Primates

Primates have conquered the world, from snow-capped mountains to dusty backstreets, impassable flooded forests and the open savannah. In this episode, we reveal the extraordinary strategies monkeys, apes and lemurs must use to survive in the most unexpected places. From baboons facing down a leopard to rhesus macaques charming their way to an easy life, meet the primates solving life's problems in the most extraordinary places and in the most surprising ways

For primates, family matters. They have the most complex social lives of any animal group on the planet. From dusky leaf monkeys who compete to babysit an infant to gibbons who learn dare-devil treetop acrobatics with their playmates, friends and family are at the heart of primate life. In the Amazon we meet a female spider monkey elder, who leads her troop to a unique food resource: aquatic plants brought within reach on raging floodwaters. She shows them how, using their remarkable tails as a safety rope, they can feast on this unlikely bounty. In Sri Lanka, we meet the bizarre slender loris in the most intimate images ever captured of the species. And in Brazil's Atlantic forests, we share a day in the life of the most devoted primate dad of all. The diminutive male golden-headed lion tamarin is a guardian, a navigator and, when needs must, a taxi service for his demanding offspring. With family comes hierarchy, and those at the top are constantly under threat. For a battle-scarred hanuman langur, attack is the best form of defence when his troop are threatened by a band of bachelors. In Morocco, an old male barbary macaque must find new friends to huddle with when freezing temperatures and a sudden snowstorm threaten his survival. This is our own animal family, but one about which we still have so much to learn. In 2017, news broke of a new species of primate, the Tapanuli orang-utan, and we share some of the very first moving images of mother and infant. Already, they are some of the most threatened great apes on the planet. This is the definitive portrait of our closest relatives, at a crucial time. Fascinating social behaviour, new species and unforgettable characters. Meet primates at their most social.

Today, more than half of the world's primates are under threat of extinction. Now they need our help. Meet the scientists making groundbreaking discoveries about this remarkable animal family, and the dedicated people going to extraordinary lengths to safeguard their future. Only by truly understanding primates can we protect them. Researcher Dr Cat Hobaiter has spent 13 years studying chimpanzees in the jungles of Uganda. She's fascinated by their communication and, after recording thousands of hours of footage, has revealed that our closest cousins have a secret language. On Thailand's East coast, Dr Amanda Tan reveals something rare in the animal kingdom: tool use. A population of long-tailed macaques have, for generations, used tools to harvest shellfish. And in Brazil, researcher Vedrana Slipogor plays videos to some of the world's tiniest monkeys - common marmosets - as she tries to understand the subtleties of primate personality. In Madagascar, drones mounted with thermal-imaging cameras might be the key to protecting some of the world's most elusive lemurs. And in the rainforests of Tanzania, we witness the moment when primatologist Dr Russell Mittermeier becomes the first person to have seen every type of primate on the planet.