A universe of stars shines down on one special planet.
Our planet. Our home.
The only planet we know that has life.
Life began when the Earth was young and it started small...
when one tiny molecule managed to make a copy of itself.
Since then...
since that magical moment...
life has swept across the globe...
filling every corner of our world.
Today there are some 5 million different species on the planet.
5 million different ways of staying alive.
This is a story that connects us all.
lt's a story of hope and of triumph.
A story of our journey through life.
Every life begins with a birth.
And every mother must choose where her baby's life begins.
A Weddell seal has come to this desert of snow and ice to have her pup.
The pup is only a few hours old and is helpless.
He is entirely dependent on his mother.
lt may be spring,
but the temperature can still drop to minus 20 degrees
and winds of 70 miles an hour roar across the ice.
All his mother can do is try to shelter him with her own body.
Trust that she can keep her infant alive.
So why has she chosen here, of all places, to have her pup?
lt's because here, they're safe from their enemies.
ln the middle of this vast frozen sea, no predator can reach her or her baby.
but there's no food here.
So the mother keeps this ice hole open, the only route to her hunting ground.
And it must become his hunting ground, too.
She has to persuade him into the water.
He's not keen. And who can blame him?
but he soon discovers this is where he was born to be.
Now, life's adventure can begin.
Wherever you look in the world,
so much of growing up
depends on the skill and determination of your parents.
These snow monkeys live in a volcanic mountain range
in the cold North.
They have wonderfully thick furry coats, but they still feel the cold.
And the winter here is hard on the little ones.
Some snow monkeys have discovered there is a better way.
Steamy hot thermal springs.
These resourceful mothers bring their babies here
to escape the worst of the winter
in a long warm bath.
ln here, the water is a delightful 100 degrees.
So why aren't all the monkeys in the pool?
Well, it's a privilege which is jealously guarded.
lnside the pool, a royal family.
A queen and a ruling dynasty of snow monkeys.
Outside the pool...
everyone else.
The youngest princess can luxuriate because she has an extended family
determined to give her the best in life.
Not everyone has the advantage of such a supportive family.
Some have to depend on a dedicated single mother.
And here she is.
A strawberry poison arrow frog no bigger than your fingernail.
She's laid her eggs on the forest floor.
For most frog mothers that would be the job done.
but her maternal instinct is so strong she guards them until they've hatched,
and then she moves her tadpoles out of danger.
She hitches a tadpole on her back,
then sets off.
Surprisingly, she starts to climb.
And this is what she's looking for:
a special plant way up in the branches of a tree, ¤0 feet above the ground.
There's water trapped in its leaves that makes it a perfect nursery pool.
She has to leave him because she still has 4 more tadpoles
waiting on the forest floor,
and each must be carried up to its own private nursery.
There's nothing to eat in these pools,
so she feeds each tadpole with one of her own unfertilized eggs.
A single egg won't sustain a hungry tadpole for long,
so every few days,
she has to climb back up to each youngster...
and do it all over again.
One day, this fine young frog emerges from his pool,
and leaves his devoted mother behind.
(growling)
(adult gorilla snorting)
There are fathers who do their bit, too.
A male silverback gorilla left in charge.
(upbeat music)
(snorting)
but he's not what you might call a hands-on dad.
(snorting)
(growling)
(birds chirping)
(distant growling)
(growling)
babysitting.
lt's so exhausting.
(growling)
(screaming)
(distant whooping)
(distant thumping)
That sound is another male.
A rival. A challenge.
(whooping)
(echoing sound effects)
The rival would steal his territory,
and that would be the end of his family and everything he holds dear.
(distant whooping)
(distant thumping)
(whooping)
(echoing sound effects)
No reply.
(soft music)
When it comes to the important things in life,
he's actually a pretty good dad.
(wind gusting)
(whimpering)
Often, being a good parent comes naturally.
but there are times when you have to learn the hard way.
This baby elephant was born last night to a first-time mother.
These are the first steps on a life that could last 70 years,
if the baby survives these critical early days.
To produce enough milk to feed her calf, the mother must find water.
The baby has no option, she has to join the march.
(soft music)
She manages 5 miles,
but there's still a long way to go.
(growling)
(soft music)
(trumpeting)
(growling)
(trumpeting)
She's not sure what to make of a waterhole.
(whimpering) And no idea how to get out of it.
As the herd moves deeper into the swamp,
the young mother and her calf follow.
This is dangerous.
(trumpeting)
baby elephants can get fatally stuck in mud.
(calf crying)
The mother's trying to help,
but she's actually pushing her baby deeper into the mud.
