Original subtitles

Experience a world beyond imagination

where fish can fly...

lizards walk on water,

apes master tools

and frogs disappear in plain sight.

Animals do the smartest things...

through every stage of their lives.

From leaving home...

to raising a family.

From finding food...

to making friends.

They find ingenious ways to survive

against all odds.

Welcome to The Secret Lives of Animals.

On the American prairies...

this burrowing owl chick is just ten days old.

He and his brothers and sisters are too young to fly.

To stay safe, they must stick close to their underground nest.

But as they grow,

like all curious youngsters, they begin to explore.

Out here, that can be risky.

A rattlesnake.

It sounds out its infamous warning.

With exceptionally sharp hearing,

the owlets get the message loud and clear...

and keep their distance.

But on these plains, danger is never far away.

This American badger spots the youngsters out in the open.

She would love to dine on a chick or two.

Alert to the threat, Mum sounds the alarm.

The owlets retreat to the only safe place they know:

their burrow.

But badgers are built to shift mountains of soil.

Try as they might, the adults can't see her off.

She's determined.

With their backs against the wall, there's no escape.

But they have a trick up their sleeves that might just save their lives.

A talent they were born with.

Master mimics.

They can perfectly impersonate a sound the badger knows only too well...

the rattlesnake.

It's so convincing...

the badger backs off to a safe distance.

A little white lie or two never hurt anyone.

And in the animal kingdom, mastering the art of deception

can be the difference between life and death.

In the woodlands of North America...

it's caterpillar season.

And with 75% destined to become a meal for hungry birds...

their challenge is staying off the menu.

This spicebush swallowtail caterpillar needs to lay low.

With mottled colors,

he's disguised as something most self-respecting birds won't eat...

their own droppings.

Going under the radar...

he can feast like a king.

Eating one and a half times his own body weight daily,

he doubles in size every

two

days.

But now, he has a problem:

he's blown his cover.

No bird here makes droppings this big.

So, he needs a new plan.

He begins to weave a mat of sticky silk.

As the strands dry,

they tighten...

and lock him inside the leaf...

where he sheds his skin in safety.

Emerging not as a butterfly,

but as a more colorful caterpillar.

Now, rather than blending in, he stands out.

And is already turning heads.

But there is method to his madness.

Sporting huge eye-like spots, he rears up,

impersonating something that strikes fear into even the most persistent predators:

a snake.

But this alone is not enough to convince a sharp-eyed starling.

So, the spicebush takes his deception to the next level.

He flicks out a horn-like organ called an osmeterium...

his very own imitation forked tongue...

designed to disperse a foul-smelling acid into the air.

It's a flawless performance...

fooling a predator 30 times his size.

It can be hard to find the perfect disguise.

But there's one animal that prepares for a life of deception

before it's even born.

On this reef in Indonesia...

hidden in an old coconut...

is a nest of unearthly embryos.

And using color-changing dots within their skin,

they are already learning to control their appearance.

Something they will rely on...

to make it to adulthood.

A flamboyant cuttlefish,

only seconds old.

No bigger than a peanut,

out of the nest...

he's vulnerable.

Before he's even got his bearings...

he's spotted by a hairy frogfish.

His future depends on what he does next.

Just like magic, he melts into the background.

Leaving the frogfish confused...

and still hungry.

This trickery keeps him safe

and buys him the time he needs to grow into his own skin.

After three months,

he's turned into the sophisticated predator he was born to be.

He no longer needs to hide.

And while his prey can easily see him coming...

he uses his dazzling colors to his advantage.

With thousands of color-changing cells in his body,

he can create a display so mesmerizing,

it hypnotizes his target...

while he zeroes in for the kill.

Faced with this masterful deception,

no shrimp stands a chance.

Catching prey is a delicate art.

But for some,

finding the right bait can be even harder.

This young green-backed heron's favorite food is fresh fish.

But on this lake in Japan, catching them isn't easy.

