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Daily Mail
29-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
The horrifying never-seen-before parent-child spider bloodbath that David Attenborough says will 'chill to the bone'
This is the 'bone chilling' moment a colony of newborn African spiders turn to hunt their own mothers. The footage was captured for David Attenborough 's new series Parenthood. In the never before seen behaviour, a pack of African social spiders are shown hunting in packs and responding to the vibrations of their prey as they struggle in the webs. The spiders move in unison, starting and stopping at the same time, freezing together in a sinister game of musical statues. Even more disturbing, after displaying their hunting skills on their usual prey of insects, the 1,000 strong colony then turns on their own mothers and eat them alive. Sir David was both 'delighted and horrified' by the groundbreaking footage when he narrated it, series producer and director Jeff Wilson told The Guardian. 'I never heard Sir David deliver a sequence as good as that … it sort of brings a lump to your throat … he's the master at deliver,' Wilson said. The terrifying footage is accompanied with eerie music by Mulan and Ted Lasso composer Tom Howe. Wilson said the footage is among the best he has worked on in 30 years and is likely to chill parents 'to the bone'. He joked: 'There will not be a parent of the land who won't turn up to school pickup without snacks ever again.' Scientists believe the ageing spiders deliberately mimic their struggling prey, making vibrations to attract their young spiders to provide the ultimate sacrifice to ensure the survival of their offspring. The video has been compared to another breakout moment in 2016 ahead of the release of Planet Earth II, when footage of an iguana against hundreds of snakes went viral. The astonishing television showed marine iguanas attempting to outrun a knot of racer snakes on Fernandina Island was labelled 'the stuff of nightmares'. Hatchlings could be seen emerging from the sand of the Galápagos island in the Pacific Ocean in June for what is the snakes' best feeding opportunity of the year. The footage showed some iguanas outrun the snakes to safety by the sea while others were caught before the snakes wrapped themselves around them. When the crew saw the snakes for the first time, they were too shocked to film - and host Sir David Attenborough had never seen anything like it either, it was claimed. Among the millions of viewers captivated by the footage shown at 8pm last night was Olympic rower Will Satch, who described it as a 'real life horror film'. The new footage of the African social spiders is likely to spark a debate among parents about what sacrifices they are willing to make for their children. African social spiders live in large nests of up to 50 adult sisters, who hunt together in packs within the nests to engulf prey that becomes trapped in the spider webs. Each mother lays up to 50 eggs. When they hatch , the mother feeds her spiderlings with regurgitated 'milk' made from decomposing her own insides. The shocking footage was captured in Namibia and has never been seen before by television audiences. Parenthood is also set to feature stories of gorillas, orangutans, elephants and cheetahs among many others. The footage was captured over three years and over six continent's and is the first BBC natural history series to focus on parenting. The team used new technology to capture the weird and wonderful in the wild, including using military-grade infrared cameras mounted on gimbals on off-road vehicles o show hippos being chased by lions at night. Parenthood airs on Sunday, August 3 at 7.20pm on BBC One. All episodes will be available on BBC iPlayer.
The Guardian
28-07-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Mother-eating spiders ‘will chill parents to the bone' in new David Attenborough series
It is a scene that will make every parent shudder and fuel the generation wars debate. David Attenborough's new series, Parenthood, features sinister behaviour that has not been captured by TV cameras before of a 1,000-strong pack of young African social spiders hunting prey in a game of 'grandmother's footsteps' during which they freeze in unison like musical statues then eat all their mothers and elderly relatives alive. Attenborough was both 'delighted and horrified' by the groundbreaking footage when he narrated it, according to the series producer and director, Jeff Wilson. Wilson, who has worked with the broadcaster for years, said he had 'never heard Sir David deliver a sequence as good as that … it sort of brings a lump to your throat … he's the master at delivery'. The combination of Attenborough's words, atmospheric music by the Mulan and Ted Lasso composer Tom Howe (which 'adds to the whole horror') and painstaking filming to capture the spiders in their nest, is 'probably one of the best' sequences Wilson said he had worked on in 30 years of film-making, but will also chill parents 'to the bone'. He joked: 'There will not be a parent of the land who won't turn up to school pickup without snacks ever again!' The spiderling matricide scene is likely to spark debate among parents about the sacrifices they make for their offspring; scientists think the ageing mother spiders deliberately make similar vibrations to those of insects caught in a web so their children prey on their decaying bodies to ensure the youngsters' survival. The footage may also become a breakout moment in the way Planet Earth II's 'iguana v snakes' did and provoke discussion about the generation wars: the spiderlings eating all their elderly relatives so only the younger generation remains in the nest is a situation that some millennials keen to get on the property ladder may take note of. Wilson said: 'It makes one feel quite sort of chilled to the bone that you know that your own young could do that. It's an extraordinary behaviour [but] when you step away from it and from the horror of it, it sort of makes sense.' Filmed over three years on six continents in conjunction with scientists, the five-part Parenthood is the first BBC natural history series about parenting and also looks at how animals are adapting to ensure their children can survive in the face of climate breakdown. That affected the producer Silverback Films' shooting plans. 'Some of the things that we set out to film were extremely difficult to pin down, simply because the climate is changing around all of our locations and the behaviours that you would normally expect at certain times of year are changing,' Wilson said. The 'fieldcraft' skill required by Silverback's camera crews was immense due to the 'intimate, delicate relationship between parent and offspring', which meant ensuring the animals were not disturbed. New methods of filming were used – such as military-grade, infrared cameras mounted on gimbals on off-road vehicles – to enable filming of hippos being chased by lions at night. Wilson thinks such fieldcraft means artificial intelligence will never replicate the 'serendipity' of natural history TV: 'There are things that happen in the natural world, whatever behaviour you're going to film, that outweigh any scripting process or anything that one could design, you know, through AI or through a computer. 'There is more magic out there than anybody understands or even believes in. As a good film-maker, you have to build time in for that magic to be part of your narrative.' Parenthood starts on Sunday 3 August at 7.20pm on BBC One and iPlayer.
