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At the southern tip of the Australian continent

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lies a remote island.

An immense wilderness...

..divided by mountains.

It's a world of ancient forests...

..of pristine rivers...

..and a coastline...

..that's both wild and beautiful.

Its animal inhabitants are as extraordinary

as they are bizarre.

This is a land of black devils...

..and white wallabies...

..where lights dance in the southern sky

and trees tower to 100 metres.

This is Tasmania,

the weird and wonderful isle at the bottom of the world.

Tasmania is full of surprises.

Australia, yes, but with a twist.

It was once connected to the dry Australian mainland.

Today, along with its plants and animals,

it's physically cut off.

Though it lies just to the south, Tasmania is a world apart.

Its isolation and cooler climate has created a sanctuary

unlike any other part of Australia.

And a strong seasonal cycle makes life here very different indeed.

Winter means a struggle for survival.

In Tasmania's mountains there are meagre pickings on offer.

This is the last landfall heading south before Antarctica.

Cold air from further south brings snowfall and freezing temperatures

throughout these winter months.

Many animals, like this female wombat, are Australian species.

But their habits and lifestyles are most definitely Tasmanian.

Mainland wombats are largely nocturnal

but here she feeds at any time of the day,

kept warm by her thicker coat of fur.

She must take every opportunity to find food.

Winter is felt right across this island wilderness.

Even lower down in Tasmania's forests,

temperatures can fall below freezing.

The first Europeans to explore these forests

claimed they heard devils screaming in the night.

And so Tasmania's most famous animal got its name.

The Tasmanian Devil.

Primarily scavengers,

they can smell a carcass from a kilometre away.

And relative to body-size,

they have the most powerful bite in the natural world.

They can easily crunch through bone.

Devils once lived throughout Australia,

but vanished as the continent dried out and humans arrived.

Today, this is their last stronghold.

Like most Australian mammals, they're marsupials.

While they may appear dog-like,

devils are more closely related to kangaroos than canines

and, being marsupial, they rear their young in a pouch.

A few weeks ago this female gave birth to 40 young...

..each the size of a grain of rice.

Inside her pouch she has just four teats,

so only four young will survive.

A devil's race for survival begins early.

It's a tough start,

but this mum will dedicate most of her year

to looking after the four babies who survive.

She overcame extraordinary odds to reach adulthood.

Now it's her turn to raise the next generation.

Marsupials like the devils live here

because Tasmania was once connected to mainland Australia.

The island and its inhabitants became isolated some 12,000 years ago

when sea levels rose following the last ice age.

But Tasmania is a window on a far more ancient past.

Some of these forests have barely changed

since dinosaurs walked the earth, when the southern continents

were a single landmass called Gondwana.

There is still a creature here

whose ancestors roamed that ancient supercontinent.

It lives in Tasmania's rivers,

and is one of the island's longest-lived survivors.

The Tasmanian giant lobster.

Weighing up to five kilos and a metre long

they're the biggest freshwater invertebrates

on our planet,

taking some 40 years to reach full size.

Tasmania's isolation, together with the lack of sizeable predators,

may be one reason why they grow so massive.

But they're not entirely free from threat.

Tasmanian platypuses are enormous.

As much as three times heavier than their mainland counterparts.

It's an adaptation to the cooler southern climate.

This male is after tiny invertebrates

found on the riverbed, including young lobsters.

And to stay warm in winter, he must find a lot.

He needs to keep moving.

With no large predators to worry them,

platypuses here get about in an unusual way.

Only in Tasmania

does the Platypus walk between rivers in broad daylight.

Out of water it's easy to see why

the platypus was once dismissed as a fraud, the work of a hoaxer.

But down here he is in his element.

His strange assemblage of body parts soon begins to make sense.

Webbed feet help him move...

..while his otter-like fur keeps him warm.

His beaver-like tail stores fat.

But the platypus is best known for its duck-like bill...

..which it uses to find food.

Underwater, he's completely blind.

Not ideal for avoiding rocks.

But some 40,000 receptors in the bill detect electrical signals

given off by the muscles of prey animals.

With the need to eat a lot just to keep warm,

a platypus can stay on the hunt for some 12 hours a day.

Though also found on the mainland,

Tasmania's platypuses are by far the biggest and boldest.

They, like others, are adapted to the island's isolation

and cooler climate.

Lying 240km south of Australia...

..Tasmania is surrounded by a vast expanse of open ocean.

To the west, the next landfall is South America...

..thousands of kilometres away.

To the south lies the great Antarctic continent.

And as winter comes to an end, new arrivals come ashore to breed.

Penguins.

Hidden among the rocks,

this female has two newly-hatched chicks...

..but nothing to feed them.

Her partner left some 14 hours ago and is yet to return.

He's out fishing.

But, quite unlike any other penguin,

he must wait for nightfall to leave the water.

Gulls and birds of prey patrol the coast by day.

