Attenborough's spider horror scene 'will make parents sweat'

It is a scene that will make every parent shudder: a 1,000-strong pack of young African social spiders hunting prey in a game of "grandmother's footsteps" during which they freeze in unison like musical statues - then eat their mothers and elderly relatives alive.

- Tara Conlan

David Attenborough's new series, Parenthood, features sinister behaviour that has not been captured by TV cameras before. Attenborough was both "delighted and horrified" by the footage when he narrated it, according to the series producer and director, Jeff Wilson, who has worked with Attenborough for years. Wilson said he had "never heard Sir David deliver a sequence as good as that...it sort of brings a lump to your throat...he's the master at delivery".

The combination of Attenborough's voice, music by the composer Tom Howe - which "adds to the whole horror" - and painstaking filming to capture the spiders in their nest is "probably one of the best" sequences Wilson has worked on in 30 years of filmmaking, he says, adding that it will chill parents "to the bone".

"There will not be a parent in the land who will turn up to school pick-up without snacks ever again," Wilson warned.