For humans, darkness is menacing, forbidding, petrifying. It conceals the most dangerous and terrifying creatures on Earth. But it also holds some of the greatest, undiscovered mysteries of nature. Most animals are nocturnal, but they’re seldom studied at night and rarely filmed in the dark.

The Dark follows a team of wildlife experts and specialist camera crews on a hair-raising mission to solve those wildlife mysteries. They come face to face with the unearthly beasts that prowl the pitch-black jungles and swamps of South America and discover bizarre creatures and behaviours never before seen.

Using a new generation of HD night filming technologies, including the very latest military grade night-vision cameras, The Dark reveals secret lives and captures gripping animal behaviour, offering a totally new perspective on our wild planet.

In their quest to unlock the secrets of the dark, the crew must become creatures of the night themselves, wading through piranha-filled swamps, braving shark- infested waters and squeezing into the narrowest, snake-ridden caves... On this mission, the risks are high but the rewards are amazing.

1. Central America – Jungle
In the coastal jungles of Costa Rica, the team find out why turtle carcasses are found strewn across the country’s beaches night after night. Locals believe the answer lies with Central America’s most notorious nocturnal predator, the jaguar. Cameras probe river estuaries to find out why bull sharks enter the forest waterways, while another crew feel their way through the spider-infested jungle in pursuit of mysterious kinkajous and fishing bats.

2. Patagonia – Mountains/Ocean
At the southern tip of South America, the team capture something that’s never been filmed before. Using long range, infra-red cameras, they film pumas hunting at night. Meanwhile, marine experts enter the open ocean to investigate the unusual sounds reported by locals that seem to be coming from the sea.

3. Amazonia – Swamps/Caves
The team venture into the largest swamp in the world, the pantanal, to investigate mysterious deep scratchings on the trees. Could it be pumas or jaguars or the tree climbing anteaters of the pantanal? Diving in the mighty Amazon reveals whether the black caiman is devouring its smaller spectacled cousins. And the team also go to an unexplored cave to look for species as yet unknown to science.

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