12: Australia’s Red Centre | Nature’s Microworlds

Duration: 29'07''

Synopsis

Steve Backshall reveals huge kangaroos, the world's most venomous snake and a burrowing toad living among the throng of animals in the harsh environment.

Further Information

More clips from Nature's Microworlds

01: Galapagos | Nature's Microworlds

01: Galapagos | Nature's Microworlds

BBC Four | 2012 | 29'02''

The Galapagos is home to a myriad of bizarre and unique creatures endemic to these islands, but how did they get here and what is the ke...

02: Serengeti | Nature's Microworlds

02: Serengeti | Nature's Microworlds

BBC Four | 2012 | 29'01''

A look at one of the most famous habitats on the planet, the Serengeti in east Africa, a vast grassland that is home to some of the grea...

04: Monterey Bay | Nature's Microworlds

04: Monterey Bay | Nature's Microworlds

BBC Four | 2012 | 29'05''

Steve Backshall looks at the unique geography of California's Monterey Bay, its kelp forest bursting with life from microscopic plank...

05: Okavango | Nature's Microworlds

05: Okavango | Nature's Microworlds

BBC Four | 2012 | 28'59''

Steve Backshall reveals the secret to the existence of the Okavango, the world's largest inland delta and home to one of Africa's greates...

06: Svalbard | Nature's Microworlds

06: Svalbard | Nature's Microworlds

BBC Four | 2012 | 29'00''

In the northerly region of Svalbard, Steve Backshall unravels the secrets that lie covered in ice for most of each year in the home of th...

07: Canada's Coastal Forests | Nature's Microworlds

07: Canada's Coastal Forests | Nature's Microworlds

BBC Four | 2012 | 28'59''

Steve Backshall reveals why Canada's coastal forest is home to huge trees and some of the greatest aggregations of top pr...

08: Great Barrier Reef | Nature's Microworlds

08: Great Barrier Reef | Nature's Microworlds

BBC Four | 2012 | 28'59''

Steve Backshall visits Australia's Great Barrier Reef to discover the conditions that let a tiny coral building block create Ea...

09: Namib Desert | Nature's Microworlds

09: Namib Desert | Nature's Microworlds

BBC Four | 2012 | 29'03''

Steve Backshall visits the Namib in Africa, where animals use clever tactics to combat the heat. He reveals the unique secret that al...

10: Yellowstone | Nature's Microworlds

10: Yellowstone | Nature's Microworlds

BBC Four | 2012 | 29'02''

In Yellowstone National Park, where wolves, bears, coyotes, bison and elk roam vast grasslands, wetlands and forests, Steve Backshall ...

11: The Deep Sea | Nature's Microworlds

11: The Deep Sea | Nature's Microworlds

BBC Four | 2012 | 29'06''

Steve Backshall plumbs the ocean depths to find an array of beautiful and bizarre creatures, from 40m-long jellyfish to grotesque ang...

13: Scottish Highlands | Nature's Microworlds

13: Scottish Highlands | Nature's Microworlds

BBC Four | 2012 | 29'03''

Steve Backshall shows how the two contrasting landscapes of open moor and Caledonian forest are both crucially important to the...

Amazon | Nature's Microworlds

Amazon | Nature's Microworlds

BBC Four | 2012 | 28'58''

Steve Backshall lifts the lid on an incredible world of intricate relationships and unexpected hardship in the Amazon rainforest, explores the ...

Keeping cool | Nature's Microworlds

Keeping cool | Nature's Microworlds

BBC Four | 2013 | 2'12''

The Namaqua chameleon has developed an ingenious tactic to avoid the heat of the Namib desert.

More resources about Hot deserts

02: Deserts - Life in the Furnace | Human Planet

02: Deserts - Life in the Furnace | Human Planet

BBC One | 2011 | 59'01''

A look at how the eternal quest for water brings huge challenges - and ingenious solutions - for millions of people in the d...

Desertification | Newsnight

Desertification | Newsnight

BBC Two | 2017 | 8'36''

Featuring the wall of green land preventing desertification in sub-Saharan Africa.