(trumpeting)
The grandmother sees the problem.
(trumpeting)
She barges her daughter out of the way just in time.
(soft music)
Whether it's a baby elephant or a baby frog,
a snow monkey or a gorilla,
they're all cared for by parents who do their best to keep them safe.
Too soon, childhood ends...
(trumpeting)
...and they'll discover it's time to make their own way in the world.
The lifelong search for food begins.
(birds chirping)
lmagine trying to feed 10 million hungry mouths.
Well, that's the challenge facing the inhabitants of this underground city.
The city is surrounded by grassland.
Unfortunately its citizens, grass-cutter ants,
can't actually eat grass.
(crunching)
(thumping)
(upbeat music)
Yet they collect every blade of grass they can,
and they carry it all the way back to the colony.
(upbeat music)
And they do this all day.
Every day.
365 days a year.
(upbeat music)
So why are they doing it?
The answer lies deep underground.
(cringing)
They chop it up and feed it to a fungus that can eat grass.
And then they eat the fungus.
The anthill is a massive underground farm.
lt's a perfect arrangement,
except that the fungus produces so much carbon dioxide
it poisons the air down here.
The ants have sorted that problem, too.
They've built specially designed ventilation shafts to keep their air clean.
They're farmers, architects and engineers.
Each individual ant has a brain the size of a pinhead.
but somehow, together,
they have invented a solution to feeding themselves
that we would be proud to match.
Sometimes in life, the best way is to follow your own path.
Choose food that no one else has a taste for.
(distant squawking)
Here's a lammergeier,
a huge bearded vulture,
scanning the ground for his next meal.
(squawking)
(distant squawking)
A lot of rival scavengers have beaten him to this carcass.
(squawking)
but a lammergeier is happy to miss out on the meat.
lt's the bones he's after.
Why? because inside, they are full of rich marrowfat.
The problem: how to get at it.
(epic music)
Here's how.
(cawing)
Now the juices in his stomach - as corrosive as battery acid -
can get to work dissolving the bone.
(squawking)
Every young lammergeier wants to learn the trick.
lt's not as easy as it looks.
And a beginner needs to be closely watched.
(angry squawking)
lf at first you don't succeed...
try...
(squawking)
try...
try again.
A unique and inventive way to get food.
One that lammergeiers have made their own.
(crickets chirring)
For centuries, these rocks have been a special place for preparing food
by a really clever animal.
ln fact it's so clever
it's changed the way we think about animals
and even about ourselves.
These caves are home to a monkey:
the brown tufted capuchin.
Capuchins love palm nuts.
The problem is they're incredibly tough to crack, even harder than bone.
(birds chirping)
An old hand knows that first a nut should be peeled.
Then given a week or so drying in the sun.
Here's some he prepared earlier.
Long ago, these clever capuchins worked out
that this is what they needed to finish the job.
Now the final step.
(soft dramatic music)
(music intensifying)
We used to think only humans were clever enough to use tools like this.
(joyful music)
Youngsters watch and imitate their elders,
just as human toddlers do.
(thumping)
They learn very early that to do a job properly,
you've gotta have the right tool.
(fly buzzing)
lt takes 8 years to become a master nutcracker.
(birds squawking)
ln many parts of the world, you need more than just skill.
You need courage to find food.
(birds squawking)
A couple of weeks ago, this ibex gave birth to her kids
at the top of this cliff,
out of the reach of predators.
Now they need food and water.
And that is down in the valley.
Getting there is going to be tough.
(pebbles falling down)
(hooves echoing)
(wind gusting)
(birds squawking)
Trailing behind, this little one is almost down,
when she runs right into trouble.
(dramatic music)
The kid has never seen a fox before but she knows she must run for her life.
One wrong turn, one hesitation
and the ibex's short life will be over.
The kid has the good sense
to make for a place where only an ibex could stand.
(soft music)
Today the little kid made all the right choices...
and the fox goes home hungry.
(birds chirping)
So being a hunter isn't always easy.
You have to be at the top of your game to survive.
(crunching)
A praying mantis.
Sharp-eyed and lightning quick.
A perfect hunter.
And a cricket, a perfect meal.
(sound effects)
but he's outgunned by something even more deadly:
a chameleon.
She can camouflage her skin to melt into the background.
She can move her eyes independently to lock on to her target.
Her tongue is a guided missile,
striking her victims at 50 feet a second.
And it comes totally out of the blue.
Delicious.
You don't have to work alone. You can be part of a team.
