Now available on Blu-ray, David Attenborough’s re­markable landmark series has been re-mastered from the original film to give a greater clarity and richness of colour.

Originally broadcast in 1990, Trials of Life is still one of the most comprehensive wildlife documentaries ever made. It examines animal behaviour in all its infinite variety and in doing so we are allowed to witness some of the most enchanting animal personalities, as well as some of the most fearsome. Taking some three and a half years to make, David Attenborough travelled almost a quarter of a million miles to complete this fascinating and insightful documentary.

Trials of Life surveys the whole of the animal kingdom – mammals and fishes, birds and reptiles, insects and amphibians, crabs and jellyfish – from all over the world. David Attenborough shows with dramatic and often moving examples how, from birth to death, all animals have to solve a particular set of problems if they are to survive and eventually pass their genes on to the next generation.

Examining animal behaviour from birth to adulthood, twelve episodes each feature a different aspect of the journey through life; from leaving parents and hunting to making homes and protecting the next generation. Each day brings a new test: a challenge for even the fittest and best-adapted animal.

The series remains a TV classic, renowned for its many incredible wildlife sequences including killer whales beaching to catch sea lions, the mother bat finding her baby among ten million others, the lion who kills the cubs of a rival and the amazing sight of spiny lobsters, who after spawning, form into columns fifty-strong and march away from the coral reef to the floor of the deep sea.