Natural History Museum: World of Wonder

Every year, five million people visit London's Natural History Museum to see its incredible collection, from extraordinary dinosaurs to giant whales, and rare fossils to space rocks said to be as old as the solar system itself. But only a fraction of the staggering 80 million items in the collection are on display. Here cameras capture some of these incredible specimens, revealing the unique and rare pieces too valuable to exhibit.

The museum's dinosaur experts Susie Maidment and Paul Barrett follow up an exciting tip-off about some possible dino footprints in Wales. Meanwhile, the world's most famous dinosaur - Dippy the Diplodocus - is on a road trip around the country and needs an up-close inspection to make sure it's safe.

World-leading dinosaur expert Susie Maidment is in the museum basement trying to piece together the skeleton of the first Tyrannosaurus rex ever discovered. It's a priceless specimen but somehow the bones have got muddled up with another dinosaur and it's up to Susie to work out if any of the bits are missing. The experts inspect Guy the gorilla, who was a London Zoo favourite for decades and now sits fully preserved in his own glass case, and the museum launches an ambitious project to capture a sample of every living bug in the UK today.

Leading experts examine a rock in a crate of finds from an archaeological dig in Africa, which could contain a very rare 200-million-year-old dinosaur skull. The museum staff prepares for the Wildlife Photographer of the Year awards. Other artefacts from the museum featured in this episode include meteorite fragments that are older than the solar system and the oldest complete beetle specimens ever found in the UK.

Return of the documentary going behind the doors of the London museum. A young dinosaur researcher scans a giant tooth-filled jawbone belonging to a Gorgosaurus which may reveal the secret of its success 80 million years ago. Elsewhere, the museum's team of experts help a schoolgirl identify a stone she found in her playground, and fly expert Erica heads to the Knepp Estate in Sussex in search of new insect species.

The Urban Nature Project team start the ambitious transformation of the Natural History Museum garden, and Kieran delicately repairs a 67-million-year-old triceratops fossil. Elsewhere, preparations are underway as finalists from a wildlife photography competition are invited to a glittering awards ceremony. Cameras follow one of the photographers, Richie Richardson, who has been photographing the Souther White Whale, as he joins whale expert Richard Sabin for a visit to the great storage vaults.

Tori the ancient mammal expert meets artist Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg who brings different depictions of endangered rhinos for the Museum's latest exhibition, The Lost Rhino. The Chairman of the Board of Trustees, Patrick Vallance pays a visit to the museum's 40,000 bat specimens and discovers how a strain of Coronavirus has been detected in some bat specimens which are hundreds of years old. Andrea, curator of a new Challenger exhibition, prepares some of the records and photographs taken over 150 years ago on the sea expedition. Meteorite expert Natasha presents the museum's micrometeorites.

Cameras follow dinosaur expert Susie on a dig in the Atlas Mountains of Morocco in search of new dinosaur fossils. Back in London, researcher Lauren and her colleague Paul are on a mission to track down invasive species which are bad news for British wildlife, and Theo, one of the Urban Project youth leaders, explores the Museum's own wildlife in its garden.