The Speed of Life Discovery Channel show is a brand new series, specializing in high speed photography to capture the amazing, blazing fast intricacies of daily life for animals and insects on the planet. Most especially, Speed of Life focuses on predators and prey, showing remarkable detail and breathtaking footage that you wouldn't believe.
Each episode of the new Discovery Channel Speed of Life show focuses on a different region, and all of the various animals and interconnected ecosystems that call that region home. Three episodes aired on the series' debut night, Sunday, August 8th. The first was the "Hunters of East Africa" followed by "Central American Killers" and "Predators of the Southwest".
The Speed of Life Discovery Channel series is reminiscent of the Life documentary series, which brought viewers into never before seen areas, revealing a sampling of the majestic beauty and astounding struggle of life for different species throughout the globe. The difference here though is not just on capturing a never before seen process or act, but instead on capturing acts at lightning quick speeds that reveal sensational intricacies.
For example, in the first episode of the Speed of Life Discovery Channel show, a few minutes were spent focusing on a chameleon. Footage shot with thousands of frames per second, slowing the scene down by dozens to hundreds of times, reveals a tongue double the length of the lizard's body flowing out instantly, sucking up its target, and then wrapping back into the delighted beast's mouth.
Other scenes from this first episode included two praying mantes battling one another, and another showed an African cat, only 18 inches high, that could leap 10 feet into the air to capture birds and pull them down for a quick meal. A snake chases down and swallows a rain frog whole, only to encounter a bull frog hiding in the dirt that tries to do the same to it. A porcupine battles against a scorpion, two tarantulas go to war with one another, and on down the line. One minute you're the hunter, the next your the victim, and it's all in a normal day.
Besides this wonderful super-slow motion photography, the rest of the imagery is still gorgeous, showing creatures such as the vine snake which perfectly blends into the limbs of a tree, or the spreading plumage of an East African Crowned Crane, with its seven foot wingspan and 50 million year lineage.
While Shark Week certainly captured everyone's attention recently, you shouldn't pass over the new Discovery Channel show Speed of Life either. It's amazing to see the level of precise action that takes place with a move that an animal or insect makes in just thousandths of a second. For example, watching that praying mantis attack a cockroach, he leaps at his meal to be, wraps his arms around him, pulls him in, pounces and chows down on his head, paralyzing him, literally before a blink of eye. Pretty cool stuff.
It's amazing what the photographs and videographers were able to capture on this new series, and the sensationally quick frame speeds make it all possible. So if you're looking for a treat and an inside look into the animal kingdom, flip on over to the new Speed of Life Discovery Channel show.
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