Roland Gockel

Animals and plants play an important role in the Christian festival. This documentary answers questions about the natural history of Christmas: How are the descendants of the biblical donkey doing? How do Santa's reindeer survive the winter? And what does the robin have to do with all this? Adventurous stories set in dreamlike landscapes around the world.

In this documentary, nature photographer Benny Rebel embarks on a multiweek expedition to capture images of wildlife native to his homeland of Iran.

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Barely known and never seen, elephant shrews baffle even the zoologists. With their stilt-like legs and long mobile trunk, joined to the body of a large shrew with a golden bottom, they certainly deserve their name - though they are related to neither elephant not shrew! This shy, endangered creature has become the mascot of Kenya’s beautiful Arabuko National Park. The income they attract via tourism pays for the education of local children. The elephant shrew has truly become the Spirit of the Forest.

This entertaining and educational 50-minute program follows well-known biologist Mac van Roosmalen as he pursues his life-long fascination with monkeys, traveling to exotic locations like the remote forests of Brazil--where he discovers remarkable and previously undiscovered species of all kinds. Having already found and named 20 previously unknown kinds of monkey, Roosmalen sets out another intrepid journey, this time on a quest to find large undiscovered mammals, and protect their endangered habitat.

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Cuckoos are brood parasites who they lay their eggs in the nests of other bird species, a clever trick that spares the rearing and feeding of their own offspring. Why do other parent birds let this happen? Are they too stupid? Too inept? Or simply clueless? None of the above!

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Berlin is a metropolis, a big city with international flair and at the same time the habitat of countless raccoons, foxes, bats, squirrels, hedgehogs and beavers. There is at least one pair of birds for every human inhabitant of Berlin, and nowhere else are there so many sparrows and nightingales. Swarms of bees harvest honey from almost half a million city trees, a badger roams through a backyard, and praying mantises lurk for prey in railroad tracks.

Africa's giant rats – the size of a cat – can be trained to detect land-mines by smelling them. Giant rats are clever and they learn fast. Their sense of smell is better than a dog's, they have more stamina, and they're a lot cheaper to train. This documentary follows "Miss Marple", who was born in a training lab and who goes through a year's training before being sent on her first mission to Mozambique. A shorter version (43 minutes) screened at festivals in 2009 but was never widely released.

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Garden dormice are supposed to be at home all over Europe. But recently they have started to go missing. A disappearance so mysterious, that researchers and conservationists have hurried to form a special task force of unprecedented size and scope. Their investigation focuses on possible causes for the massive decline in the cute rodent’s numbers. Time is of the essence. Only if the Dormouse Detectives manage to solve this puzzling case, they may still be able to save the species.

The shock of very first raindrops on a baby rhino's skin; horns, that may either be tender or inflict serious pain. Droughts, predators, mating acrobatics - a rhino's life is as full of surprises as it is rich with deep social bonds from the start. So is the close relationship between Malaika and her son Elias. For years, the two of them are inseparable. But Malaika is pregnant. When she finally goes into labor, nothing is the same anymore.