All language subtitles for Alien.Abyss.S01E03.The.Next.Generation.1080p.AMZN.WEB-DL.DDP2.0.H.264-NTb_track3_[eng]

For centuries we've fantasized

about alien life
on other planets.

And because life
as we know it needs water,

we imagined seas on the moon,

rivers on Mars,

and lakes beneath
Europa's icy surface.

So far,
we've discovered only dust

except on this
watery blue marble,

where inner space
hides creatures

as weird as anything extraterrestrial.

There are oceans of oddballs...

with strange shapes,

strange rituals,
and strange bedfellows...

right here
in Earth's own

"Alien Abyss."

Sci-Fi writers
have come up

with some
pretty strange rituals

for their alien characters.

Turn off that tickle ray!

But science fiction

doesn't even scratch
the surface

of what goes on
right under our noses.

The ocean is full
of alien lovers

of free-love love-ins...

swashbuckling sex shifters...

And works of erotic alien art.

Every animal faces
two fundamental challenges.

There's transferring
your genetic material...

And making sure some
of your offspring survive

to carry on
your own peculiar genes.

As long as you meet
those simple criteria,

anything goes.

And there's
some pretty strange ways

to get your DNA
into the next generation.

Let's start with the Big Bang.

In the beginning, darkness was
over the face of the deep...

because it was night

at the bottom of the sea.

And then there was light.

It was the moon,

and verily did the squid
answer the moon's call.

They had a massive orgy,
and everybody died.

Wait, what?

Let's back this up a bit.

This is
the opalescent squid.

It lives along
North America's Pacific Coast

over the continental shelf.

It's an unremarkable squid
in most respects...

medium-sized, short-lived.

Seriously, six to nine months
of feeding on krill,

and that's it.

But at least it ends
with a bang.

That really is
the scientific term--

big bang mating.

And so here we are,

one moonlit night half a year
or so after these guys hatched.

All the local squid
of breeding age

have moved
into shallow inshore water...

so everyone can check
each other out.

Then the pairing up begins.

Males take willing females
in a tender embrace.

They've prepared
for this moment

by storing up packets of sperm

called spermatophores
under their mantles.

That's the part that looks
like a long pointy hat.

Mating is as simple as handing
one of these packets over

and hanging on.

Most males use
the guard strategy.

They try to hold on
to their partner

to the bitter end.

Their plan is to make sure she
doesn't mate with anyone else.

This is, after all,
their one shot

at staying in the gene pool.

The guards flash angry red
at any males

that try to muscle in.

And plenty do.

Sneaky little guys
called sneakers.

Their game plan is to sneak up
on as many females as possible

and sneakily sneak their sperm
under her mantle...

even if she's already attached.

Once the frenzy has died down,
the females lay eggs.

These they attach to the sandy
bottom with a sticky cement.

And that's it.

Males and females have saved up
all their energy

for this one night
of synchronized mating.

And then everybody dies.

By morning,
scavengers have already eaten

most of the adults.

The eggs, with their tough
protective protein sheaths

are not that appealing.

Although the parents pay
a high price,

squid babies are cheap
to produce.

Each mom and dad pair can make
4,000 potential replacements

for themselves
and leave the rest to chance.

Octopuses,
close relatives of squid,

are easily the most alien
creatures in the ocean...

so, of course, they do
once-in-a-lifetime mating

their own peculiar way.

They do it slowly.

In preparation,
males and females

begin digesting
their own muscle tissue

to make sperm and eggs.

There is one problem, though.

Mating requires meeting.

And if there's one thing
an octopus hates,

it's another octopus.

Encounters usually
lead to violence...

Sometimes even...

cannibalism!

Hence this male day octopus
approaches a female with care.

He has one thing
going for him, though.

Because they don't meet
many of their own kind,

the female is not fussy.

He'll do.

Not that she's going
to stop hunting fish

just because some guy puts
his hectocotylus inside her.

He doesn't mind.

He's literally thinking
with his reproductive organ.

