Explore the breathtaking extremes of our planet in this captivating episode. Journey through the vast Hang Son Doong cave in Vietnam, the largest on Earth. Witness the resilience of life in harsh conditions, marvel at the adaptation strategies of species like the blind cave fish and the enduring Arctic wolf pack. In the Arctic, observe the strategic hunt of wolves preying on musk oxen, a dance as old as the Ice Age. In the French Alps, the struggle for mating among common frogs unfolds, showcasing the urgency and challenges faced by cold-blooded animals. Witness the social dynamics of Barbary macaques in the cedar forests of the Atlas Mountains, where survival hinges on social bonds. The forests of Mexico, home to millions of monarch butterflies that huddle for warmth, illustrates the fragility and beauty of nature.
Discover how fire shapes ecosystems in South Africa's fynbos and Northern Australia, crucial for the survival of species like the golden-shouldered parrot. The documentary poignantly addresses the impact of changing climates and human intervention on wildlife, from the endangered elephants of Amboseli, Kenya, to the secretive snow leopards of the Gobi Desert. This episode offers a profound glimpse into the extraordinary adaptations and challenges faced by wildlife across the globe, reminding us of the delicate balance and beauty of life on Earth.

In the far north of our planet lies the largest land habitat on earth, home to snow-covered forests and the icy open tundra. These are lands of extremes that push animals to their limits: in winter they are so cold that much of the ground has remained frozen since the last ice age. To stand any chance of survival, animals must adapt in extreme ways: here a super pack of wolves, 25 strong, has come together to take on the only large prey available to them in winter, American bison.
On the featureless tundra, an Arctic fox must strike a living alone. She is a wanderer and will roam many hundreds of miles searching for tiny lemmings, hidden deep underground. The only way to reach them is with a head dive. In the remote far east of Russia, a rare Amur leopard prowls the seemingly empty, snow-covered forest. With little prey available, it must use its ingenuity to find a meal. It follows crows in the hope of finding carrion, but it must not stay long, for it shares the forest with a far larger but equally hungry big cat, the Siberian tiger.
As spring arrives, the forests begin to thaw and life returns. Beneath the ground, a nest of tiny painted turtle hatchlings now emerge, having remained frozen in a state of suspended animation throughout winter. To the north, it is a further month before the sun’s warmth baths the frozen ground of the tundra. Tucked away underground lies a tiny snow queen – a Lapland bumble bee. She is the sole survivor of her colony - the rest perished in the winter freeze - but her larger size, her furry body and antifreeze in her blood have allowed her to survive. Now she is in a hurry. She must feed herself and raise a brood in the brief window of summer while the flowers are in bloom.
Snowy owls also use the open tundra to breed: one pair have raised a nest full of fluffy chicks. With 24-hour daylight in which to hunt, the dedicated parents bring back meal after meal for their ever-growing brood. But one day, they return to find the nest empty.
Today, the biggest challenge in the tundra is climate change. Warming summers are melting the permafrost deep within the soil, causing the ground to thaw and, in places, the land to collapse. These changes are impacting the animals too. Caribou arrive in herds of 200,000 individuals to raise their calves in the rich pastures, but warming means mosquitos emerge sooner and bother the calves before they have had a chance to gain strength. The parents drive their young to cooler, mosquito-free land, but to get there they must cross rivers running with increased meltwater and escape hungry grizzly bears. They, like much of the tundra's wildlife, are adapted to live in the extremes - but the challenge of today’s warming climate could be one extreme too many.

