Documentary AreaSimply the best Documentaries

The world of invertebrates exists in a web of relationships with plants and other animals. Unique footage of the world's smallest insect (a fairy wasp only quarter of a millimetre long) shows it flying underwater to find the eggs of water beetles in which to lay its own brood. Some ants 'farm' the trees that give them shelter, creating areas known as 'Devil's gardens'. To make sure these grow without competition, they kill off other seedlings in the surrounding vegetation. The blister beetle's larvae huddle together on the end of a piece of grass and mimic a female bee. When a male bee tries to mate with the 'female', the larvae grab on to his belly. Confused, he flies away and searches for a real female. When he eventually finds her and mates with her, the beetle larvae hurriedly swap from his front on to her back, and hence get carried back to her nest where they eat her pollen supplies.

We see how the Germans they lived, fought and worshippped their gods. Intricate 3d animation shows how they built their settlements, buried their kings, vanquished their enemies.

It's a golden age for planet hunters: recently, they've discovered more than 750 planets orbiting stars beyond our sun. Some of them, like a planet called Kepler-22b, might even be able to harbor life. What would that life look like? Combining startling animation with input from expert astrobiologists, Alien Planets Revealed takes viewers on a journey of the imagination as we 'build' aliens from the ground up. What chemical building blocks will make up their genetic code? How will life get started and how will the exotic environment on a planet like Kepler-22b drive evolution? Bringing the creative power of veteran animators together with the latest discoveries in astrobiology, Alien Planets Revealed provides a glimpse of the creatures we might one day encounter beyond our solar system.

To survive, animals need somewhere to live, a place that provides the necessities of life, shelter from the elements and a refuge from enemies. Good homes are rare and competition can be intense – finding a home is one thing, but defending it is quite another.

A mighty army of dolphins, sharks, whales, seals and gannets hunt down the billions of sardines along South Africa's east coast each winter. This is the Sardine Run: an underwater Armageddon, the greatest gathering of predators anywhere on the planet, and the most spectacular event in the world's oceans. From intimate moments of the creatures caught up in the run, to the dramatic finale of this spectacular event, The Great Tide is an action-packed feeding-frenzy, filmed underwater, on the ocean's surface, and in the air.
However, in recent years the sardine run has become less predictable, perhaps due to the warming effects of climate change. If the sardine run does not happen, the lives of the animals caught up in the drama hang in the balance. Pioneering a unique boat stabilised camera mount for surface filming, Nature's Great Events crew capture all the high octane action as the predators compete for sardines, filmed with aerial, underwater and above water cameras. Super slow motion cameras also capture the very moment gannets plunge into the water, hitting it at sixty miles an hour.
A violent winter storm is the trigger for the sardines to begin their desperate dash. They are followed by a super-pod of 5,000 dolphins and further up the coast more predators gather. A shoal of sardines 15 miles long is pushed into the shallows and aerial shots show thousands of sharks gathering to feed on them. The climax to the sardine run is a spectacular feeding frenzy as the dolphins round the sardines up into balls on which all the predators feast. Gannets rain down in their thousands, sharks pile in scattering the fish and a Bryde's whale lunges in taking great mouthfuls of sardines.

It is the ultimate in adventure travel, but it is not for the faint of heart. But the sights — from Jupiter’s churning red eye to Saturn’s glittering rings — are out of this world. The series takes viewers on a breath-taking journey through the planets in our Solar System. See stunning images of each planet including highly detailed images captured by today’s ultra high-tech telescopes. Advanced animation takes you up close and personal with these distant worlds, as we plunge through space to get a better look at the neighbours.