A lioness adopts a baby antelope. A vulture uses tools. Capuchin monkeys exploit citrus fruits for their medicinal value. These are only a few of the astounding observations that are part of Animals Like Us, a series that brings to light the strong parallels between human and animal behavior. Each episode consists of remarkable video of animals from all parts of the world challenging us to adopt a whole new way of seeing nature.

Tool Use - 1/6/08
Recent discoveries have shown that hundreds of animal species use tools. New Caledonia crows, for instance, use twigs to remove insect larvae from their nests, sea otters use flat stones to break shells open, and tailor ants weave leaves together with the threads secreted by the specie's larvae. Until recently, it was believed that the human tool was different from the animal tool. Several long-term studies on animal populations have proven quite the contrary.

Adoption - 1/13/08
Altruism is one of the central paradoxes of evolution. In the wild, where only the fittest survive, adopting other animals' offspring is not really in line with Darwin's theory of evolution. And yet, among bees, dolphins, lions, and several primate species, altruism may go as far as adoption. This episode studies pack wolves, insects, several bird species, baboons, makaks, and dolphins, among others. The program studies each case separately, because each adoption behavior has evolved independently forming its own pattern, its own benefit, and even its own disadvantages.

Medicine - 12/6/07 & 1/20/08
Like us, animals are exposed to parasites, bacteria, and viruses - the germs which cause disease. How do they survive these attacks? Recent research and observation have shown that animals use plant and insect substances to treat themselves. Not only do they apply things to their skin, they actually treat themselves by feeding on things not normally part of their diets. Capuchin monkeys rub citrus fruit on their fur; caterpillars eat poison hemlock; herbivorous red deer have even been seen chewing the legs off live seabirds. This film goes around the world to discover how animals use medicine. It questions what notions they have about health and how medical knowledge is passed on from one generation to the next. Can man learn anything from animals about medicine?

Politics - 12/13/07 & 1/27/08
Man is not the only social animal. At the beginning of 2001, Franz de Waal published his work on a group of chimpanzees in the Arnhem Zoo in the Netherlands. He showed the existence of elaborate and subtle rites which, according to him, revealed a political organization. This fueled the foundation of an argument much debated in today's scientific world - if true, man would no longer stand as the only "political animal" as defined by Aristotle. Schemes, coalitions, and mediation are all aspects of chimpanzee behavior. Long before man took hold of the political domain, nature provided other animal species with a whole array of political stratagems, from the most cunning to the most egalitarian. Polyergus ants have been practicing slavery for millions of years, hamadryas baboons have a right of veto, and deer on the Isle of Rum have established their own democracy. Domination, alliance-building, seduction, and manipulation are forms of intelligence no longer monopolized by man.

Thursdays, 11/8-12/13/07 from 4:30-5:30 a.m. ET
In January, Sundays, 1/6-27/08 from 7-8 p.m. ET

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