Get it right and it can totally change your life.
ln this corner of Africa, things are changing.
Fast.
(birds squawking)
(soft music)
Cheetahs hunt alone.
They're very fast,
but not strong enough to take down a big animal.
And the zebra know it.
but this cheetah is different.
He doesn't hunt alone.
He's joined forces with not just 1,
but his 2 brothers.
As fast as ever,
and now 3 times as strong.
They're turning their sights on much bigger prey.
(distant zebra crying)
An ostrich knows a lone cheetah is too small and weak to worry about.
but these brothers have changed the rules.
(dramatic music)
(ostrich squawking)
The female is slow to react and the cheetahs switch target.
(squawking)
(groaning)
(cheetahs panting)
These brothers have figured out how successful a team can be.
Strange circular scars on the sea floor
are the mark of a spectacularly successful team.
Cunning, coordinated and creative.
These dolphins have worked out
that fish out of water are much easier to catch.
(puffing)
by beating her tail down hard,
this bottlenose dolphin stirs up the seabed.
And by swimming in a circle,
she creates a ring of mushrooming mud around a shoal of fish.
A fishing net... made of mud.
As the net pulls tighter and tighter, the fish are trapped,
till there's only one way out...
straight into the mouths of the waiting dolphins.
(classical music)
(birds chirping)
What can you do if you're a hunter that doesn't move, can't move?
There's only one option: lure your victim in.
(fly buzzing)
The Venus flytrap does just that:
making itself irresistible,
oozing sugary nectar around the brim of each leaf.
bait for hungry visitors.
The triggers, fine hairs,
which only work when 2 of them are touched within 20 seconds.
(metallic clanging) One...
(clock ticking)
(metallic clanging) ...two.
(buzzing) (dramatic music)
(fly squirming)
Once the plant has digested the fly,
the trap reopens and resets itself,
ready for its next meal.
lt works brilliantly, except...
if it eats all the visiting flies,
there'll be nobody left to pollinate its flowers.
No baby flytraps next year.
So it sends up its flowers on stems a foot long,
well away from the traps below.
(birds chirping)
Up here, flies can safely graze on nectar.
ln return, they fertilize the flowers.
(buzzing)
Down below, business as usual.
When it comes to the truly ruthless pursuit of prey...
there is one hunter you don't want to meet.
The Komodo dragon, the biggest lizard on the planet.
10-feet long and weighing 300 pounds.
lt's the height of the dry season.
Perfect times for a dragon.
(insects buzzing) (growling)
ln the pitiless heat, buffalo concentrate at the shrinking waterholes.
The dragon is wary of getting too close.
A jab from those horns,
even a kick from those legs could badly injure him.
He knows all he needs is just one bite.
lt's just a nip,
a flesh wound, but it alerts the other dragons close-by.
Like sharks, they're attracted by blood.
(grunting)
They gather round and watch the buffalo's every move... for days.
The wound doesn't heal.
This is the Komodo dragon's secret weapon.
lts bite injected a poisonous cocktail of bacteria and venom.
As days turn into weeks, the buffalo weakens.
And the dragons wait.
That's all they have to do.
Just bear the hunger, watch,
and wait for the poison to take effect.
(snorting)
(groaning)
The buffalo died in the night.
(flies buzzing)
The dragons can eat almost their own body weight in one meal.
They strip the buffalo to the bone in under 3 hours.
Hunters.
Resourceful, imaginative, determined.
They seem to hold all the aces.
So what can you do if you're the one being hunted?
beneath this tree lives a tiny creature called a sengi.
And she has a plan.
One needing speed, agility,
and a very good memory.
She's cleared an intricate network of trails all around her territory.
And she's memorized every twist and turn of this maze.
And here's why.
(dramatic music)
The monitor lizard is very fast in short bursts.
but she's the one with the agility to take the tight corners.
(dramatic music)
And she makes the most of home advantage.
She's not only outrun the lizard,
she's outwitted him.
(insects buzzing)
Home safe, in time to suckle her baby.
Her escape plan has kept them both alive.
For every hunter who thinks he's invincible,
there's an escape artist to gladden your heart.
(soft music)
Meet the pebble toad.
And his sworn enemy, the toad-eating tarantula.
The pebble toad has no armour.
He crawls very slowly...
and hopping is quite beyond him.
On the face of it,
no contest.
(gulping)
but he's not called a pebble toad for nothing.
(dramatic music)
He rolls like a pebble
and he bounces like a pebble...
right out of danger.
(birds chirping)
Now meet the Jesus Christ lizard.
He may look relaxed,
but he's actually about to do something quite miraculous.
