertebrates are some of the most bizarre and beautiful animals on the planet, and thrive in the toughest parts of the oceans. Divers swim into a shoal of predatory Humboldt squid as they emerge from the ocean depths to hunt in packs and watch as cuttlefish gather to mate, their bodies flash in stroboscopic colors. A giant octopus commits suicide for her young.

Plants' solutions to life's challenges are as innovative and manipulative as any animal's. Stunning time-lapse photography reveals a parallel world where plants act like fly-paper, or spring-loaded traps, to catch insects. The dragon's blood tree acts as an upturned umbrella to capture mist and shade its roots. The heliconia plant enslaves a humming bird and turns it into an addict for its nectar.

Primates are just like humans - intelligent, quarrelsome, family-centered. Armies of Hamadryas baboons, 400 strong, battle on the plains of Ethiopia to steal females and settle old scores. An orangutan baby fails in its struggle to make an umbrella out of leaves to keep off the rain. Young capuchins can't get the hang of smashing nuts with a large rock, a technique their parents have perfected.