WHAT IT TOOK TO MAKE AFRICA

4 years in production

6,526 anti-malarial pills

1,840 hours spent in hides

1,598 days on location

601 nights spent in tents

79 separate filming expeditions

27 countries visited

TRANSPORTATION

111,888 4x4 miles

100 days on horseback

905 hours trekking in the jungle

180 hours trekking in mountains

TECHNOLOGY

Filmed footage occupied 100 terabytes of storage space, equivalent to 200 home computer hard drives or more than 21,000 DVDs

More than 2,000 hours of HD footage filmed

553 cameras deployed throughout the series

42 different file formats used

21 types of camera used

DANGEROUS ENCOUNTERS

Previously planned shoots were cancelled to avoid the Arab Spring in Libya, Tunisia and Egypt.

While filming aerials in Gabon, a violent storm materialized and forced the crew to perform an emergency landing near the Congo rainforest.

A cameraman was trapped in a tree for four hours with an elephant trying to shake him out of it. Recent surges in poaching have made some elephants wary of humans.

A cameraman was shocked to find a venomous snake crawling up his pant leg in the Congo.

A film crew in Egypt found a "death-stalker" scorpion hiding in their tent, a highly dangerous species with powerful venom.

A crew accidentally strayed into two different abandoned minefields in Egypt and Mozambique.

Authorities in Sierra Leone arrested two crew members as they mistakenly confused the camouflage-adorned crew to be rebels.