Das Leben der Säugetiere

First in a ten-part epic series in which David Attenborough explores why mammals, including humans, are the most successful and diverse animals on the planet. His journey begins in Australia where he encounters the bizarre egg-laying platypus and the country's many marsupials - mammals like the possum, kangaroo and wombat that protect their young in a pouch.

Mammals that hunt insects shared the planet with the dinosaurs, but when the giant reptiles disappeared, these creatures seized their chance to conquer new territory. David Attenborough meets strange bats, dim-witted anteaters, less familiar pangolins, moles that swim through sand and the garden hedgehog in the second part of his epic series.

Heavily armoured, indigestible and even poisonous, plants pose problems for some of our biggest predators. David Attenborough learns why eating plants is one of the greatest challenges for the planet's mammals.

Rodents are the most numerous mammals on the planet, comprising an incredibly diverse variety of species. They range from the naked mole rat, which spends its entire life below ground, to the world's largest rodent, the capybara, which grazes in herds across the vast grasslands of South America. In the fourth of his ten-part epic series David Attenborough shares his fascination with these animals, which stop only at his pest hate - rats.

From artic foxes and leopards to the Siberian tiger, carnivores feature in the fifth of David Attenborough's epic ten-part series. Travelling down from the frozen north into India, Attenborough learns of the dangers they pose to other animals - and the threat they face from man.

Omnivorous mammals run the gamut from human beings to rats, and though they are generalists with their diet, each is equipped with very specialised skills. In the sixth part of his ten-part series, David Attenborough witnesses the feeding secrets of the North American raccoon, the babirusa pig in Africa and skunks in Texas, and shows how they perform astonishing feats to stay alive.