Throng

I don't mind telling you, dear reader, that I've enjoyed some mind-melting drugs in my time. I've seen things so peculiar that I've thought I was going stir-crazy. However, nothing I've ever seen under the influence of acid tabs can match the mental sea-wrongs of last night's Life (BBC One).

Looking at psychedelic creatures from the abyss, the show highlighted the insane, spineless aliens that basically ghost around in the pitch black killing stuff in ways that made my brain crawl.

Attenborough hammed up the amdram in his voice to showcase the weirdest place on Earth. Now, the deep sea has always been a weird place. The water seemingly vanishes, leaving great orb-like jellyfish to hang like planets, piercing stuff with razor sharp tentacles.

Life. It's terminally dull and irritating isn't it? Life is queuing, things being late, rude checkout girls, people leaping on you in clothes shops seeing if you need any help, holes in your shoes, inside out umbrellas and charred toast.

Thankfully, the BBC's nature people aren't looking at those things in their series Life, narrated by Master of the Universe, Sir David Attenborough.

It’s Life….but not as we know it. (Har har)

Life The TV Show is about extreme and extraordinary behaviour. The kind that makes your eyes pop out of your head on stalks, tie themselves in a knot and stare back at your dizzy skull.

The picture you see above is a little man in a monkey suit. We're talking a svelte Ronnie Corbett smashing a huge stone into an impenetrable seed. The BBC's newest nature doc, Life, narrated by Sir David Attenborough, claims that this footage is a clear indicator of what we humans would've looked like millions of years ago when we were monkey-like.

Except that this is clearly a little human passing himself of as a monkey.

Aside from the beautifully shot monkey ruse, we also got to see a whole bunch of beautifully shot CGI things. A giant sorrowful octopus who died so that its eggs could live... a weird insect with eyes on stalks blown up and out by air-bubbles... dolphins swirling clouds of dust in the water to spell out cryptic messages...

Intelligence and adaptability allow primates to tackle the many challenges of life, and this is what makes our closest relatives so successful. This resourcefulness has enabled primates to conquer an incredible diversity of habitat.

Hamadryas baboons live on the open plains of Ethiopia in groups up to 400 strong. Strength in numbers gives them some protection from potential predators. But, should their path cross with other baboon troops, it can lead to all-out battle, as males try to steal females from one another, and even settle old scores.

Japanese macaques are the most northerly-dwelling primates and they experience completely different challenges. Some beat the freezing conditions by having access to a thermal spa in the middle of winter. But this privilege is only for those born of the right female bloodline.

Plants have successfully managed to conquer every habitat on the planet by using ingenious and cunning strategies.

Through the use of time-lapse photography, Plants reveals how plants battle for life and face the challenges of their habitats.

Plants are dependent on three main elements for survival: sunlight, water and nutrients.

Marine invertebrates are extraordinarily diverse, outnumbering fish by ten to one. They range from some of the most primitive creatures in the sea to some of the most intelligent.

Many creatures of the deep make a nightly migration to shallower water.

For the first time, a huge number of six-foot long carnivorous Humboldt squid are filmed hunting co-operatively to attack a shoal of fish off the coast of Mexico. Co-ordinating their assault, they herd the fish and drive them onto the reef. They flash their bodies red and white – either to confuse the fish or to signal to each other when they are about to go in for an attack.

There are more kinds of insects than all other animals put together. There are thought to be 200 million individual insects for every one of us.

Insects are successful because of their flexibility, their ability to develop new ways of living and changing their body shapes.

Darwin's stag beetle of Chile is the insect world's perfect demonstration of a flexible body form. The female is shaped like a normal beetle. But the male's jaws are vast – longer than his body. They are serrated and strangely curved. Over millions of years they have grown to become fighting weapons. Males battle with them high in the trees and getting the right grip is crucial. The first male to grab under his opponent's wing case tries to lever his rival off the branch, before hurling him away to the ground, 100 feet below.

The ability to learn from past experiences and so develop novel solutions to problems has allowed mammals to flourish in the harshest environments. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the life and death struggles between the hunters and hunted.

In northern Kenya three cheetah brothers live together, working as a coalition to hold onto their territory. Uniquely, they have learnt to work together to hunt prey that most other cheetahs would not dare to confront – taking on ostriches. As male cheetahs play no part in the raising of their young, this novel adaptation will most likely disappear when the brothers die.

Female mammals tend to look after their young for extended periods of time, allowing the youngsters to learn skills from their mother that might just give them the edge in the fight for survival.

