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Dynasties: Sir David Attenborough’s new BBC series explores the plight of families in the animal kingdom

Chimpanzees, Emperor penguins, lions, painted wolves and tigers all followed at close quarters by intrepid camera crews

Thursday 08 November 2018 11:23 GMT

Trailer for David Attenborough series Dynasties

Sir David Attenborough is returning to our screens this weekend for a major new natural history series, Dynasties.

Airing on BBC1 on Sunday nights at 8.30pm, this five-part programme follows on from the hugely popular Planet Earth II and Blue Planet II to explore the lives of different tribes from the animal kingdom.

Each episode will take a different species in a different part of the world for its subject.

The first follows a troop of chimpanzees in the jungles of Senegal and Guinea, West Africa, and the plight of its alpha male, also named David.

The primate faces challenges to his leadership after three years at the helm and will have to fight to retain control. The power struggle he finds himself in is further complicated by the coming dry season, which poses new threats from forest fires and dwindling resources.

Subsequent instalments follow Emperor penguins in Atka Bay in Antarctica, lions on the plains of the Masa Mara reserve in Kenya, painted wolves in the Mana Pools National Park in Zimbabwe and tigers in India’s Bandhavgarh National Park.

The 309-day jungle shoot involved the film crew following the chimps on foot, often as far as 15 miles in 40C heat, while an 11-month stay on the ice shelf of the world’s southernmost continent brought temperatures of -30 and required regular breaks to scrape ice from goggles and camera lenses.

“The physical demands were huge, but the rewards immense,” producer Rosie Thomas told The Radio Times.

The team managed to capture rare footage of penguins huddling over their eggs and tiger cubs at play and hope their work will highlight underappreciated aspects of their subjects’s behaviour: from the vital role lionesses play within their pride to the resilience of Africa’s wild dogs.

Blue Planet II – in pictures

Show all 10

1/10Blue Planet II – in pictures

Blue Planet II – in pictures

Broadclub cuttlefish

"A broadclub cuttlefish (Sepia latimanus) in Indonesia. Its skin contains millions of pigment cells with which it can create ever-changing colours and patterns to apparently mesmerise their prey."

BBC

Blue Planet II – in pictures

Coral spawning on the Great Barrier Reef, Australia

"Once a year, responding to cues from the cycle of the moon and the temperature of the water, corals simultaneously release their eggs and sperm into the ocean. Tiny coral larvae drift in the ocean currents, some for days, some for weeks, before sinking back down to the ocean floor and settling to become new corals."

BBC

Blue Planet II – in pictures

An aggregation of marbled grouper (Epinephelus polyphekadion), French Polynesia

"Thousands of groupers gather here in one of the few pristine spawning aggregations for this species remaining in the world. By taking up the position closest to a female, the male stands the best chance of fertilising her eggs."

BBC

Blue Planet II – in pictures

Saddleback clownfish (Amphiprion polymnus)

"A male saddleback clownfish uses all the strength it can muster to push a coconut shell to its anemone in Borneo. Unlike their reef relatives, saddleback clownfish live around anemones that are found in the sand, far away from the solid structure of the coral reef. Male saddleback clownfish must use their ingenuity to find a hard substrate upon which the females can lay their eggs."

BBC

Blue Planet II – in pictures

Peters' monocle breams (Scolopsis affinis)

"A group of Peters' monocle breams blow water-jets onto a hiding bobbit worm (Eunice aphroditois) to expose its ferocious jaws. In so doing, they alert other fish to the worm's location, ruining the predator’s chance of a surprise attack. This new behaviour was published for the first time by Jose Lachat and Daniel Haag-Wackernagel in 2016."

BBC

Blue Planet II – in pictures

Green turtles (Chelonia mydas)

Green turtles in Sipadan, Borneo, jostling for their place at a cleaning station. Here, turtles are serviced by blennies and surgeonfish who rid them of algal growth, parasites and dead skin. In return, these fish receive a nutritious meal.

BBC

Blue Planet II – in pictures

Bumphead parrotfish (Bolbometopon muricatum)

"Bumphead parrotfish feeding on coral and algae in Borneo. These parrotfish use their large forehead to ram corals, thereby breaking them into pieces that are more easily ingested. Each fish ingests over 5 tons of structural reef carbonates per year and after they digest the edible portions from the rock, they excrete it as sand, helping to create small islands and the sandy beaches."

BBC

Blue Planet II – in pictures

Coral garden

"A fish's-eye view of a coral garden on the Great Barrier Reef in Australia. New underwater probe lenses, developed for Blue Planet II, allow the viewer to immerse themselves into the coral reef city like never before."

BBC

Blue Planet II – in pictures

A coral grouper (Plectropomus leopardus)

"A coral grouper on the Great Barrier Reef in Northern Australia. Groupers use a gesture dubbed the ‘headstand signal’ to reach across the vertebrate-invertebrate divide and encourage another species to help it hunt. Gestures such as this are thought to only occur in the largest-brained species. The discovery of this behaviour in groupers indicates that some fish are able to think flexibly to achieve their goals."

BBC

Blue Planet II – in pictures

Bigeye trevally (Caranx sexfasciatus)

"A school of Bigeye trevally gather at the outer edge of the reef wall in Sipadan, Borneo. These trevally are a schooling species, widespread in the tropics and usually found in large- slow moving schools during the day. They eat a variety of smaller fish, crustaceans and marine invertebrates."

BBC

Sir David himself has said of the project: “I don’t think anyone has dared to do this before. When Mike [Gunton, executive producer] first told me, I thought he was barmy – to devote two years to filming one group within one species and say ‘we will show you exactly what happens’ is either very brave or very foolish, because supposing nothing happens? And in lots of instances in the natural world, nothing does happen.”

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Combining the exquisite HD photography of its predecessors with political intrigue to rival Game of Thrones and a timely examination of the impact of climate change on some of our planet’s most beautiful animals, Dynasties promises to provide gripping television.

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