It's only safe to return after sunset.

That is because these are little penguins.

At only 30 centimetres tall,

they're the smallest penguins in the world.

And with nests several hundred metres inland...

..the only safe way to get there

is to make a dash in the darkness.

There's safety in numbers.

With hundreds of nests in the colony,

the night soon fills with the calls of returning adults...

..the sound of early spring on Tasmania's coast.

This will be a welcome meal for the newly-hatched chicks.

The little penguins' presence

is a reminder of Antarctica's proximity.

But, while early spring brings them ashore to breed,

it also brings wild and unpredictable weather.

Prevailing winds carry most of the bad weather from the West...

..and Tasmania's mountains cause much of the rain

to fall on the western half of the island.

The result divides Tasmania in two,

with a wet western side and a dry eastern side.

Some western areas are among the wettest in all of Australia.

It rains here nearly every day.

And all the water supports a surprising spectacle.

Caught in a bizarre trap, these insects are doomed.

How they got stuck only becomes apparent as night falls.

These strange lights belong to the larvae of a type of gnat.

The light is formed by a chemical reaction

in the larva's abdomen,

and can be turned on and off at will.

The sticky threads hang from its silk and mucus-laden nest.

Insects drawn to the light are ensnared, then devoured.

Each glow worm's thread is made up almost entirely of water,

so the high rainfall in Tasmania's wet west

provides ideal conditions.

And the rain that supports these tiny glow-worms

also sustains one of the largest organisms on the planet...

..mountain ash.

They are a type of eucalyptus...

..fast-growing trees that evolved on the dry Australian mainland.

In Tasmania they become giants.

Strangely, for trees living in a wet forest,

they need fire to reproduce.

The mountain ash stores its seeds in small pods...

..which are released as the pods burn.

Beneath the ash, the seeds live on,

quickly germinating without competition from other plants.

This makes sense in a dry habitat with regular fire...

..but not in Tasmania's wet forests.

Young mountain ash can grow at a rate of several metres a year.

All that holds them back is the next fire or a lack of water...

..and that is the secret behind their staggering height.

In Tasmania's damp west, fire is so infrequent

these trees keep growing for centuries.

Those standing in this valley all germinated

following the same devastating fire 400 years ago.

Today they reach almost 100 metres into the sky.

They may have evolved on the dry Australian mainland,

but it's Tasmania's wet forests that have turned mountain ash trees

into the tallest flowering plants on Earth.

The moisture-laden air that blows in from Tasmania's west

brings several metres of rainfall each year.

Although it can rain most days,

winter and spring are the wettest times

and seasonal waterfalls burst into life.

All who live here must adapt

to the regular downpours and cooler temperatures.

And like so many of Tasmania's species,

their adaptations set them apart.

It may not look like it,

but this is the closest living relative of the platypus.

The echidna, Australia's most widespread native mammal.

But while mainland echidna are all spines,

this Tasmanian one is mostly covered in hair

to help keep him warm.

The milder spring months mean an abundance of his favourite food -

ants.

But when you're this hairy, your food gets stuck everywhere,

which is a pain when it can bite back.

Time to move on.

As spring turns to summer,

Tasmania's inhabitants get some relief

from the wild and cool weather.

It's now that the young devils are ready to leave the den.

They've been out of their mother's pouch for a while

but have remained safely hidden away.

Fully weaned, this is the start of their independence.

This young female will have to learn

to survive and find food all by herself.

What's more, she and her sibling are much smaller than an adult.

They could easily be killed.

This will be her way out of danger.

Heavier adults can't climb,

so there are some benefits to being small.

Over the next few months,

she'll also find much of the food she needs

up here in the treetops.

But grubs and birds' eggs alone won't be enough

to sustain her as she grows.

If she's to make it to adulthood,

she needs to find more substantial meals.

And that brings her into direct competition

with dangerous and more powerful adult devils.

The scent and sound of crunching bones draw her in.

But she needs to be careful.

Less than half of all newly-weaned youngsters

make it to adulthood.

If she is to survive, she needs to earn her place.

There's no telling how this adult might react.

Confronting a stranger at a carcass is a gamble...

..but one she needs to take.

Spurred on by hunger, she seems to have the upper hand.

It looks as though her gamble has paid off.

But her competitor won't let the carcass go that easily.

The adult could kill her with a single bite.

But that's not how devil society works.

Despite living most of their lives alone,

devils can and do share.

They defend only the amount of meat they can eat

rather than the whole carcass.

The pecking order has less to do with size and strength

and more to do with whoever wants it most.

As this youngster is learning,

it's all about who can shout the loudest.

Devils may have a fearsome reputation

but the reality is quite different.

Summer brings warmer temperatures across Tasmania.

While in the west it still rains frequently...

..summer is most apparent in the dry eastern half of the island.

The driest areas of Tasmania receive 80% less rainfall

than the wettest.

Here the landscape is more reminiscent

of parts of the Australian mainland.

