LONDON – Sir David Attenborough's latest BBC One series explores how parents across the animal kingdom sacrifice everything to raise their young. In the case of African social spiders in Namibia, that sacrifice is quite literally the ultimate one.
As revealed in Parenthood, the mother spider gives her life for her spiderlings, who—when the time is right—slowly and methodically creep up on her and their other elderly relatives en masse and eat them alive, making room for the next generation.
Known as matriphagy, this moment provided what director Jeff Wilson calls "the perfect natural history sequence," as well as "the best narration I've ever heard him [Sir David] do."
“David knows exactly what is needed to tell the story,” Wilson says. “It’s a story about the ultimate commitment of a parent. How far do you take your parenting commitment?”
“I’m not asking any human parents to go that far,” he adds with a smile. “But we all know that if you turn up at the school gates without a snack, you’re verging on being eaten by your child anyway! So there’s a damn good lesson in that.”
Capturing such a scene in a “non-intrusive way” requires an immense collaborative effort between scientists and cinematographers, Wilson explains. “The spiderlings are about the size of a grain of sugar, and the adults are about the size of your thumbnail. So it’s a very small world that you’re in.”
Wilson warns that viewers will be left “shivering with disgust” while also “amazed by the wonder of it all.” (BBC)
