Airdate: The Mating Game

New natural history series, The Mating Game, narrated by Sir David Attenborough screens on Nine from Monday.

Produced by Silverback Films, the series explores nature’s ultimate quest – the pursuit for a partner.

Sir David says: “Animals set out to impress one another when they start courtship and mating, and my goodness, how impressive they can be! It makes for a wonderful sight. The equipment animals have for their mating displays, the feathers, all the paraphernalia, can make it very dramatic.”

Mating is a life-and-death game played by all animal species that determines how genes are passed on to the next generation.

Animals will go to extraordinary lengths in their desire to mate, from unbridled displays of power and cunning deception to thoughtful gestures and impressive flamboyance. Such interactions provide us with wildlife spectacles that are often beautiful and sometimes amazingly shocking.

From vast expanses of grassland to tangled jungles, deep oceans and open freshwater, each episode demonstrates how environment shapes The Mating Game and how some terrain can be vicious and unforgiving.

Filmed in ultra-high resolution, this fascinating series ensures all is revealed from quest to conquest in the remarkable world of wildlife mating. Either underwater or on land, it allows us to witness some of the most predatory, unexpected – and even comical – sexual strategies at work in the animal world.

Monday, April 25, at 8.50pm on Nine.