His hectocotylus
is one of his arms

adapted for sperm delivery,

and like all his arms,
it has its own brain cells.

Being able to keep
his reproductive partner

at arm's length is quite handy

for an octo-dad
because, you know...

cannibalism.

But inseminating
is a delicate operation.

A male must
snake his hectocotylus

into his partner's siphon.

That's the tube she also uses

for breathing
and jet propulsion.

If he succeeds,
he'll leave a packet of sperm

in a holding area
below her ovaries

ready for her to use.

If she doesn't eat him first,

he'll die in a matter
of months.

A female octopus may keep
her packet of sperm tucked away

for several weeks
before she's ready to use it.

When she does,

she signs
her own death warrant.

This blue-ringed octopus

is looking
for her final resting place.

Sorry, I mean nesting place.

Barely 20 centimetres long,
all she needs is a nice rock.

Whereas a female
giant Pacific octopus

needs a full-sized cave.

She strings her eggs up
from the ceiling,

tens of thousands of them.

She tends every one of them
for six months,

grooming and blowing
oxygen-rich water over them.

She doesn't eat.

Food scraps
could attract predators

or be a source of infection.

Her final, most alien act

is to starve herself to death
for her children.

With her last
remaining strength,

she blows the hatching eggs
out into the water.

Despite all her care,

only one in a hundred of these
newborn orphans will survive.

The rest are insurance.

Taken to extremes,

this strategy of making
a lot of extra babies

is something of a dark art.

It's called
predator swamping...

A brutally practical way
to win at reproduction.

Out there in the abyss,

an alien army lurches
unseen towards the shore...

ready to take on any predators

that might threaten
their babies.

Their strategy--
overfeed the enemy.

The well-armored
American horseshoe crab

looks like a spaceship

but, really,
it's more of a time traveler.

They have changed very little

for 450 million years.

They're not crabs
or even crustaceans,

but relatives
of now-extinct sea scorpions.

Their tail has no sting.

It helps the crabs
right themselves

if they tip over
on their long spawning journey.

Some have walked
for 100 kilometres

from the continental shelf

to be at the love-in
in Delaware Bay.

It's business time.

They are guided by the phases
of the moon

to spawn at extra-high tides,

laying their eggs on the beach.

The larger females
release pheromones

that drive
the smaller males wild.

The lucky ones get a ride
up the beach with a partner.

As she lays her eggs
in the sand,

he fertilizes them.

It's an orgy of confusion.

They haven't spent
those 450 million years

working on their choreography.

Lesser males trail behind,

scattering sperm as they go.

On the beach,

the fertilized eggs are safe
from marine predators.

Unfortunately,
they're easy pickings

for land predators.

The eggs are an important
food source

for hordes
of migrating seabirds

that time their stopover
with this bonanza.

It looks like slaughter,

but across the bay,

hundreds of thousands
of females

lay billions of eggs.

There is no way
the birds can eat them all.

That's predator swamping.

In a fortnight's time,

the survivors will hatch
and be washed into the sea.

Clearly, there are
some strange goings-on

down there in the abyss...

but so far, there's been
at least one familiar thing

to hold on to.

It takes a female and a male
to make a baby,

doesn't it?

Well, not quite.

Coral reefs are fascinating,
colourful places...

full of fascinating,
colourful creatures.

Some of the parents here

look like they come
from outer space--

all bulging eyes
and weird appendages.

But strangeness is
in the eye of the beholder.

Take the traditional division
of male and female genders.

Those fall apart on the reef,

where gender can flow
as freely as the currents.

Ribbon eels, for instance,

are small morays
with colourful bodies

and even more
colourful sex lives.

Like other morays, they spend
much of their time in burrows,

picking off passing fish.

The males are blue.

The females, yellow.

Nothing weird about that,

except that they are all born

as males and black.

Within a few years,
juvenile males turn blue,

signalling
they're ready to mate.

But who with
if they're all born male?

Older versions
of themselves is who.

When they reach
about a meter in length,

the males turn
yellow and female.

Ribbon eels are sequential
hermaphrodites--

first one gender,
then the other.

