PREVIEW: Attenborough's Life In Colour, BBC One

David Attenborough reveals the extraordinary ways in which animals use colour: to win a mate, to fight off rivals and to warn enemies.

In India, peacocks dazzle females with magnificent tail feathers; a tiny hummingbird in the deserts of North America unfurls his spectacular headdress as he dances for a mate; and in the darkness of a rainforest, powerful mandrill baboons signal their status with red and blue face masks, while tiny frogs warn of deadly poisons with brilliant colours.

New camera technologies - some developed especially for this series – also allow us to see colours and patterns usually invisible to human eyes. Ultraviolet cameras reveal bright signals on a butterfly’s wings and facial markings on yellow damselfish that are used as secret communication channels.

Some animals can also detect polarised light, and specialist cameras can now show us how fiddler crabs see the world, and how mantis shrimp have strange polarisation patterns on their bodies to signal to a mate or rival.

Attenborough's Life In Colour begins Sunday 28th February at 7pm on BBC One.