The rainbow Z00

There’s more to nature than our eyes can see in the compelling new doccie, Life In Colour With David Attenborough.

- GENEVIEVE TERBLANCHE

Life In Colour With David Attenborough Season 1 Fridays (from 9 January) BBC Earth (*184) 20:00

Why are peacocks so pimpin' and parrots and poison frogs so flashy? They all have colours to flaunt, and for his entire life, TV's favourite nature doccie presenter Sir David Attenborough has wanted to tell us why.

"He first wanted to make a series about colour in the 1950s, but at the time had to settle on one about animal patterns in black and white (his 1953 series titled The Pattern Of Animals), because there was no colour television as yet," reveals Sharmila Choudhury, series producer of the new two-part documentary, Life In Colour With David

Attenborough. Sharmila has worked with Sir David as an assistant producer on many documentaries, including Planet Earth (2006) and The Life Of Birds (1998). "When we went to see him with the idea for this series, his excitement was unmistakable. He dashed to his bookshelf and pulled out a book from the 1970s entitled Animals And d Their Colours, and for the next hour we discussed the many glorious creatures we might feature and new stories there were to tell," says Sharmila.

Now not only has camera technology caught up with nature's dazzling colours, new scientific research has so much more to say about animals' colours than you could imagine! You won't (and shouldn't) believe your eyes... 

SUPER SCIENCE