Walking with Beasts, marketed as Walking with Prehistoric Beasts in North America, is a 2001 six-part nature documentary television miniseries created by Impossible Pictures and produced by the BBC Science Unit, the Discovery Channel, ProSieben and TV Asahi. The sequel to the 1999 miniseries Walking with Dinosaurs, Walking with Beasts explores the life in the Cenozoic era, after the extinction of the non-avian dinosaurs, particularly focusing on the rise of the mammals to dominance.
Next Of Kin is the fourth episode in Walking with Beasts series. It depicts Pliocene Africa, focusing on the trials and tribulations of a group of Australopithecines. The fourth episode is set in the Great Rift Valley in Ethiopia and follows a tribe of Australopithecus, small early hominins and among the first apes to be able to walk upright. The social bonds and hierarchy of the tribe are explored, as are the means of communication of Australopithecus, relations between different tribes, and how they survive among dangerous animals such as the elephant ancestor Deinotherium and the sabre-toothed cat Dinofelis. Certain Australopithecus are given names, such as the dominant male "Grey", his rival "Hercules", and the young "Blue".
