David Attenborough narrates this view of the planet from north to south. He looks at the importance of freshwater and the sun and how Earth's orbit creates the seasons and triggers the mass migration of animals around the world.

Animals that have had to adapt to the special survival challenges of high-altitude life are featured, including rare footage of a mountain lion, snow leopard and puma. Also, bar-headed geese migrate over the Himalayas.

Follow the descent of rivers from their mountain sources to the sea. Watch spectacular waterfalls, fly inside the Grand Canyon and explore the wildlife in the world's deepest lake. Planet Earth captures unique and dramatic moments of animal behaviour: a showdown between smooth-coated otters and mugger crocodiles; deep-diving long tailed macaques; massive flocks of snow geese on the wing and a piranha frenzy in the perilous waters of the world's largest wetland.

Millions of bats support an entire ecosystem in Borneo, while caves in Indonesia are home to birds that make nests out of saliva. Also featured are blind salamanders in Thailand, crystals in New Mexico and snottites in Mexico.

In the Gobi Desert, Bactrian camels eat snow, while guanacos in the Atacama survive by licking dew off cactus spines. Also featured are a short-lived blooming of flowers in Death Valley and the struggle to find food in Namibia.

As the ice ebbs and flows at the two poles with the change of seasons, killer whales team up on a hunt and a polar bear is forced to travel a great distance in search of food. Also, beluga whales and narwhals feast on Arctic cod.

The earth's extensive grasslands are featured, from West Africa's Sahel to the plains of Papua New Guinea. Among the animals featured are white-eared kob in the Sudan, golden eagles in Russia and antelopes in South Africa.

The rain forests are home to a vast number of animal and plant species, leading to intense competition for food. Footage includes jaguars on the hunt in the Amazon, gibbons traversing the canopy and flying frogs mating.

Plants take center stage in this exploration of coniferous and deciduous forests. These seasonal forests cover vast tracts of temperate regions, such as the endless forests of Siberia, Tasmania and large areas of Eastern Europe.

Spectacular storm photography is among the highlights of this exploration of the shallow seas, where coral reefs and fishing grounds lie. Also featured is the epic journey of a humpback whale and her calf to the polar seas.

Journey to the greatest woodlands on Earth.

The world's oceans are home to some of the largest and strangest creatures on Earth, such as blue whales and vampire squid. Also featured are dolphins, manta rays, oceanic white tips, lanternfish, tuna, whale sharks and petrels.

The making of the sprawling, ambitious series is documented. The show took three years to produce and required 2,000 days in the field and 71 cameramen filming across 204 locations in 62 countries.