For the air shots, a special airborne camera was used with a 400mm lens that was able to zoom into single animals from a kilometer away without disturbing them.
The project took 40 camera teams shooting at over 200 different locations all over the world for more than five years.
A sequence about the cordyceps fungus in Episode 8: Jungles was cited as the main source of inspiration for the video game The Last of Us (2013).