Published to accompany a BBC1 television series presented by David Attenborough, this is an illustrated natural history of the Antarctic. Season by season, it traces the lives of the fish, birds, mammals and plants of an extraordinary continent. Spring finds whales, seals and birds feeding in the richest ocean in the world, and summer sees a frenzy of activity as the Antarctic inhabitants race to breed before the onset of winter. In autumn their young face many hazards - leopard seals snatch fledgling penguins from their parents and killer whales overturn ice-floes to attack the seals. In winter, when the frozen sea literally doubles the size of their home, only the remarkable emperor penguins and a few brave humans remain. Meanwhile, below the ice, underwater cameras capture pictures of abundant life - giant spiders, soft corals and countless varieties of fish.