Documentary AreaSimply the best Documentaries

We may be smart, but we're still discovering animals have countless skills, every bit as impressive. In a world full of unexpected foes, competition is evolution's ultimate driving force. Is the secret behind the incredible diversity of life on earth, and the most extraordinary animal powers.

In the quest to pass on their genes, animals use incredible skills to win a mate. And spectacular displays to beat their competition. When the fight for mates gets fierce, it could take super strength and secret powers just to keep rivals at bay. After all, when it comes to sharing your future, only the most super-powered partner will do.

Invertebrates don't always operate alone. True society was the last feature to evolve in invertebrates, as recently as the time of Tyrannosaurus. In the last programme see the tensions below the surface in some of the great social structures built by insects, and witness the carnage when an ant colony and a termite colony wage war.

Our strange rock itself can also be lethal. We tend to think of Earth as our life support but it's not there to support us at all. It's a place that's violent, that's beautiful, that's crazy, that's intense. Mother Nature is a serial killer. We wouldn't be here without mass suicide and events so devastating it makes the extinction of the dinosaurs looks like a tea party. There have been 5 mass extinctions on the planet and 99.9 percent of all species that have ever lived are gone.
Explore the story of how life on Earth has evolved, becoming lethal for life to thrive.

the final episode deals with plants that live in hostile environments. Attenborough visits Ellesmere Island, north of the Arctic Circle, to demonstrate that even in a place that is unconducive to life, it can be found. Algae and lichens grow in or on rock, and during summer, when the ice melts, flowers are much more apparent. However, they must remain close to the ground to stay out of the chilling wind. In the Tasmanian mountains, plants conserve heat by growing into 'cushions' that act as solar panels, with as many as a million individual shoots grouped together as one. Others, such as the lobelia in Mount Kenya, have a 'fur coat' of dense hairs on their leaves. The saguaro cactus in the Sonoran Desert flourishes because of its ability to retain vast amounts of water, which can't be lost through leaves because it has none. Many desert dwellers benefit from an accelerated life cycle, blooming rapidly within weeks after rainfall. Conversely, Mount Roraima is one of the wettest places on Earth. It is a huge sandstone plateau with high waterfalls and nutrients are continuously washed away, so plants have to adapt their diet if they are to survive. A bladderwort is shown invading a bromeliad. Inhabitants of lakes have other problems to contend with: those that dominate the surface will proliferate, and the Amazon water lily provides an apt illustration. Attenborough ends the series with an entreaty for the conservation of plant species.

To survive Mars, our species will need to evolve how we eat, drink, and build our homes. Will we need our genes to evolve as well? Sometime in the future humans will leave Earth to colonize Mars, and in doing so will begin to adapt to life on another planet in surprising ways. Evolutionary biologist Dr. Scott Solomon foresees a series of changes to our species from the size of our hearts and heads to the pigments in our skin.