TV series Frozen Planet II, presented by Sir David Attenborough, delves into the amazing species that thrive in the Arctic, Antarctic and beyond. Using drone footage, high-tech equipment and terrain-friendly buggies, the latest series also explores life beyond the Poles, bringing viewers epic wildlife drama from the world's coldest regions. Here we take a look at some of the animals and reptiles you’ll meet during the series and reveal some fascinating animal facts.
Episode one, Frozen Worlds, takes viewers to the Russian Far East and parts of northern China – home to the elusive Siberian tiger, the largest cat in the world. Around 500 are left in the wild, mainly in Russia's Land of the Leopard National Park, and they are incredibly rare and hard to film. The fearsome animal is almost 10 feet (3m) long from nose to tail tip, with four-inch-long (10cm) claws. In the winter they hunt for hibernating black bears.
Filmed on West Ice in Greenland, hooded seals have a distinctive behaviour that no other animal can replicate. Males can shut one nostril valve to inflate a membrane which protrudes from the other nostril, creating a red balloon-like sac. Males use this to fend off their competition and appeal to females.
The Himalayas is the tallest mountain range on Earth and is known as the ‘third pole’ because of its vast ice fields. Nearby, the seemingly endless grassy plains are home to the Pallas’s cat, with short legs and paws that are (surprisingly) sensitive to the cold. They have the densest fur of any cat to help them survive the tough Mongolian winter and they target gerbils and voles to keep themselves fed.
Antarctica in the far south is the most hostile place on Earth. The Frozen Planet II team journeyed to Atka Bay to film emperor penguins. The chicks are raised on ice during the winter but come spring they're abandoned by their parents. The younglings must cross dangerous sea ice and the treacherous waters of the Southern Ocean to be reunited again. To capture their journey, the crew spent up to nine hours a day filming in water that was -1°C (30°F).
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A relic of the last Ice Age, musk oxen live on the Arctic Circle tundra. The film crew recorded them in Nunavut (a Canadian territory) during spring when it can be light for 24 hours a day. This time of year is also the birthing season when young calves need to survive both the cold and the grizzlies, emerging from hibernation. As long as a few calves survive, the future of the herd is secure.
Episode two, Frozen Ocean, takes viewers into the heart of the Earth's coldest water worlds. Huge flocks of crested auklets were filmed on remote Sivuqaq (or St Lawrence Island) in the Bering Sea. Their mating displays haven't been broadcast since the BBC's Blue Planet series 20 years ago. Despite their quiff-like crests and maniacal grins, their most notable feature is something more unusual altogether. Oddly, they smell like tangerines, especially the males, who are trying to attract females.
Capable of living for over 200 years, bowhead whales are a predominantly Arctic species. They travel to secret locations known as ‘whale spas’ which were only discovered relatively recently. However, the decreasing sea ice makes their calves more vulnerable to killer whales. For the show, the team used remote underwater camera traps to film the endangered species.
The Arctic’s summer heat can be almost unbearable for walruses. These characterful creatures are particularly sensitive to shifts in their habitats and in this episode we see one adult male ‘roly-poly’ himself into the water to cool down. This ingenious tactic had previously never been filmed for television before.
A narwhal's distinctive tusk is actually an enlarged tooth with some 10 million nerve endings. These ‘unicorns of the sea’ share the same migration paths as beluga whales but interactions between the two are rarely observed. However, the behaviour the team filmed was so special that it was sent to a scientific publication for further analysis.
Episode three, Frozen Peaks, takes viewers up some of the world's highest peaks and mountain ranges. The red-faced Japanese macaque can live at altitudes of up to 4,921 feet (1,500m) during winter. Filmed at Kamikochi and Joshinetsu Kogen National Park in Japan, the monkeys gather in groups and huddle together to reduce heat loss in the colder months when their habitat sees some of the snowiest conditions on Earth.
The film crew used thermal drones to follow pumas in the Laguna Amarga Estancia and Torres Del Paine National Park in the Patagonia region of Chile. But the speedy cats aren't as solitary as first thought, with Frozen Planet II footage showing them sharing a kill in the middle of the night.
Elegant flamingoes can survive extreme cold and lakes with alkaline pH levels that would burn human flesh off the bone. Surviving in seemingly inhospitable habitats like these, they can be found in the likes of the Atacama Desert, as pictured here. They're slightly smaller than Caribbean flamingoes and can live for up to 50 years.
Golden eagles use extreme tactics to tackle their huge prey and generally work in pairs. One usually flushes the prey from cover or distracts it while the other makes the attack. For the first time on television, we see a pair making a successful kill – on none other than a chamois goat five times their weight. The Frozen Planet II crew filmed the impressive hunt in Italy's Gran Paradiso National Park in The Alps.
Giant pandas almost exclusively eat bamboo – even though their digestive systems have evolved to process meat – but need to chomp 10-16 hours a day to get enough nutrition. They perform ‘handstands’ to mark their territory and can climb trees backwards until they’re in a full upside-down handstand to reach higher grounds. With thick coats well-adapted to the cold conditions of the high Chinese mountains, like Wolong National Nature Reserve, they roam snow-covered forests searching for food and potential mates.
These colour-changing chameleons might bask in the sun on the high slopes of Mount Kenya, but the national park is too cold for an egg to develop in the open, so they manage something rather unusual instead. In a process known as viviparity, high-casqued chameleons give birth to live young which have developed inside the body of the mother. Attenborough’s team were able to film this unique birth for the first time for television.