From the equator to the poles, birds have found the most ingenious ways to overcome the many challenges of life. Everything revolves around their unique attribute – feathers.

Few go to greater extremes than the male marvelous spatule-tail hummingbird. His tail feathers are so long that he can barely lift off. But still he performs the most extraordinary aerial displays, using fast-beating wings and super-long tail feathers, adorned with iridescent discs.

Lammergeyers soar across the Ethiopian highlands on their nine-foot wingspan, searching for carrion. They use precision flying to find, and then smash, bones into a size they can comfortably swallow.

Fish are the most varied and diverse backboned creatures on the planet. To date, 28,000 species of fish have been discovered.

From pregnant males to fish that fly and fish that have a top speed faster than a cheetah, the diversity of fish is amazing.

The strange looking weedy sea dragon lives off the coast of south Australia. These brightly-coloured fish appear to have no obvious means of propulsion. In spring, weedy sea dragons gather and the males and females pair up for courtship. Each pair engages in a mirror dance until, finally, under the cover of darkness, they spawn. Bizarrely, the eggs are laid onto the tail of the male and two month later the young weedy sea dragons hatch and, with a shake of his body, he helps them free of their egg cases. His job done, father and offspring go their separate ways.

Mammals dominate our planet and can be found in every habitat, except the very deepest ocean. Their success lies in more than just the unique physical traits of fat, fur, and warm blood. What makes the mammals stand out is the care they lavish on their young.

Only one mammal can survive the punishing temperatures on the Antarctic ice during winter – a Weddell seal. As the spring comes, a lone seal gives birth to a single pup and it manages to survive.

At the other end of the globe, polar bears also cope in the freezing cold. Female polar bears and their cubs face starvation during the summer and autumn when the sea ice – their hunting platform – melts beneath them. They are forced onto land, where they can do no more than scavenge for scraps. Faced with the unexpected bounty of a huge bowhead whale carcass lying on the beach, polar bears have to suppress their instincts to fight or run and actually join in with other polar bears to share in this feast.

Reptiles and amphibians might appear to be hang-overs from the past, struggling to cope in today's natural world. But Life reveals how they overcome their shortcomings through extraordinary tricks and strategies to be a global success.

A very slow-moving toad just an inch long, and with an inability to hop further than an inch, might seem living proof that this group can no longer compete. Yet when a predatory tarantula suddenly appears the pebble toad, from Venezuela's Mount Roraima, tucks up its legs and bounces away down the rocks like a rubber ball. The tarantula is left far behind while the amphibian lands safely at the bottom. It is so small and light its trick does it no harm at all.

The first and most important lesson that all creatures learn in life is how to get enough food.

In northern Kenya three cheetah brothers have developed a new way of hunting. Rather than tackle small prey on their own, they have learnt that together they can bring down ostriches. Running the risk of a mighty kick, which could be fatal, they have to be unusually careful.

The bottlenose dolphins that live in Florida Bay have also made a breakthrough. To catch their fast-swimming prey one dolphin creates a ring of mud to surround the fish by beating its tail down hard in the soft silt, as it swims in a large circle. As the mud mushrooms in the water, the ring gets smaller and the fish get trapped. Panicking, they jump out of the water – right into the waiting dolphins' mouths!

Our planet may be home to more than 30 million different animals and plants. And every single one is locked in its own life-long fight for survival. Life uncovers some extraordinary strategies they've developed to stay alive and to breed.

Using state-of-the-art filming techniques, this 10-part BBC One series, narrated by David Attenborough, is about extreme behaviour. It's survival of the fittest in their battle against daily life or death challenges.

Mind-blowing behaviour captured for TV for the first time includes cheetahs working together to bring down prey twice their size; the courtship battle, known as the heat run, of the humpback whale; a huge number of enormous Humboldt squid joining forces for night-time hunting; and the legendary, fearsome Komodo dragons bringing down their buffalo prey.

Our failing planet may be home to more than 30 million different animals and plants. And every single one is locked in its own life-long fight for survival. That invariably includes humans. However, we've got endless blogs and Twitter accounts to sound off on.

Which is why our animal buddies (well, the ones who don't become meals) are being tracked in a new show called Life.

The show uncovers some extraordinary strategies they've developed to stay alive and to breed. Using state-of-the-art filming techniques, this 10-part BBC One series, narrated by David Attenborough, is about extreme behaviour.

It's survival of the fittest in their battle against daily life or death challenges.