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.


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. When cuttlefish gather to mate, their bodies flash in stroboscopic colours. Time-lapse photography reveals thousands of starfish gathering under the Arctic ice to devour a seal carcass. A giant octopus commits suicide for her young. A camera follows her into a cave which she walls up, then she protects her eggs until she starves. The greatest living structures on earth, coral reefs, are created by tiny animals in some of the world's most inhospitable waters.