Asia's jungles are exceptionally diverse, but whilst they provide shelter, food and opportunity, they are also full of dangers and hidden threats. In monsoon forests, tigers tenaciously hunt their prey, and prehistoric-looking rhinos play courtship games akin to kiss chase. In tropical rainforests, female orangutans must search far and wide to find their perfect mates. And in the little-known forests of Iraqi Kurdistan, a new Persian leopard population is growing amid minefields.

In Asia, the most densely populated continent, animals have developed extraordinary ways to seize the opportunities of the human world. From tigers entering a city to hunt easy prey, to elephants stopping traffic to demand food from motorists.A small park in central Bangkok supports 300 giant lizards, whilst a flying squirrel in Taipei has made a cosy home in a school. Yet the changing human world creates unprecedented challenges – proboscis monkeys are forced to venture uncomfortably closer to humans, and swifts in Jerusalem face tough competition for nest sites.

In the heart of Asia lie vast arid lands. These deserts and dry grasslands are so hostile that they push life to the limit. Here, one of the rarest animals on earth, the Gobi bear, searches desperately for water and bizarre looking long-eared jerboas use their striking features to catch prey. Asiatic lions must do whatever it takes to find food, and juvenile cormorants resort to cannibalism to survive. On the arid grasslands, Pallas cats need ingenious ways to get close to their prey, Mongolian gazelles must battle harsh winters and human barriers, and takhi are terrorised each night by Mongolian wolves. Life in the arid heart of Asia demands extraordinary resilience – those that live here are the continent's great survivors.