Nature's Greatest Moments series chronicles some of Africa’s most spectacular natural events. Events featured in the series includes elusive Namib Desert wildlife, the hunt of a Great White Shark, the Great Migrations on the African Grass Plains, the annual Sardine Run the Great Shoal of Earth, the flooding of the Okavango Delta and Africa’s Big Cats taking on their favourite prey.
The proverbial saying is that there’s safety in numbers and many fish species have found this to be true. Small fish huddle together and move as one through the water hoping to appear larger to a passing predator, while pelagic predators such as barracuda move in vast schools to hunt. We explore ...
A pride of lions on the African bushveld constitute a perfect killing machine. Co-operation, stealth, perfect timing and an acute sense of opportunity work together in synchrony as lionesses surround and harass an old bull giraffe, which is unable to retaliate with the same agility as in his yout...
Some of the largest fish in the sea feed on the tiniest of marine organisms. Manta rays and whale sharks feed by filtering the water and extracting the tiny creatures that form plankton. But they are able to do this by swimming forward in the water with mouth agape, but there are creatures such a...
The great white shark has long been the centre of media hype, but is it really the vicious killer it is made out to be? We take a look at the hunting strategies of this incredible shark and find that it actually is an intelligent, calculative and cunning predator.
Off the coast of Mozambique there is a small reef which is the castle of an imposing king – Bert the Bass. He is a huge potato bass. Like all basses he has an unusual life history – he began his life as a female and changed sex when he grew into an adult. He now rules over his harem of females as...
The Maldive Islands form a beautiful string of coral reefs, popular with divers all over the world. A disused ship forms an artificial reef and is home to the friendliest stingrays you’re ever likely to meet. Tempted by the fish the divers bring the stingrays sometimes get very cheeky and try to ...
Sharks are some of the most fascinating creatures to roam the ocean. There are many species of different shapes and sizes each adapted to its own way of life. Some sharks, like the silvertip and blacktip, prefer to hunt in the open ocean. Grey reef sharks hunt at the edges of the reef. Leopard sh...
The sand tiger, or ragged tooth shark, is a sinister-looking humped back creature with a mouthful of wicked teeth – the embodiment of nightmares. Yet it is hardly the vicious killer of our imagination and on a reef off the coast of South Africa divers have grown to love this ugly shark. In this e...
The most endearing mammals in the world are the dolphins. We follow a family of bottlenose dolphins as they move in their home waters and over a reef of the southern Indian Ocean. We watch them play, fight, love and ‘cry’.
Each year, off the coast of Southern Africa, millions upon millions of sardines school together and move en-masse up the eastern coast. They are followed by many marine predators including sharks and bottlenose dolphins. We explore the dynamics of the sardine run and the hunting strategies of som...
