Poster for Life in the Undergrowth

BBC One 2005 1 season 5 eps TV-G Ended

Life in the Undergrowth

2005 1 season 5 eps TV-G

8.4

Season 1

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Season 1

50 min

S1 · E1 · Nov 23, 2005

Invasion Of The Land Episode 1

David Attenborough tells the story of the land-living invertebrates. He delves into the private life of Europe's dramatic leopard slug, a common garden resident with a truly bizarre end to its marathon mating ritual; watches the courtship ballet of tiny springtails on the underside of a leaf; sees swarms of bright red South African millipedes find partners, and in the caves of Venezuela meets the giant bat-eating centipede.

8.2 · You

50 min

S1 · E2 · Nov 30, 2005

Taking to the Air Episode 2

As the early June sun begins to set over a calm river in Central Hungary, masses of ghostly shapes emerge from their larval cases to take to the air for the first time. They are mayflies and in a spectacular display, thousands of them demonstrate how the very first wings were used. From the stunning aerobatics of hoverflies in an English garden to the mass migration of purple crow butterflies in the valleys of Taiwan, this episode tells the tale of the first animals ever to take to the air. Unique footage reveals the lightning fast reactions of bluebottles and hoverflies, filmed with one of the world's fastest cameras, and David Attenborough handles the world's largest (and perhaps most ferocious) insect - the Titan beetle.

8.0 · You

50 min

S1 · E3 · Dec 7, 2005

The Silk Spinners Episode 3

Silk is the invertebrates' great invention, used in a range of ways from from the protective stalks of lacewing eggs to the amazing hanging threads of New Zealand's 'glow worms'. Spiders, though, have taken silk-spinning to extremes. The common wolf spider has no web, but the female is a gentle parent, encasing her eggs in silk and carrying the precious bundle wherever she goes. The bolas spider uses a ball of sticky silk soaked in a copy of moth pheromone to lure its prey. Millions of communal spiders live and feed together in a vast, towering web - an arachnophobe's nightmare.

8.2 · You

50 min

S1 · E4 · Dec 14, 2005

Intimate Relations Episode 4

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.

8.0 · You

50 min

S1 · E5 · Dec 21, 2005

Supersocieties Episode 5

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.

8.2 · You

5 episodes in Season 1

Some details come from TheTVDB.

David Attenborough reveals the amazing stories behind the tiny lives of invertebrates, exploring their incredible miniature world with ground-breaking camerawork and technology.

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Cast

1 person

David Attenborough

Self

Also in

Attenborough's Paradise Birds

Tiger: Spy In The Jungle

David Attenborough Writer

Writer

David Attenborough

Total runtime 4h 5m · Episode length 49 min · Type Miniseries

Show info

Premiered

November 23, 2005

Final episode

December 21, 2005

Status

Ended

Network

BBC One

Country

United Kingdom

Type

Miniseries

Episode length

49 min

Total runtime

4h 5m

Original language

English

Production

B

BBC

Production

United Kingdom

Produced in

Languages

Spoken on screen

English

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