Animal Planet Premieres EATING GIANTS: HIPPO Tonight, 9/16

Tonight, September 16, at 10 PM ET/PT, Animal Planet premieres EATING GIANTS: HIPPO, the first of two specials that examines how an African behemoth nourishes the lives of a myriad of animals after its death. An additional special about elephants is slated to air in October 2012.

A hippo dies along Zambia's Luangwa River, and a group of wildlife experts covertly stands by to witness, in real time, the beast's decay and its contribution to the brutal but efficient circle of life. Hidden remote-control cameras are placed around the fallen hippo with fiber-optic cables transmitting footage to a camouflaged studio tent 20 feet away, enabling the scientists to witness all the action without interfering with the natural course of events. In EATING GIANTS: HIPPO, the expert team spends seven days and seven nights anticipating, observing and analyzing how nature reduces this African giant to splinters of bones in a matter of days.

Alternating guests at this three-and-a-half-ton, 2,000,000-calorie-rich feast include countless creatures, including Nile crocodiles, lions, leopards, hyenas, hooded and white-backed vultures and thousands of insects.

It's a butterfly effect as the chain of events spurred by the hippo's death gives birth to sustained life. The rarely-if-ever captured footage in EATING GIANTS: HIPPO uniquely sheds light on African animal scavenging behavior and the fascinating interactions between the ruling classes within the animal kingdom and the smaller players that compete just as effectively in the fight for life.

EATING GIANTS: HIPPO is produced for Animal Planet by Tigress Productions. Executive producer for Animal Planet is Erin Wanner. Dick Colthurst is executive producer for Tigress Productions.