Peter Parks

The story of life, from the first primitive cells to the plants and animals that now live around us.

A celebration of the universe, displaying the whole of time, from its start to its final collapse. This film examines all that occurred to prepare the world that stands before us now: science and spirit, birth and death, the grand cosmos and the minute life systems of our planet.

Explore the extraordinary hidden world of insects, where a leaf weighs more than a car, rain drops feel like exploding hand grenades and a blade of grass soars like a skyscraper. Shot on location in the Borneo rainforest, Bugs! brings the beautiful and dangerous universe of its tiny stars up close and personal with cutting-edge technology that magnifies them up to 250,000 times their normal size.

A variety of unusual and frightening snakes are featured in this program. These unpredictable reptiles have appeared in both nature and recorded history for thousands of years. The huge appetite of the monstrous python and the toxicity of the Gaboon Viper are examined. Experts also comment on the spitting cobra's ability to hit its distant targets. The eating and mating habits of tropical sea snakes are compared to other snakes that exist exclusively on land. There's additional information about how snakes birth their young and how likely a particular snake is to attack when provoked.

This unusual look at plant reproduction investigates the diversity of plant adaptations for pollination with an emphasis on unusual co-evolved relationships with animal pollinators. Sexual encounters of the floral kind includes unusual bird and mammal pollinators, flowers that smell like rotting flesh, and orchids that lure male wasps with the promise of sex. Includes examples from Australia, the Arctic, Central America, and Great Britain.