For marsupials that graze the open grasslands,

there's a bounty of fresh shoots in these warm summer months.

And although life here may appear more typically Australian,

the effect of Tasmania's isolation is felt just as strongly

in this dry half of the island.

It's given this group of wallabies something of a Tasmanian twist.

They've turned white.

About 100 of them live within this population.

They're so poorly camouflaged

that anywhere else they'd be easily killed.

On Tasmania however,

there aren't any predators big enough to kill a wallaby,

so many live full adult lives.

And without the normal controls, their numbers are growing.

But although this may appear a predator-free paradise,

there are killers here.

One of Tasmania's deadliest animals lives in these dry forests.

It's a species of ant known as the jack jumper.

Jack jumpers evolved on the ancient Gondwanan supercontinent.

Workers hunt alone...

..a very primitive behaviour among ants,

which are mainly social.

And instead of using scent to hunt,

they rely on acute vision.

They sting their victims to death with a venom that can kill humans...

..making these one of the deadliest animals

in all of Australia.

Jack jumper ants are particularly abundant

in this dry half of Tasmania.

Their nests are small mounds within which their larvae are raised.

Workers cover the nest with dark materials

to help absorb warmth in the cooler southern climate.

In midsummer however, temperatures soar...

..and the nest risks overheating.

But jack jumpers have a surprising way

of coping with the intense sunlight.

On hotter days, they switch building materials.

Now the workers cover the nest in white stones.

These reflect the sun's energy, keeping the young cool inside.

It's an inventive solution to Tasmania's changing seasons.

The dry eastern forests can be a challenging place

in the heat of midsummer.

But one of Tasmania's few marsupial predators

avoids the worst of this heat by hunting at night.

It's the eastern quoll,

a close relative of the Tasmanian devil.

They're very rare, but summer sees an increase in numbers

as juveniles leave the den.

Quolls are solitary hunters...

..and in summer are drawn to these dry pasture lands.

There's a rich bounty of moths and grubs at this time of year.

But, with lots of youngsters around, competition can be intense.

It's every quoll for itself.

Like Tasmanian devils,

eastern quolls were once found on the Australian mainland.

Today, this dry eastern half of the island

is their last refuge.

And, with an abundance of summer insects,

they have every chance of thriving.

Summer is almost over...

..and as autumn arrives,

the stage is set for a bizarre ritual.

Familiar screams fill the forest.

It may not look like it

but these devils are becoming amorous.

An eligible male clings on

as a female guides him back to the den.

Female devils are receptive three times

over a short period during the breeding season.

To ensure the fittest offspring,

she'll try to mate with as many big males as she can.

And to increase his chances of fatherhood,

he must keep her in here for as long as possible.

Inside the den, he moves her around in an effort to mate.

To protect her from his biting grip,

the skin around her neck has thickened over the last few weeks.

Though it may appear aggressive,

this is part of a bizarre and complicated breeding system.

They'll remain in here, mating regularly, for several days.

In spite of that fearsome scream,

there is a sensitive side to these much-maligned creatures.

Far from devilish, they are simply very determined survivors.

The devil mating season marks autumn's arrival.

Each evening,

flocks of Cape Barren geese return to their roost.

Their silhouettes in the sunset, a sign that the year is ending.

Back on the coast,

the longer nights bring with them a stunning spectacle...

..the southern lights,

a reminder that the next stop from here is Antarctica.

For Tasmania's little penguins,

the breeding season has finished.

Only adults remain at the colony.

They've spent the last few weeks fattening up at sea,

almost doubling their weight.

The efforts of raising chicks

have left them in need of a new set of feathers.

Little penguins go through what's known as 'catastrophic moult'...

..shedding some 10,000 feathers all at once.

Because their feathers keep them warm and waterproof,

they can't return to sea until they've grown new ones.

For three long weeks they're stuck on dry land,

unable to feed.

It's a long wait for a little penguin.

The year is almost over.

And, high in the mountains, there's time for one last surprise.

These are southern beech trees...

..unique to Tasmania.

Their changing colour makes for an autumn

unlike anywhere else in Australia.

These are the only trees on the continent

to drop their leaves during the cooler months.

The southern beech trees' closest living relatives

are found thousands of kilometres away

in South America.

This rare splash of autumnal colour lasts just a few weeks

as, across the whole of Tasmania, temperatures begin to drop.

June marks the start of the winter season

and, for the devils, the beginning of new life.

With young already inside her pouch,

she will provide milk for them through the harshest months.

Her life and theirs, tied to Tasmania's seasonal cycle.

Just 12,000 years ago,

Tasmania separated from its mainland parent.

The island is young, yet rich in life

and with a long and ancient past.

Now Tasmania, and the animals it supports,

are on a different course to the rest of Australia.

It is, as a result, home to a cast as weird as they are wonderful.

Indeed, there's nowhere on earth quite like Tasmania.