Planet Earth is a multi award-winning 2006 television series produced by the BBC Natural History Unit. Four years in the making, it was the most expensive nature documentary series ever commissioned by the BBC, and also the first to be filmed in high definition. The series was co-produced by the Discovery Channel and NHK in association with CBC, and was described by its makers as "the definitive look at the diversity of our planet".

One of the producers' aims was to build as much unique footage into Planet Earth as possible, and the crews succeeded in filming a number of species, locations and events from the natural world which had never before been shown on television, including:

Wild Bactrian camels filmed eating snow in the Gobi desert, An Amur leopard mother and cub in the forests of eastern Russia, A sequence showing a snow leopard hunting markhor in north-west Pakistan, Male birds of paradise displaying in the jungles of New Guinea, Emperor penguins filmed enduring an Antarctic winter at their rookery, Arctic wolf and African wild dog hunts filmed from the air, The highest-ever aerial footage of Mount Everest and the Karakoram, Humpback whales using a technique called bubble-netting to corral krill, Chimpanzees killing and eating one of their own, Desperate lions hunting and killing an elephant at night, A piranha feeding frenzy filmed in the water with the fish, Unprecedented access to the dramatic Lechuguilla Cave in New Mexico, and the oceanic whitetip shark (a rare ocean wanderer).