04: Desert Worlds | The Green Planet

04: Desert Worlds | The Green Planet

BBC One | 2022 | 58'33''

Desert plants spend decades in suspended animation waiting for rain, or they travel to find it. They survive using weapons, camouflage a...

01: Kalahari | Africa

01: Kalahari | Africa

BBC One | 2013 | 58'39''

David Attenborough explores two deserts in Africa's south west, where he encounters meerkats, black rhinos, giant insects and the greatest giraffe batt...

09: Namib Desert | Nature's Microworlds

09: Namib Desert | Nature's Microworlds

BBC Four | 2012 | 29'03''

Steve Backshall visits the Namib in Africa, where animals use clever tactics to combat the heat. He reveals the unique secret that al...

S04E05: Qasr Al Sarab Desert Resort | Amazing Hotels: Life Beyond the Lobby

S04E05: Qasr Al Sarab Desert Resort | Amazing Hotels: Life Beyond the Lobby

BBC Two | 2021 | 58'57''

Giles Coren and Monica Galetti visit an extraordinary hotel built where people usually struggle t...

03: Mongolia | Kate Humble: Living with Nomads

03: Mongolia | Kate Humble: Living with Nomads

BBC Two | 2015 | 59'10''

In her final journey of the series, Kate Humble travels deep into the Gobi Desert to live with an extended family of cashmere ...

Episode 1 | Hottest Place on Earth

Episode 1 | Hottest Place on Earth

BBC HD | 2009 | 59'21''

A team of experts venture into the Danakil desert in Ethiopia. Kate Humble looks at how tough life is for an Afar woman, and Steve Leonard...

Moisture in the Atacama | Planet Earth

Moisture in the Atacama | Planet Earth

BBC One | 2006 | 3'56''

Life exists in a strip of the Atacama Desert due to fog that blows in from the sea.

04: Beyond the Great Wall | Wild China

04: Beyond the Great Wall | Wild China

BBC Two | 2008 | 58'54''

From tribes hunting with eagles to the baking deserts of central Asia, the extreme landscapes in northern China mean life is always on...

Desertification | Nature

Desertification | Nature

BBC Two | 1989 | 7'51''

John Howard rep from Almeria, SE Spain - driest place in Europe, where tomatoes grow in plastic greenhouses, & soil erosion causes desert to advance

05: Sahara | Africa

05: Sahara | Africa

BBC One | 2013 | 59'17''

David Attenborough's breathtaking journey through Africa. In the Sahara Desert, huge zebras battle for resources, camels seek water, and tiny swallows se...

Life in Death Valley | Planet Earth

Life in Death Valley | Planet Earth

BBC One | 2006 | 1'09''

A single shower can transform Death Valley.

My Epic Camel Adventure with Gordon Buchanan

My Epic Camel Adventure with Gordon Buchanan

BBC Scotland | 2024 | 59'00''

Gordon Buchanan takes an epic camel ride across the Gobi Desert to discover how these most iconic, yet least understood, animals...

S01E02: Arnhem Land | Ray Mears' World of Survival

S01E02: Arnhem Land | Ray Mears' World of Survival

BBC Two | 1997 | 29'14''

Ray Mears visits Northern Australia, where the local Aborigines show him how to make shelters out of bark, find water in t...

02: Namib: Skeleton Coast and Beyond | Eden: Untamed Planet

02: Namib: Skeleton Coast and Beyond | Eden: Untamed Planet

BBC Two | 2022 | 46'52''

The Namib Desert is one of the oldest deserts in the world, flourishing with life where none seems possible. This...

02: The Mucubal | Tribe with Bruce Parry

02: The Mucubal | Tribe with Bruce Parry

BBC Two | 2025 | 58'55''

Bruce Parry visits the Mucubal, a community surviving in Angola's harsh Namib Desert, and experiences an extraordinary way of life p...

S02E05: Christmas - The Sahara | The Misadventures of Romesh Ranganathan

S02E05: Christmas - The Sahara | The Misadventures of Romesh Ranganathan

BBC Two | 2019 | 59'03''

Rom visits the Sahara Desert. Guided by Bobo, a local of Berber descent, Rom discovers a place that ...