(squawking)
That hunter's too close. Time to go.
(rhythmic music)
(soft music)
We'd have to run at more than 65 miles an hour to do this.
He's got a talent for walking on water and a name to match.
(joyful music)
There are places where there's simply nowhere to run.
Then your best chance is to hide in a crowd.
Each individual fish joins the shoal to save its own skin,
but the synchronized flash of silver
makes it hard for the hunter to pick out a victim.
(joyful music)
(squawking)
Unfortunately, a crowd attracts attention.
And the fish find themselves at the centre of a feeding frenzy.
(dramatic music)
A shoal reduced to a few survivors,
this time by calm, surgical precision.
Sailfish combine speed with skilful swordplay
to pick off one fish after another.
So is there anywhere to escape?
(epic music)
Fish... that fly.
Escaping the clutches of a hunter is not just about self-preservation.
Often there is even more at stake.
(dramatic music)
Red-billed tropicbirds coming home from a fishing trip.
(squawking)
Frigate birds patrolling offshore.
Waiting.
They don't want to kill him; they want to steal his fish.
lt's easier than catching their own.
Another ambush.
(squawking)
There goes the fish.
Another victory for the robbers.
lt's nesting time here in Tobago and this chick is hungry.
lts father has yet to battle his way through.
(dramatic music)
Frigate birds are faster, but tropicbirds are quicker on the turn.
(squawking)
(chirping)
He didn't fight off his attackers to feed himself.
He did it for his chick. (chirping)
because nothing is more important to him than family.
lt's tempting to think that the story of life
is just about survival, staying alive,
but living here is an animal who turns that idea on its head
because in life, there is one greater purpose,
one greater goal.
(breathing)
This giant octopus is looking for a new home.
(breathing)
lt has to be just right.
She's planning on raising a family,
and living there for the rest of her life.
(breathing)
These translucent curtains of eggs are her first brood.
Her only brood.
A giant octopus has only one chance to be a mother.
For 6 long months,
she dare not leave her eggs unprotected for a moment.
Not even to feed.
She's prepared to starve herself to death...
for the sake of her young.
(soft music)
She softly blows water over her eggs to encourage them to hatch.
As her life ebbs away,
she sees her babies born into the world.
They mean so much to her
she's willing to die for them.
but she lives on, in her children and in the generations to come.
(birds chirping)
(soft music)
To raise that next generation, we all dream
of finding the perfect partner, the love of our life.
lt's why, every spring,
these beautiful birds fly north to find each other again
after a long, lonely winter apart.
To celebrate their reunion,
the male gives her the most romantic gift he can.
A fish.
but the female still wants to test her partner's true commitment,
so she invites him to join her in a dance.
(soft music)
(splashing)
(birds chirping)
This stag beetle is in search of his perfect mate,
and he thinks he's going to find her at the top of this tree.
And sure enough here she is, waiting.
but the love life of a beetle
is never that simple.
Those aren't horns on his head. They're jaws.
The male Darwin's beetle has some of the biggest jaws in nature...
for fighting rivals.
(squeaking)
The bigger the jaws, the better the fighter.
Just as well that armour's tough.
(amusing music)
A second rival.
And another.
One more.
And yet another.
Here she is at last.
After all he's been through, she doesn't seem that impressed.
(amusing music)
Unfortunately for her, the hurling habit dies hard.
(squeaking)
When it comes to winning a mate, males may think they call the shots,
but often it's the females that do the choosing.
This is a female humpback whale
and she's ready to mate.
As well as making a scene, she's releasing her scent into the water,
attracting males from far and wide.
(whale singing)
but the minute they turn up, she swims away,
enticing her suitors to chase her.
They challenge for the one position that counts:
to swim right behind her.
They're doing exactly what she wants.
She wants them to fight.
(whales singing)
(epic music)
40-ton males lash out at each other.
lt's an epic battle
where there can only be one winner.
(dramatic music)
Only when the female is sure that the strongest male has won
will she allow him to take his place at her side to be her mate.
(whales singing)
(whale singing)
A year later,
she comes back to Tonga with her perfect newborn calf.
Her whole story, her whole life
has brought her to this moment.
Every living thing on our planet shares the same desire:
not just to live,
but to foster new life.
And we're no different.
(soft music)
We see so much of us in them...
and them in us.
Whether it's intelligence or ingenuity...
...strength, grace or determination.
Courage...
even love.
Their lives...
our lives...
all life on Earth will be richer
if we choose to remember everything we have in common.
To remember
we share one planet...
one future.