THE Secret Life of the Zoo has made a welcome return to the nation’s TV screens.

The Bafta-nominated documentary, which goes behind the scenes at Chester Zoo, is back for a fifth series and episode one of the new run was shown on Channel 4 on Wednesday night.

Using the latest cameras in hidden spaces, the show reveals even more about the private lives of animals.

In episode one, the focus fell on Sumatran orangutans, Emma and Subis, who were due to give birth at about the same time but all did not go quite to plan.

Meanwhile, two-horned chameleon Ruby, who arrived at the zoo after being seized from the illegal wildlife trade, was looking for love as she was part of a coordinated breeding programme. Charles and Eddie, the two candidate chameleons in waiting, were expected to display to one another to impress the female and prepare themselves for mating.

But Eddie was not up to the challenge, so the keepers hoped that Charles’s own reflection would be enough to get the process going.

Also featured were meerkats Beagle and Huskie, who had been moved to the zoo as the new breeding pair. But the aardvarks, who share their habitat, were causing them some anxiety.

To the surprise of keepers, the meerkats would not go anywhere near the aardvarks or the shared sleeping area. So the team decided to redesign the paddock to give the meerkats some privacy in their own pad.

The zoo’s pair of vampire crabs also made an appearance.

They have been in the same habitat for nearly six months, but Janet and John have not bred successfully. The keepers introduced larger male Claude to their habitat to increase the odds of a successful mating.