The Dark: Nature's Nighttime World

This illuminating natural history series reveals a totally new perspective on wildlife at night. Over six months, a team of biologists and specialist camera crew explore the length of South and Central America to find out how animals have adapted to life in the dark. The expedition starts in the jungles of Costa Rica where the team are after some of the most frightening nocturnal predators. Alone in the dark, nighttime camera specialist Justine Evans has an exceptionally close encounter with a large male jaguar. Biologist Dr George McGavin is on the trail of the most ingenious predator of the jungle - the net casting spider. And cameraman Gordon Buchanan finds ruined temples deep in the jungle as he searches for the bizarre creatures that rule the jungle canopy at night.

The expedition travels south to a flooded forest in the heart of the Amazon. Large mammal expert Bryson Voirin encounters a curious sloth whilst camerawoman Sophie Darlington spends stormy nights precariously perched high in the jungle canopy attempting to film the only nocturnal monkey in the world. Further south, Gordon Buchanan heads to the largest wetland on earth in search of giant anteaters and enters a strange deserted house that's been taken over by vampire bats. And Dr George McGavin abseils deep into the perpetual darkness of a giant cave system - cut off from the light for millions of years. Deep inside he and the team discover species new to science.

Natural history series about wildlife at night culminates at the wild and windswept tip of South America. Coming face to face with the widest ranging cat in the Americas – the puma – camerawoman Justine Evans attempts to film their nocturnal hunting behaviour for the first time. Even further south, Gordon Buchanan dives into the icy waters of the Magellan Strait to solve a mystery - scientists have heard humpback whales moving close to the shore at night but have no idea what they could be doing. And Dr George McGavin attaches a miniature tracking device to a vampire bat’s back, to discover whose blood it is feeding on.