Dynasties II

BBC1, 8pm

Following up with a second series of the show that made its debut in 2018, Sir

David Attenborough and the BBC’s Natural History Unit again follow the struggle to raise the young in the animal kingdom. Elephants, cheetahs and hyenas are coming up in future episodes, but we begin in this opener with a visit to the pumas of the Southern Patagonian Ice Field in the far reaches of South America.

This is an incredibly beautiful but desolate landscape, and it is here that mother Rupestre must bring up her four cubs, eking out an existence in the incredible cold and with food always scarce. The brutal reality of nature is brought home in the noholds-barred battle to take down a wild llama three times the puma’s size – one of the many amazing glimpses of the natural world provided in the great tradition of the Natural History Unit.