This ten-part natural history blockbuster, shot in HD, is the definitive exploration of the diversity of life on Earth, revealing the most spectacular and fascinating behaviour driven by the endless struggle to survive. Life stars a cast of 'box-office' wildlife characters, filmed on every continent and in every habitat across the world, with each drama-filled episode entirely dedicated to one of the planet's ten most important wildlife groups. The series has the revelation, sense of place, cinematic style and emotionally involving individual sequences perfected in programmes such as The Blue Planet and Planet Earth, but with the addition of close-up, intensely dramatic new behaviour - where the animals are the stars.


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 does something unique: it sneaks into a pool where elephant seal pups learn to swim and snatches them, saving itself the trouble of hunting in the open sea. Slow-motion cameras reveal the star-nosed mole's newly-discovered technique for smelling prey underwater: it exhales then inhales a bubble of air ten times per second. Young ibex soon learn the only way to escape a fox - run up an almost vertical cliff face - and young stoats fight mock battles, learning the skills that make them one of the world's most efficient predators.