Amazing Monkeys

The primates' astonishing rise to power began more than 55 million years ago in the jungle canopies of Asia. And over tens of millions of years, the family tree evolved and expanded across the continent's forests, beaches, and snowy landscapes. Take a tour as we visit super-swinging gibbons, gremlin-like tarsiers, golden snub-nosed monkeys, and other remarkable primates as we celebrate one of the most diverse groups in the natural world, in the place where it all began.

From the island of Madagascar to the mountains of Ethiopia, primates have conquered every corner of Africa, successfully adapting to specific environments and evolving over tens and millions of years. Follow biologist Patrick Aryee across the continent on his face-to-face encounters with lemurs, baboons, chimpanzees, and a gigantic ape of mythical proportions. His goal: to discover how they became acrobats and masterminds in order to survive and thrive in Africa's vast and varied landscapes.

Our quest to track primates' astonishing rise to power leads us to the Americas, the final continents to be colonized by man's closest relatives. Join us as we reveal the incredible journey a group of monkeys took to get here from Africa 35 million years ago. We then come face-to-face with some of the new branch of primates, who adapted to this environment in weird and wonderful ways, including spider monkeys, capuchins, and the king of the primates: humans.