ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½

A journey like no other – full of risk and reward. Every habitat has a unique set of challenges, and every parent has a strategy to overcome them. The stakes, however, could not be higher. Success, for all parents, ensures the future of life on our planet.

Finding a suitable home is the first challenge. In the Kalahari, lion mothers survive by raising one another’s cubs in times of need – only these mothers have the added risk of having to teach their cubs to also become giant hunters. Elsewhere, in Texas, a pair of burrowing owls provide an underground nest for their chicks, giving them protection while they work around the clock to supply food.

Food is vital to all parents’ success – but a mother hippo in Tanzania has to leave the safety of her pool every night to find grass for her and her calf, running a gauntlet of hungry lions hidden in the dark with her newborn.

Some parents take providing to extremes. In a sequence never featured in a documentary before, an African social spider regurgitates a 'milk' made from dissolved body parts to feed her young. Once her spiderlings need something more substantial, however, she offers herself - and they eat her alive. It is the ultimate parental sacrifice.

Protection is also key to good parenting. In Indonesia, a clever boxer crab mother cultivates live anemones from the reef around her to use as weapons against predators. When one is stolen, she amazingly clones her anemone, providing just enough protection to see her eggs through to independence.

Animal parents are having to adapt to a world that is changing rapidly, and the recovery of the Iberian lynx in southern Spain is a remarkable success story – showing how humans can help animal parents thrive in the face of enormous challenges.