There are also fish
that swing the other way.

Parrotfish, for example.

They start life as females

and only become colourful males
when they reach a certain size.

Some gobies can change sex
repeatedly in either direction.

They can go from producing eggs

to producing sperm
in a matter of days,

depending on what
the local population needs.

Cleaner shrimp start life
as males...

and grow up to become
monogamous hermaphrodites.

Cute couple.

And the sorority
of soft squishy sea slugs,

otherwise known
as "nudibranchs"

is also a fraternity.

Nudis are simultaneous hermaphrodites.

They maintain a full set

of male and female
reproductive organs

all their lives.

There are over 3,000 species
of nudibranch,

so you know
they're onto a good thing.

They're a Mardi Gras
of dazzling colours...

and dazzling abilities.

This one has a detachable penis

coiled up inside its body.

Every time it mates,
it sheds the end of its penis

like a lizard sheds its tail.

For all their abilities,

nudis still need to meet
another of their kind.

They can't fertilize themselves.

Being hermaphrodites guarantees
that when they do meet someone,

it'll be someone
with the opposite sex.

How do they decide
which one is what one?

They don't.

When two nudibranchs
fancy each other,

they line up their organs,

male to female
and female to male

and each fertilizes the other.

This little weirdo
is no nudibranch.

The big giveaway?
No gills.

That's these feathery bits
on the nudi.

This alien dancer
is a marine flatworm,

but it, too, is
a simultaneous hermaphrodite

with a difference.

Flatworms are not sharing
and caring

like their sea slug relatives.

When two flatworms arrange
an assignation,

it's a duel.

Both combatants know that
the cost of rearing children

is much higher than
the cost of a bit of sperm.

They fight for the right
to be the dad.

It's called penis fencing.

And if that's not weird enough,
get this--

the father-to-be is the one
that manages to stab the other

with his penis
and inject his sperm.

Scientists call it
traumatic insemination.

And finally in our roundup

of alternative reproductive strategies,

a shout-out to the seahorses.

These most bizarre-looking fish

have perhaps the most novel
division of labor

among the sexes.

Mom made the eggs,

but it's dad that incubates
them in his brood pouch.

This alien dad boldly goes

where no other fathers
have gone before...

into labor.

It works for them
because it frees the female up

to start making
a new batch of eggs.

But even
more traditional creatures

can have
some seriously strange ways

to spawn the next generation.

Sometimes making new life
is dicing with death.

Penguins may be familiar,
but they're aliens twice over.

Birds so fully adapted
to the life aquatic

that, on land,
they're like fish out of water.

And yet,
that terrestrial environment

is where they go
to raise their young.

King penguins
are slightly smaller relatives

of the more famous emperor.

They breed
on rocky subantarctic islands

like South Georgia.

They share the emperor's
fancy clothes...

so you might think you know
how this tale goes.

You don't.

This one is much darker
and disturbing.

It starts out normally enough.

One fine spring day,

some prospective penguin
parents waddle up the beach.

Before they start courting,
they moult.

Got to look your best.

Fresh feathers are ready
at the start of summer

when their food
is most plentiful.

It's a great time
for highly energetic activities

like courting...

mating...

and taking it in turns
to incubate the egg.

It gets really busy
when the thing hatches.

The little darlings
are insatiable.

Cue weeks and weeks
of fishing and feeding...

fishing, and feeding.

The brown, fluffy chicks

segregate themselves
in crèches.

They're so big
and un-chick-looking

that early explorers thought
they were a separate species,

which they called
"the wooly penguin."

And then comes the alien twist.

Winter is here,
and the chicks are not ready.

Having diligently fed them
for weeks,

their parents abandon them.

The chicks must fast
through the winter.

One breeding season
simply isn't long enough

to raise them to adulthood.

Come the following spring,

mom and dad return
to find the survivors

and fatten them up again.

Still alive, Junior?
Wake up!

Junior fledges
just as summer arrives,

and food in the sea is
plentiful again.

That's good.

