Wildly exaggerated

Truth behind lab shots

Viewers of last year’s Blue Planet II series were not told which scenes were filmed in laboratories rather than the wild.

The programme included close-up laboratory footage of corals bleaching, which could only be filmed with lights and specialist cameras.

Producers for the show also recreated a rock pool and the burrow of a zebra mantis shrimp for close-up shots.

Sir David Attenborough, who presented the series, defended the use of lab condition filming, saying: “To say that we are distorting natural history would be absurd.”