Journeying from pole to pole, The series 'Frozen Planet II' reveals surprising worlds that exist across the planet and the remarkable animals that make them their home. In a fragile world of beauty and hostility, nature finds a way to survive and thrive. David Attenborough explores a planet on the brink of major change.
In the first episode, we begin our journey in the far south, in the most hostile place on earth, the frozen continent of Antarctica. After being raised on the ice in winter, emperor penguin chicks find themselves abandoned by their parents in spring. To survive, they must find their own way across the treacherous sea ice to the rich waters of the Southern Ocean.
The waters surrounding Antarctica may be the richest of all, but they are also home to an exceptionally sophisticated predator, the killer whale. To reach their favored prey, Weddell seals, a family of killer whales have learnt to generate their own waves, washing the seals off their ice floes. It’s a technique that has been passed down over generations and is coordinated by the family matriarch, who can be over 100 years old.
Leaving Antarctica and travelling north, we discover frozen habitats that are created by altitude. The greatest of these is the Himalaya, the tallest mountain range on earth, which contains so much ice and snow it is known as the third pole. In the shadow of the Himalaya lies a vast frozen grassy plain that is home to the fluffiest cat in the world, Pallas’s cat. It may have extremely dense fur, but if it’s to survive the Mongolian winter, it needs to catch lots of gerbils and voles. Easier said than done when you only have short legs and paws that are sensitive to the cold.
North of the Great Steppe lies the boreal forest, which encircles the continents of North America, Europe and Asia, and remains frozen for six months of the year. Prowling these forests in the far east of Russia is the Siberian tiger, the largest cat in the world. In winter, it is on the lookout for black bears hibernating in caves, a high-risk strategy that only a cat of this size would attempt.
Above the boreal forest, we cross into the Arctic Circle, where conditions become so extreme that trees can no longer grow. This is the tundra. Living here are relics of the last ice age, musk ox. In spring, their calves face a far greater danger than the cold, grizzly bears. Encounters can be brutal, but if just a few calves survive the gauntlet, the herd’s future is secure.
To the north of the tundra is the Arctic Ocean, the only ocean that can completely freeze over. Living here is one of the most peculiar animals on earth, the hooded seal. Males have extraordinary inflatable noses, producing a bright red balloon out of their left nostrils. One male hopes this will make him irresistible.
All of the frozen habitats share one thing in common: the threat posed by today’s climate change. Travelling to the island of Greenland, home to the largest body of ice in the northern hemisphere, we witness how global warming is melting its ice cap at faster rates than ever before, with profound consequences for global sea levels. Lastly, we visit the Arctic’s most iconic resident, the polar bear, as a mother bear struggles to provide for her cubs in a world of shrinking sea ice.

According to recent science the Neanderthals are not the knuckle-dragging apemen of popular imagination. The first part of the film investigates what Neanderthals looked like and how they lived in their Ice Age world. They were faster, smarter, better looking - and much more like us than we ever thought. Our guide is Ella Al-Shamahi, who enlists the skills of Andy Serkis, the master of performance capture, and a group of experts to investigate deeply Neanderthals appearance.
In the second part, Ella explores the fate of the Neanderthals - asking why they became extinct, and discovering how they live on inside of us today. About 2% of the DNA of most people is of Neanderthal origin - and it continues to affect us today. Neanderthals were a people who were supremely well adapted to their environment. But about 40,000 years ago they disappeared. Why?

David Attenborough joins an archaeological dig uncovering Britain’s biggest mammoth discovery in almost 20 years. In 2017, in a gravel quarry near Swindon, two amateur fossil hunters found an extraordinary cache of Ice Age mammoth remains and a stone hand-axe made by a Neanderthal. Professor Ben Garrod joins the team at DigVentures during the excavation as they try to discover why the mammoths were here and how they died. Could the Neanderthals have killed these Ice Age giants?

An Ice Age relic found in a mysterious cave is evidence of prehistoric humans' connection to the supernatural. Using cutting-edge tech, experts investigate this 40,000-year-old treasure to reveal why it was made and the long-lost myths it represents.
In the summer of 1939, a team of explorers unearthed hundred of mammoth ivory fragments within a cave in Germany. Due to the start of World War II, the explorers were forced to abandon their findings, and the fragments laid forgotten in a museum. Decades later, as archeologists began piecing the fragments together, an extraordinary artifact emerged -- a figure with both animal and human features, now known as the 'Lion man.'