S02E06: The Red Centre: Australia | Ray Mears' World of Survival

S02E06: The Red Centre: Australia | Ray Mears' World of Survival

BBC Two | 1998 | 29'04''

Ray Mears visits the Aboriginal people of the central Australian desert. He goes to Amata, where 500 Anangu ...

03: Okavango | Earth's Greatest Spectacles

03: Okavango | Earth's Greatest Spectacles

BBC Two | 2016 | 58'55''

How a yearly flood creates the lush wetland of the Okavango Delta in the middle of the vast Kalahari Desert.

More from Steve Backshall

Devil rays leaping | Nature's Greatest Dancers

Devil rays leaping | Nature's Greatest Dancers

BBC One | 2015 | 1'19''

Devil rays do acrobatic leaps out of the sea at the edge of the shoal to encourage shrimp into the mouths of the other rays.

S01E01 | Our Changing Planet

S01E01 | Our Changing Planet

BBC One | 2022 | 58'05''

Steve Backshall, Chris Packham and Ella Al-Shamahi visit the Maldives, Iceland and Cambodia, charting the fight to save the planet’s most endang...

02: Great Barrier Reef | Blue Planet Revisited

02: Great Barrier Reef | Blue Planet Revisited

BBC One | 2020 | 59'02''

To find out what the future holds for the Great Barrier Reef, scientists monitor green turtles, follow families of breeding bi...

Bat Doctor | Lost Land of the Volcano

Bat Doctor | Lost Land of the Volcano

BBC Two | 2020 | 3'07''

An injured bat needs nursing back to full health and the team examine the rare adaptation of the striped possum.

S04E07: Borneo | Deadly 60

S04E07: Borneo | Deadly 60

CBBC | 2020 | 28'14''

Although we can't just stop using palm oil - farmers need to grow it to provide an income for their families and as a product it's highly efficien...

04: Mexico Part 2 | Undiscovered Worlds with Steve Backshall

04: Mexico Part 2 | Undiscovered Worlds with Steve Backshall

BBC Two | 2019 | 58'25''

Steve Backshall is in Yucatan, Mexico, on the trail of the ancient Maya. His team of explorers uncover macabre a...

Japanese macaques have a lifestyle unlike all other monkeys | Japan's Northern Wilderness

Japanese macaques have a lifestyle unlike all other monkeys | Japan's Northern Wilderness

BBC Two | 2017 | 1'16''

Naturalist Steve Backshall and double Olympic gold medallist Helen Glover take a lo...

Episode 1 | Wild Alaska Live

Episode 1 | Wild Alaska Live

BBC One | 2017 | 58'38''

A new series on a spectacular wildlife event, live from Alaska with Steve Backshall, Matt Baker and Liz Bonnin. Bears, eagles and orca are gathe...

Live interview interrupted by a blue whale | Big Blue Live

Live interview interrupted by a blue whale | Big Blue Live

BBC One | 2015 | 3'08''

Steve Backshall's interview with whale expert Doris Welch is cut short when, against all odds, the team spot a Blu...

25: Antarctica | Deadly Pole to Pole

25: Antarctica | Deadly Pole to Pole

CBBC | 2014 | 28'28''

Steve's journey finally comes to an end at the land of extremes - the least inhabited, remotest, highest, driest, coldest and windiest c...

Keeping cool | Nature's Microworlds

Keeping cool | Nature's Microworlds

BBC Four | 2013 | 2'12''

The Namaqua chameleon has developed an ingenious tactic to avoid the heat of the Namib desert.

Secret Wilderness - Japan | Wild

Secret Wilderness - Japan | Wild

BBC Two | 2007 | 39'10''

Steve Backshall discovers Japan's wilderness, from majestic cranes dancing in subzero temperatures in the north to giant salamanders hanging...

Episode 5 | Expedition Borneo

Episode 5 | Expedition Borneo

BBC One | 2007 | 29'08''

Wildlife adventure series following a team of explorers in the heart of the tropical island of Borneo. A network of caverns never explored by h...