Three Amazing New Nature Docuseries to Stream This Earth Day

Whales, tarsiers, mantis shrimp, oh my!

life in color netflix
Netflix
Netflix

Earth Day is the annual celebration of all life on Earth, a day to take stock of our environmental impact, our responsibility to our climate, and the best time of the year to check out a nature documentary or two. Plus, with a lot of us still staying indoors whenever possible, there's no better way to ease that travel fix, taking in sights you probably wouldn't have the opportunity to see even when times are normal. This Earth Day, three streaming services have our back, debuting three unique and unforgettable docuseries that dive deep into the oceans with the world's biggest creatures, show off a world of color imperceptible to human eyes, and reveal what the animals of our world get up to late at night after the rest of us have gone to sleep. 

Disney+

Secrets of the Whales (Disney+)

Whales are the world's largest animals, yet, despite their massive size, they're also the most secretive, harboring depths of intelligence and complex behaviors that scientists have only just begun to discover in recent years. The Disney+ series Secrets of the Whales gets up close and personal with Earth's gentle (and not-so-gentle) giants, opening up an unforgettable world as alien as it is familiar. Filmed in 24 locations over the course of three years, each episode of the series focuses on a different whale species, from belugas to humpbacks to the wolves of the ocean, those creepily charismatic orcas whose distinct family groups have developed their own cultures, passing down traditions decades, maybe even centuries, old. 

The show is narrated by Sigourney Weaver, and driven by nature photographer Brian Skerry, who appears in every episode, introducing the behaviors and individuals he and his crew are hoping to capture on film. The series is also produced by director and notable ocean lover James Cameron, who provides post-episode feedback, pointing out certain standout scenes and moments, explaining what makes them special. Not only does this series include behaviors never before seen on film, the intimate closeness that the filmmakers achieve with their subjects is groundbreaking in itself. 

Netflix

Life in Color with David Attenborough (Netflix)

Netflix continues its David Attenborough hot streak with Life in Color (Colour, if you're British), which, like the Planet Earths before it, zooms around the globe, plucking out individuals of all sorts of species to examine. This series looks at how color, specifically, informs the evolution, behaviors, and reproduction of life on Earth: the brilliant red and blue of a mandrill's snout, the glistening eyes of peacock feathers, the deliberately confusing patterns of zebra stripes, and the secret superpower hidden in mantis shrimp eyes. 

The best part about Life in Color is how the cameras are used in a couple of the episodes to modify what was filmed, so that the humans watching can experience the world through the animals' eyes, seeing the specific wavelengths that are visible to them and how that can completely change the way their environment looks. It's the sort of thing that changes your perception of how the world works, when you know, for example, that there are shrimp and frogs a fraction of our size whose eyes see more than we could even dream of.

Apple TV+

Earth at Night in Color (Apple TV+)

If you're a nature doc person, you probably know by now that all the good stuff tends to happen at night. Unlike us, with our 9-to-5s and our electric lights keeping us on a strict 12 hours awake, 8 hours asleep schedule, the animal kingdom is active during both day and night—but it's the night, after the heat of the sun has left and the predators are at their sneakiest, that contains the real high drama of the natural world. 

Narrated by Tom Hiddleston, Earth at Night in Color uses powerful new filming technology to capture scenes that otherwise wouldn't show up on film at all. And instead of color-reversed night vision, what you see onscreen looks as if it was shot at high noon, were it not for the stars that sometimes dot the sky in some of the series' most stunning shots. From the African savannah to the rich superhighway of the ocean's coral reefs, there's more to animal nightlife than meets the eye.

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Emma Stefansky is a staff entertainment writer at Thrillist. Follow her on Twitter @stefabsky.