By now, it's too late
in the season for mom and dad

to start a new family
with any hope of success.

But they do it anyway.

That's not so good.

These late-born chicks
usually die.

But at least that frees
mom and dad up

to start early again
in their third year.

Strange birds.

If birds can swim,
then why shouldn't fish...

Fly?

These magnificent mutants
have fins so aerodynamic,

they can leave the sea behind.

In the right conditions,

they can fly
for hundreds of meters.

The wide-open seas
of the Caribbean

are bound with freaky
flying fish.

The sea
and the airspace above...

flying is a great way
to escape marine predators.

There's no telling
where they'll touch down.

This flock is looking
for a place to spawn...

but they're open-water fish,
always on the move.

No solid reefs
or seagrass beds for them.

So, when nature provides
a suitable landing pad,

they waste no time.

The early birds
launch themselves

onto the palm frond

and wiggle
into the safest crevices

to spawn.

Below the waves,
more flying fish respond,

working themselves up into
a lather of eggs and sperm.

Within minutes,
hundreds of fish

cover the floating island.

The drive to find a safe place
for their eggs is so strong,

some become entombed
in their own spawn.

The survivors leave
the next generation

to drift with the currents
and hatch who knows where.

It's time to fly.

Straddling two worlds
is never easy.

You'll always be
part alien in both.

Sea turtles are land animals
that returned to the sea

millions of years ago.

They must surface to breathe.

That's turned
their mating ritual

into a dance with death.

This receptive female has
a male hanging off her back.

Scrap that.

She has a whole bunch of males
trying to get on her back.

The first guy won't let go,

hoping to prevent any other
males mating with her.

Pretty soon,
an all-out brawl erupts...

On her back.

She's treading water
with multiple hitchhikers

weighing her down.

She's a champion breath-holder,

but this is
an underwater workout.

If she can't surface,
she'll drown.

Such testosterone tournaments

are not uncommon
in the animal world,

but there are other ways
to win a partner over.

How about making a bit
of a song and dance?

The song
of the humpback whale...

Ethereal...

otherworldly...

alien even...

and utterly mysterious.

Here's what we do know--

only the males sing

and only
in the breeding season.

So it has something
to do with sex.

During the winter, the waters
around Hawaii resound

with this submarine,
soul music.

The half-hour songs
have structure and phrasing.

Catchy new tunes
spread from male to male.

It's some sort
of communication...

Perhaps the closest thing

to an alien language
we have on Earth.

Mothers with young calves

are the object
of the singers' attention,

because right after
she gives birth,

she ovulates.

Does this male's soulful music

help to trigger that process?

Is it a tender serenade

or a warning to other males?

All have been suggested,

but the truth is
we have no idea.

What's soon apparent
is that singing alone

isn't enough to win her over...

Not with an entire
fleet of bulls

all with the same idea.

When the song is over,

testosterone gets
the better of the males.

Mom takes off, baby in tow,

and her suitors in hot pursuit.

They blow bubble curtains
to disorientate their rivals...

and showcase their strength...

by lashing out

and making an altogether
less musical cacophony.

This heat run takes
a lot of energy.

The biggest males with
the biggest energy reserves

have the advantage...

And presumably
the best chance to mate

if she accepts him.

We can't be sure of that

because no one has ever seen
humpbacks make the beast

with two humps.

If you don't have
the chops for a song,

try a visual serenade.

No one knows
how to turn on the colour

like the flamboyant cuttlefish...

an intelligent life form
that likes to flaunt it

when it flirts.

This tiny walking cuttlefish
lives and loves

on the sandy seafloor
around Indonesia.

It's one of only three known
toxic cephalopods.

So people have assumed
that its famous flamboyance

is some sort of warning signal.

But recently
scientists have discovered

that the flamboyant
cuttlefish's natural state

is actually rather drab.

They're usually so well camouflaged,

scientists don't notice them...

perfect for a daytime hunter.

They only turn on
their spectacular display

for two reasons.

One is to tell
a camera operator to back off.

The other is
when they want some.

The much smaller male
has a visual vocabulary

of seduction.

