Wild Amazon

Deadly predators rub shoulders in the Peruvian rainforest, in a war of wits, power and poison. From jaguars to snakes, caiman and harpy eagles, who will win this fight for survival?

From strange birds to fierce insects, bizarre amphibians and shrewd monkeys, two and a half million species share one goal: to mate, and pass on their genes to the next generation. Finding love and raising a family in the rainforest is challenging, and mating strategies are as different as the animals themselves.

Over 300 billion trees pump out oxygen in the Amazon, and each one is an individual thriving ecosystem, home to a bustling community of dozens of animal species. At night, the trees switch to carbon dioxide production while, on their lower branches, nocturnal snakes hunt juicy frogs. Spiders use the trees' giant buttress roots as anchor points for their webs, ensnaring much of their prey at night. And owl monkeys, the world's only nocturnal monkey, search for insects. As the sun rises and the trees start to make oxygen again, the world's smallest monkey, the pygmy marmoset, use their sharp teeth to carve out holes in the bark that constantly refill with refreshing sap. Every tree in the Amazon is home to a living soap opera.

The dry season is the toughest time of the year in the Amazon rainforest. As the river levels drop, predator and prey are forced even closer together. Giant river otters, found nowhere else on earth, must teach their young pups to swim and fish if they are to survive the rest of the year; will they grow big enough in time? Capybara babies are bite-sized for an array of fierce jungle predators. This episode reveals the survival secret of one of the oldest species living on the waterways; how one of the smallest and most deadly Amazon animals adapts to the changing seasons; how tiny turtles can survive terrifying flash flooding; and how one tree can be the difference between life and death for a huge number of animals in the dry season. In the Amazon jungle, conditions can switch from cracked earth to submerged trees in an instant, and the species that live here must be resourceful to survive.

Every year, roughly 200,000 baby monkeys are trafficked illegally from Peru. This episode follows young monkeys Emita, Rusa and Celia's struggle to survive on Isla de los Monos - a unique island that gives victims of the pet trade and hunting a second chance. Will a motley crew of woolly monkeys take baby Celia into the fold? Lucera is a spider monkey determined to conquer the upper canopy; will she take time out to nurture newbie Emita? And can baby howler monkey Rusa survive without any of her species to learn from?