The kingfisher, a world-renowned fisherman,

shows him one way to do it.

A tall order for a heron.

But what's the harm in trying?

To catch a meal here, he needs a more measured approach.

Even the slightest movement gives him away.

And staying still isn't working either.

If he can't get to the fish,

he'll have to get the fish to come to him.

He knows they'll inspect anything on the surface they think might be food.

So he tries something fewer than 1% of all birds on the planet do.

He uses bait.

Perhaps a twig?

The idea is good.

But not as much as a nibble.

Maybe something smaller?

A leaf.

There's interest.

Still no bites though.

So he tries an even smaller lure,

a fly-sized piece of moss.

The cast is perfect.

Closer.

Closer.

Bull's-eye.

Now he's got the hang of it, he's unstoppable.

It takes persistence and practice to fool prey.

But when you find yourself on the menu,

deception must be taken to a whole new level.

In the mountains of Italy,

this money spider is just a few days old...

and smaller than a grain of rice.

But she has a problem.

She's hatched into a spider-eat-spider world,

and she's in danger.

If she doesn't tread carefully, she'll be next on the menu.

To escape, she needs a cunning plan.

First, she begins to climb...

higher and higher...

until she reaches the end of the road.

Up here, she begins to weave a spell.

Microscopic hairs on her legs

detect subtle electrical changes in the atmosphere.

When the moment is just right,

she casts her silk into the sky.

As hungry mouths close in...

she pulls off one of nature's greatest...

disappearing acts.

Leaving her pursuers

bewildered.

Using 20 feet of silk like a kite,

she is carried by the wind.

Known as ballooning,

it's a spider's great escape trick.

But now, she could be swept 15,000 feet high...

and travel as far as 2,000 miles.

Luckily, she can survive for a month without eating or drinking.

And when she finally descends...

she lands with barely a bump.

Having left her rivals many miles behind,

this tiny money spider can now cash in

and enjoy life undisturbed.

Sometimes to survive,

you need to cheat and outsmart your enemies.

Whether you pretend to be something you're not...

or disappear in plain sight...

mastering the art of deception

might well be the best move you ever make.

In the quest to reveal The Secret Lives of Animals,

getting to remote locations was the easy part.

Knowing how deceptive animals can be,

the real challenge was getting inside their heads.

And when you enter their world...

you play by their rules.

I don't have a single beep for monkeys anywhere.

Nothing at all.

When it comes to giving us the slip,

they use every trick in the book.

Do you think that they're outsmarting us?

They could be. They're so clever.

Maybe they're fed up with all the cameras already.

With persistence, technology reveals the vervet monkeys' hiding place.

In their territory, the crew had to tread carefully

or risk losing them again.

I'm doing a slow waltz with some vervets.

But no matter what steps you take,

some animals are camera-shy.

And that means a more hands-off approach.

So, we've set all the traps, and now it's a bit of a waiting game.

And the chimps soon grew curious.

One of the chimps has come around

with a ginormous log and smacked the camera trap.

As if to add insult to injury,

they've left a little deposit for us on the sensors.

The glamour, the glamour.

When filming wildlife, building trust takes time.

So, it's weeks of the chimps constantly eluding us.

We've had lots of near misses.

So, it's really exciting to finally start to see some faces.

But to reveal the secrets

of one of the most intelligent animals in the world...

the crew had to build a relationship.

She was initially maybe a little bit hesitant.

We were like giants to her.

So, we started slowly.

It can take weeks for an animal to become truly comfortable

in the crew's presence.

I look at her, and she's looking at me,

and there is such an obvious intelligence there.

I'm really getting to know this octopus.

It's such a privilege to spend five or six hours a day with a single animal.

They're just an absolute joy to film.

Animals really aren't so different to us.

The better your relationship,

the more secrets they're willing to share.

Next time...

Making friends...

can be a tricky business.

But find the right ones,

and they'll provide constant support

and protection.

Because in life,

it's not always the fittest who survive.

Often, it's the friendliest.