David Attenborough's Conquest of the Skies

Join world-renowned naturalist David Attenborough, as he spans the globe to track the extraordinary evolution of Earth's first flying creatures: insects. It's a journey into an unexpectedly advanced world, where dragonflies use their four wings to deadly effect and butterflies make some of the longest migrations on the planet. Through stunning up-close, slow motion footage and high-tech forensics, we tell their remarkable story, over 320 million years in the making.

After ruling the skies for about 60 million years, insects were joined by a new group of creatures: vertebrates. The pioneers of the backboned flyers were the prehistoric pterosaurs, followed by a group of dinosaurs that acquired feathers. Finally, after a global extinction event, birds and the newly emerged bats took command of the skies. Join naturalist David Attenborough as he investigates the jungles of Borneo and the volcanic ash of China to track the evolution of these remarkable flying animals.

Over the last 150 million years, birds have spread around the globe and evolved a multitude of flying abilities to become lethal hunters, formation flyers, and aerial acrobats. But there is a vast kingdom birds do not control: the night skies. Naturalist David Attenborough explores the highly advanced inhabitants that dominate our skies today. Follow him to the caves in Gomantong, Borneo, where today's birds and bats meet in a battle for supremacy.