Introducing the extraordinary things animals and plants must do in order to survive and reproduce. Key animals: Brown-tufted capuchins, dolphins, cheetahs, chameleons, killer whales.
(50 minutes, 25-minute version also available)

From icy wastes to arid deserts, reptiles and amphibians have mastered the harshest environments on the planet. Key animals: Komodo dragons, sea snakes, African bullfrogs, basilisk lizards.
(50 minutes, 25-minute version also available)

Birds are supremely adaptable, and capable not only of flying at phenomenal speeds and covering great distances, but of displaying a murderous nature. Key animals: Flamingos, Lammergeyers, West-ern Grebes, Bowerbirds.
(50 minutes, 25-minute version also available)

From the open ocean to coral reef and storm-ravaged surf to the freshwater springs of Kenya, swim with sharks, mudskippers and convict fish. Key animals: Weedy sea dragons, sailfish, flying fish, sharks, Hawaiian goby.
(50 minutes, 25-minute version also available)

Every day, in the jungles, grasslands, deserts and frozen wastelands, battles are won, fought and lost between carnivores and their prey. Key animals: Cheetahs, stoats, killer whales, greater bulldog bats, Ethiopian wolves, star-nosed moles.
(50 minutes, 25-minute version also available)

Insects are the most diverse animal group on the planet. The key to their success is their unique ability to reshape themselves. Key animals: Monarch butterflies, damselflies, grass cutter ants, Dawson's bees, Bombardier beetles.
(50 minutes, 25-minute version also available)

Primates are uniquely intelligent - engaging in problem solving, communication, tool use and intimate social interplay. Key animals: Gorillas, orangutans, chimpanzees, snow monkeys, tarsiers.
(50 minutes, 25-minute version also available)

Using special underwater tracking time-lapse techniques, Life takes a journey to the unchartered corners of the ocean. Key animals: Humboldt squids, Pacific giant octopuses, Australian giant cuttlefish, spider crabs.
(50 minutes, 25-minute version also available)

Plants' solutions to life's challenges are as ingenious and manipulative as any animal's. Innovative time-lapse photography opens up a parallel world where plants act like fly-paper, or spring-loaded traps, to catch insects. Vines develop suckers and claws to haul themselves into the rainforest canopy. Every peculiar shape proves to have a clever purpose. The dragon's blood tree is like an upturned umbrella to capture mist and shade its roots. The seed of a Bornean tree has wings so aerodynamic they inspired the design of early gliders. The barrel-shaped desert rose is full of water.
(50 minutes)

Mammals dominate the planet. They do it through having warm blood and by the care they lavish on their young. Weeks of 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 produces stunning im-ages of millions of migrating bats as they converge on fruiting trees in Zambia, and slow-motion cam-eras reveal how a mother rufous sengi exhausts a chasing lizard.
(50 minutes)