Plot Synopsis

24 HOURS ON EARTH is a two-part documentary that chronicles animals and plants over a 24-hour cycle, revealing mind-blowing adaptations that life uses to exploit tiny windows of time. Each one-hour episode documents a different time of day -- daylight and nightime -- while featuring the behaviors of: lemurs that need morning heat; a chameleon that survives on solar power; a male Weedy Seadragon wooing a female into passing her eggs into his care; an elephant family up early to greet the sunrise; South African Fur Seals running the gauntlet between the safety of the shoreline and their feeding grounds; polar bears that must deal with the summer sun melting the ice beneath their feet; tarsiers hunting by moonlight; nocturnal predators that hide from moonlight, choosing to go hungry; and many more plant and animal responses to light and dark. This series premiered as part of BBC AMERICA's new BBC Earth programming block on Tuesdays.