The Trials of Life

The Trials of Life debuted on 3 October 1990. David Attenborough’s third blockbuster natural history series - after Life on Earth and The Living Planet – set out to increase our understanding of the natural world with an unsentimental look at animal behaviour. Made over three years by the BBC’s Natural History Unit, it featured many stunning and sometimes shocking film sequences, many never before captured on camera.

The Trials of Life revealed life at every scale. The inside of an army ant’s nest was seen for the first time with the aid of a camera probe and parasitic wasp grubs were seen emerging from a caterpillar. Attenborough watched as chimpanzees hunted much more agile colobus monkeys with brutal efficiency, catching them in the trees by working together. Killer whales in Patagonia had learned to catch sealion pups by beaching themselves and were later seen toying with their catch, much as a cat might play with a mouse.

The viewer’s fascination with how all this material was gathered was satisfied by a programme on the making of the series, which showed how field scientists helped. The Trials of Life book was also published.

Attenborough and the Natural History Unit have never stopped working, taking advantage of advances in filming and broadcasting technology to make the best natural history documentaries -which are popular around the world - including Blue Planet and Planet Earth.