Lions, cheetahs and chimpanzees, my goodness: a look at Africa’s diverse wildlife

A wild African black panther hunts for prey. An orphaned baby pangolin must learn to climb on its own. And a green turtle struggles to return to the water after laying its eggs on a remote island. She is rescued by local people who carry the exhausted turtle to the water’s edge. These animals and many other species are presented in Africa: Earth’s Wild Homelanda new documentary series from National Geographic. It is set to launch a new franchise, with separate series documenting the wildlife and environmental ecosystems of all seven continents one after the other.

The seven-part documentary series took four years to complete and filming took place in almost 30 different African countries. Each episode focuses on a specific ecosystem, from the jungle and desert to the plains, mountains and islands of Africa, and concludes with a look at the various scientists, photographers and NatGeo explorers whose work made the series possible. The final episode focuses on the local conservation leaders and researchers working to preserve Africa’s rich biodiversity for future generations.

The producers found the perfect narrator in Wunmi Mosaku, who appeared in works such as “ Sinner, LokiAnd Lovecraft country. “I was incredibly honored that they even knew my name at Nat Geo,” Mosaku told Ars. “It was wonderful to be asked to narrate the series, it means so much to me. As someone who was born in Nigeria and grew up in England, I will take every opportunity to reconnect with and celebrate this incredible continent where life is so diverse and so extreme and beautiful and relentless and peaceful. I wanted to be a part of it because it is a part of me.”

“There was so much I didn’t know,” Mosaku said. “I’ve been to Nigeria and Ghana, of course. I’ve worked in Kenya and South Africa. But there’s so much to see. I don’t think you could even explore it in a lifetime. So many things were shocking to me. I’d never seen snow and monkeys living in the snow in Africa before.”

Among other things, the team filmed the reclusive black rain frog – the first time the species has been seen on television – as a male frog emerges for its first breeding season. Although it looks like a “grumpy avocado,” the black rain frog has a distinctive “squeaky soprano” mating call that helps it attract females. The series also includes rare live footage of chimpanzees using rudimentary tools (twigs or branches) to fish for algae at the bottom of a pond (see video above).

Adaptation is key. In one case, a lonely male hyena who hasn’t eaten for days must figure out how to catch a flamingo in order to survive. But the water slows him down so much that he has to develop a strategy: he drives the flock towards the shore so that the increased bird density makes it easier to catch one (see above) – a new ability for the species.

One can’t help but feel some sympathy for the hyena, which is quickly offset by a night vision section (see below) in which a pack of hyenas attack a mother and baby elephant, nearly killing the calf. “I never thought I would feel compassion for a hyena,” Mosaki said. “You see this young bachelor hyena trying right now [find food]. But then you see her attacking an elephant calf and you think, ‘Oh, that’s why I don’t like her.'”

Capturing all of this footage in the wild requires a high level of technological innovation. The production team relied heavily on drones to provide first-person perspectives, as well as a robotic arm that could be pre-programmed for long camera shots – originally developed for studio use and used on location for the first time.

An underwater “hippo camera” had pan and tilt heads to better capture what was happening beneath the surface, while hippos received a “spa treatment” in which barbelfish nibbled off all of their dead skin. And the team developed a remotely controlled fixed rig with low-light and infrared capabilities, as well as a remote zoom function, to film pygmy crocodiles hunting bats in a pitch-black, guano-covered cave. They even placed small umbrellas over the rigs to “bat-proof” the equipment.