The female usually stays drab
and utterly ignores him.

He makes tender
kissing gestures with his arms

and strobes
his admiration for her.

And then...

Is this the moment she turns
into an alien monster

and devours him?

No.

This terrifying gesture
is her way of telling him

he's been accepted.

He gallantly responds
by depositing a packet of sperm

near her mouth
for her to use at will.

Mom lays her eggs
somewhere vaguely safe,

and that's her job done.

Her hatchlings
are perfect miniatures.

They erupt flamboyantly...

But soon settle down
into cryptic colours.

If you can't sing
or serenade in semaphore,

then you'd better be handy.

You're going to have
to build a love nest.

But what sort of alien fish
makes a nest?

The sea, with its
shifting waves and currents,

is a difficult place

to construct
a monument to love.

Very few fish
can truly be called builders.

It's an altogether alien thing
to do down here.

The fact that the garibaldi
tries it at all

in California's
swirling kelp forests

makes him
a very strange fish indeed.

His nest is the dark patch
on this rock.

Don't laugh.

He's carefully constructed it

by trimming a patch
of red algae

to the right length

and eating away
everything else.

To be fair, the females don't
seem that impressed either.

What they're really looking for

is a nest
that already has eggs in it.

After all,
that must mean other females

thought he was worthy.

So how does a guy attract
that all-important first female

to his empty nest?

He's gonna have to dance.

Once he convinces one female,
the rest will follow.

A week later,
his hard work and suave moves

have paid off.

His nest is laden
with masses of yellow eggs.

He's now busier than ever
seeing off egg thieves,

real or imagined.

In a bizarre twist,

dad can be
the worst egg thief of all.

The females like to lay
their eggs next to fresh ones,

so papa garibaldi
eats some of the older ones,

gambling that
they'll be replaced

by even more fresh eggs.

For decades, the garibaldi nest
was the state of the art

as far as fish nests
were concerned.

We only really showed it to you
to emphasize how impressive

the next international man
of mystery

really is.

Around the turn of the century,

it seems aliens
landed in Japan.

We can infer this

because they made
their signature crop circles.

Curiously, they only invaded
this one shallow bay

off Amami Island.

Question was,

who or what
was making the circles?

Was it an octopus's garden...

The lair
of an evil super villain...

The work of a school
of merry pranksters...

Or a bizarre
natural phenomenon?

After ten years of searching,
the culprit turned out to be--

drum roll, please...

E, none of the above.

It was a nondescript,
12-centimeter-long fish

no one
had ever heard of before.

Not an actual extraterrestrial

but new and very alien
to science.

Take a bow,
white-spotted pufferfish

from Amami Island
off southern Japan.

This small sand-colored fish

living in a featureless
sandy bay

does something so odd

that it's the only fish
that does it.

Art.

Like so many male endeavours,

his art serves one purpose...

to impress a female.

There, that should do it.

But let's back this up a bit...

because this love nest

is a marvel of science
and engineering,

as well as art

He starts
on a featureless plane

of mostly coarse sand.

But he knows
that female puffers

like to lay their eggs
in soft, fine sand.

And he's too well camouflaged
to attract attention.

He sets to work,
solving both problems.

First,
he clears a rough circle.

Then he starts plowing furrows
from the outside to the centre.

With only his fins for tools,
he works for ten days or more

to make an intricate design
two meters across.

His geometric precision
can only be described

as out of this world.

No matter from which direction
the current flows,

it funnels the finest sand
to the middle of his nest.

There, his pièce de résistance.

Now for those
finishing touches...

And just try
résistance-ing that, ladies.

His masterwork
quickly gets noticed.

He stirs up the fine sand
to show it off.

A peck on the cheek.

And watch closely.

Ten days of tireless work
have led up to this moment.

Talk about an anticlimax.

The male stays

to see if he can attract
a few more females

and to protect
his developing eggs

from the resident, evil genius.

But the male no longer
maintains his nest.

It slowly deteriorates.

