David Attenborough's latest BBC One nature series, Parenthood, opens with a familiar scene of the African savannah, but soon offers more inventive footage, particularly featuring crustaceans. The show explores animal parenting, from lion cubs to cannibal spider children, with a focus on the ingenious survival strategies of various species.
One standout segment involves a boxer crab off the Indonesian coast, which carries 1,000 eggs and uses anemones as both food source and weapons. The crab fends off a cuttlefish attack before a rival crab mother, described as resembling a 1940s movie villain, tries to steal the anemones. The protagonist crab ultimately prevails with another clever trick.
Other highlights include burrowing owls in Arizona, where a male must secure a burrow to attract a mate, and African social spiders in Namibia, where aging mothers are consumed by their offspring. The series also features lowland gorillas in Gabon and endangered Iberian lynx, whose prosperity results from human farming practices that benefit wildlife.
While some sequences, like a hippo mother struggling with drought in Tanzania, feel less compelling, the series overall offers a mix of cute and gruesome parenting tales, anchored by Attenborough's narration.
