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Cameramen endure weeks in the Congo battling heavy vegetation, soaking humidity and swarms of biting insects to film bonobo chimpanzees in the wild.

Hoping to document the complex geometric nests made by a pufferfish, the camera crew constructs elaborate rigs for an ad hoc underwater film studio.

Filmmakers venture into the wild and manage to catch footage of aggressive boxing matches between rival kangaroos vying for dominance.

The team travels to an isolated island in the tropics to film a group of hermit crabs as they begin swapping the shells they use as homes.

An underwater film crew faces unique challenges getting footage of a veined octopus building itself armor from fragments of a coconut shell.

A camera crew battles boredom and challenging camera angles to film days-old barnacle goslings leaping from their 400-foot-high cliff-side nest.

With the final challenge of life's journey comes the chance to win nature's only prize - continuing the family line through the next generation. Successfully raising offspring is the next best thing to immortality. But it's far from easy... Some parents must risk their own lives for their offspring.

An individual's life journey interweaves with many others. Those who are successful know when to fight or back down, when to cooperate or to go it alone and how to manipulate and deceive. Power is the ultimate prize: animals will use any means to rise through the ranks and give themselves a chance of winning the game of life.

On reaching adulthood the moment comes when animals must strike out on their own. Without their parents they must learn to survive in a dangerous world. At this stage of life every small success may mean the difference between life and death.

Each and every animal is born with a chance: to survive, thrive and produce their very own next generation. The first hurdle in life is infancy. Vulnerable, naïve but determined, some young animals face their biggest challenges in the first few days of life. How a creature fares at the very beginning is the foundation upon which their future success depends.