When his eggs hatch
in a few weeks' time,

he'll start
a completely new work of art.

A parent dedicated enough
to protect his eggs

is hard to find in the sea.

Most marine creatures
simply sow their wild oats

and let nature take its course.

Extremists gather
in huge numbers

to broadcast
their genetic material

to the world in unison.

In the Alien Abyss,

broadcast spawning is the rule
rather than the exception.

Even the coral itself does it.

What is broadcast spawning?

All the males and females
release eggs and sperm

into the water
at exactly the same time.

This magical wonder
of the natural world

is the reef mating with itself.

Timing is everything.

Guided by the moon,

the corals spawn
in supernatural synchronicity.

In the space
of half an hour or so,

millions of coral polyps
release eggs and sperm

into the water.

Each is only viable
for a few hours,

so they need to get together
quickly to create new life.

To maximize their chances,

the fatty egg and sperm cells
float up to the surface,

where there'll be
in closer contact.

The newly created embryos
will drift off on the currents

to start new colonies elsewhere.

The famous plankton soup
that feeds everything

from jellyfish to whale sharks

is made up almost entirely
of the eggs

and developing young
of broadcast spawners.

A tidal channel
in one coral atoll

attracts one of the world's
largest spawning aggregations.

No, not the sharks.

They're here
to watch the show--

watch and snack.

700 or more gray reef sharks,

collectively known
as the wall of sharks.

More apex predators
than could possibly survive

in such a small area,

if it wasn't for one thing.

A progression
of different fish species

come here to broadcast spawn
over the winter months.

The most spectacular show

is the one put on
by the camouflage grouper.

Camouflage groupers
from all over French Polynesia

descend on Fakarava Atoll
to spawn.

The groupers are
sequential hermaphrodites.

They start life as females,
which are slightly darker.

The older male fish

are normally solitary
and territorial.

Confronted with so many rivals,
they get into fights.

Some mute
their camouflage colours

in an attempt
to avoid confrontations.

But often,
it's just too crowded.

Because groupers come
from far and wide,

they not only maximize
their chances of success.

They also minimize inbreeding.

Their numbers build
for two weeks,

leading up to the full moon.

By day, an eerie truce holds

between the sharks
and their snacks.

The sharks are
nocturnal predators.

At night,
they turn into highly active,

agitated hunters
that ferret out food.

Thanks to the massive
aggregations of spawning fish,

hundreds of sharks rarely need
to leave the area.

Morning reveals brutal injuries
among the survivors.

These must be
some of the bravest

prospective parents
in the ocean.

Finally, at dusk on the night
of the full moon,

the groupers
are ready to spawn.

The females take in water
to hydrate the eggs

they have been carrying
all this time,

causing their bellies to swell.

Groups of groupers
rise into the tide

to release millions
of eggs and sperm...

While still dodging the sharks.

Within an hour and a half,
it's all over.

The extra-high full moon tide
sweeps the fertilized embryos

out to sea
to join the plankton soup.

Groupers spawn
conventionally for fish,

just on an alien scale.

But what
about the secondary players

in this tale...

the sharks?

As it turns out,
they're the real weirdos

when it comes to mating.

Sharks don't broadcast
their eggs and sperm

to the world.

They're strictly person
to person...

and it's awfully awkward...

because doing it
in the open water

is about as easy as it would be
in the weightlessness of space.

And the only thing these freaky
fish have to hold on with...

Is their teeth...

Which makes it
almost impossible for him

to pump air over his gills.

If she's not interested,
the female can arch her tail

to prevent access,

knowing he'll run
out of breath.

Only if she consents

can he insert
one of his claspers

into her cloaca.

He fills a sack that runs
along his belly with seawater

to pump his sperm inside her...

before he suffocates.

Whether it's
alien crop circles,

otherworldly orgies...

or synchronized spawning...

the most bizarre rituals
in the ocean

are usually
about finding a mate

and passing on your genes.

But you have to wonder,

who are the real aliens
down here--

the creatures going about
their business

or the ones in space suits

recording what goes on

down in the Alien Abyss?