Over in New Zealand’s Southern Alps you’ll find one of the most intelligent bird species in the world. Their varied diet includes over 200 species of plants and animals, from mice to sheep. These sociable birds have a call initiating play behaviour which can spread quickly throughout a flock, creating strong bonds between individuals. The mountain parrot was recorded for Frozen Planet II in Waitangi Forest Conservation Area in New Zealand.
Episode four, Frozen South, centres around animals typical to the Antarctic. The largest animal on Earth, the Atlantic blue whale is rarely seen, let alone filmed, and was recorded in the Southern Ocean for Frozen Planet II. The ocean giant is listed on the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) as critically endangered, but in 2020 scientists recorded an ‘unprecedented’ number of 55 Antarctic blue whales in the waters of South Georgia.
Just like their cousins, Adélie penguins, this species also uses pebbles to make nests away from the water-logged ground. Filmed on Deception Island in the Antarctic Peninsula, we sadly see chinstraps struggling to raise their chicks in a warming world, with many chicks left shivering due to hypothermia. These are the devastating effects of increased meltwater and rainy conditions in the Antarctic due to the changing climate.
Typically, albatrosses spend decades with the same life partner, largely congregating on Antipodes Island in New Zealand. But with a lack of female birds to bond with – mostly down to male and females foraging in different parts of the Southern Ocean – we’re now seeing albatrosses forming unexpected male-male pairs which hasn’t been observed in other species of wandering albatrosses yet.
Killer whales are probably one of the most misunderstood animals on the planet. Aound one hundred killer whales in the Antarctic Peninsula use a complex hunting technique known as 'wave-washing'. This sophisticated technique is coordinated by the family matriarch (who can be over one hundred years old) and involves individuals swimming in tandem and coordinating their tail beats to sweep Weddell seals off their ice floes.
On the island of South Georgia, we watch thousands of king penguins make the mile-long (1.6km) march across a snowy hill to reach the ocean, a behaviour that had never been documented before. The team used a remote-controlled camera buggy to follow them to St Andrews Bay and Right Whale Bay where they gather to collect food for their chicks. Amazingly, they’re the only penguins to breed through winter on the island.
Frozen Lands, the fifth episode in the series, returns to dry land, exploring the Earth's coldest regions. Arctic foxes are smaller and more compact than other members of the fox family and their lower total body surface area helps reduce heat loss. Their fur changes colour seasonally – white in winter and grey in summer – and because of this, they don’t need to hibernate. Commonly found in places like Nunavut in Canada, the ice-white foxes feast on lemmings which hide deep underground.
Fearsome grizzly bears (also called brown bears in Alaska) are one of the most lethal wild animals, but in recent years they’ve expanded into new areas like the Canadian High Arctic, which was formerly limited to polar bears. As omnivores, they eat the likes of caribou, with a particularly intense part of this episode following a grizzly bear and herd of musk oxen…
Highly sociable, wolves exist as 'super packs' in some parts of the world – the largest pack ever recorded had over 40 wolves. The team filmed a super pack of 25 in Wood Buffalo National Park, Canada. They’re formed by several family generations coming together in the harsh winter, which also comes in handy when hunting bison.
Roughly 120 Amur leopards exist in the wild and they are limited to the Russian Far East, although huge conservation efforts have seen their numbers triple in the last decade. The recovery of the rarest big cat in nature is promising, with cubs reported each year. They're seldom filmed in the wild so the team used camera traps in Siberia’s remote forests which Amur leopards share with the larger Siberian tiger.
Painted turtles living in the US and Canada are the world's most northerly turtles. Autumn hatchlings stay in their nest chambers and almost unbelievably freeze solid when winter arrives. Fascinatingly, their hearts stop and their brains are only faintly active. When the forest and tundra transform with the arrival of spring, this triggers the baby turtles to thaw and ‘return’ to life.
Caribou, better known as reindeer in northern Europe, can live in herds up to 200,000 strong. The beautiful beasts undertake one of the longest land migrations of any mammal, travelling round-trip distances exceeding 745 miles. Sadly the number of reindeer and caribou has declined by 56% over the last two decades, with roughly 2.1 million individuals left in the wild. The team filmed them in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge during 24-hour daylight conditions.
One of the heaviest owl species in North America, snowy owls have an impressive wingspan of four to five feet (1.21-1.52m). This allows them to silently sneak up on or accelerate after prey, such as lemmings, Arctic hare and ducks, which they can swallow whole. Uniquely, these owls are diurnal (non-nocturnal), allowing them to hunt in the daylight. Their feather-covered feet keep them insulated in the open Arctic tundra (where they breed) and males are all-white, while females have dark ‘bars’ across them.
Finally, in Our Frozen Planet (episode six), we meet two sets of iconic animals. The team used rebreather diving technology (non-bubble-producing equipment) allowing for more intimate footage of harp seal pups learning to swim. Mothers usually give birth on sea ice in the Gulf of St Lawrence and the West Ice off Greenland, which becomes a nursery ground for the young. They have a few weeks together to learn to swim but in today’s warming climate, many pups are lost to the ocean before they’re ready.
The Arctic’s most notable residents, polar bears have a darker skin pigmentation underneath their white fur coating to retain heat. They employ ‘aquatic-stalking’ to sneak up on their prey and ambush from the water. However, with shrinking ice due to climate change, hunting is becoming harder. These solitary creatures are found on the remote outpost of Wrangell Island in Alaska during summer, more than any other location.
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