Meet the family Series offers an amazing look at closest relatives

AGROUND-BREAKING Bristol-made TV series is about to give the nation a welcome dose of the natural world at a time when many of us are craving it the most.

Following Planet Earth II and Blue Planet II, the Clifton-based Natural History Unit have produced another mind-blowing series, Primates, which begins on BBC One this Sunday.

At the heart of this series is incredible animal behaviour. New technology has captured primates on their level and in their world, whether that’s in the treetops of a flooded forest, or the tangled undergrowth of the Sri Lankan night.

Over the course of two years, the Primates team embarked on 28 filming expeditions across the world. They battled snowstorms in Morocco’s Atlas Mountains, and forded or floated through flooded jungles in remote corners of Sumatra and Brazil.

Along the way, they captured some of the very first images of the newly described Tapanuli orangutan, and were the first crew in years to attempt to film the bald-headed white uakari. And in Equatorial

Guinea, one team spent over two months, camped on a remote beach, to capture the most intimate images ever seen of a drill, one of the world’s least understood primates. And in Sri Lanka, another crew captured the very first lowlight colour images of the elusive gray slender loris at night in the wild.

Engrossing new stories combine family drama with the latest science.

On Congo’s volcanic slopes, we meet an apparently fearsome silverback mountain gorilla, who turns out to be a gentle and attentive father to his young. Cuttingedge research indicates that caring fathers are the most successful silverbacks. In South Africa, we join an elusive and diminutive lesser bush baby from a newly discovered urban population, on a night-time raid of the city zoo. In Malaysia, we experience a Lar Gibbons’ canopy world from their perspective, in a filming first.

From snow-capped mountains to the hottest deserts, and from the most remote, unexplored landscapes to the very heart of our modern world, Primates is the ultimate, definitive celebration of our very own animal family.

The seriesis narrated by Chris Packham.

Chris said: “It’s not just about chimps and gorillas. There’s so much new science and new behaviour in it.

“We relate to them because they’re essentially like us or we see a likeness and similarity between us, but there are plenty of ‘wow’ moments.”

» Primates

PIC: Tom Beldam/BBC A blue-eyed black lemur in Sahamalaza, Madagascar. It’s the first time these rare lemurs have been filmed. They have bright blue eyes and a penchant for rubbing themselves with ants… It is thought that this strange behaviour is an attempt to self-medicate, repelling ticks and parasites

Pic: BBC/NHU Rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta) are able and enthusiastic swimmers. This female and her infant have sought respite form the midday sun in a swimming pool especially built for their troop in Khathmandu, Nepal

Pic:BBC/NHU A silverback male mountain gorilla shows off his strength in dramatic displays to ensure everyone knows who’s boss