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FEMALE NARRATOR: From a distance,
they look like shadows on the water.

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The ones we're approaching
lie just along the California coast.

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There's a forest under here,
and these are the tops of its trees.

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(CAWING)

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This is a forest of giant kelp,

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the largest plants in the ocean,
as tall as office buildings.

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On the surface,
trees this tall would need rigid trunks.

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Not the giant kelp.

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Tiny floats along each stem
are enough to hold it up.

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It is anchored to the ocean floor
by a root-like structure called a holdfast.

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No nourishment is provided
through the holdfast.

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All nutrients are absorbed
directly from the water itself.

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Every habitat on Earth has evolved
its own village of relationships,

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its own citizens.

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All sharks sink unless they swim.

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This female swell shark
has settled here for a purpose.

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Every few months, she lays a single egg.

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Ten months later,
helped by little hooks on its back,

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the baby swell shark
will struggle from its case.

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This is the approach to life
his species has evolved.

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They begin it alone.

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This fiery little sentry
is a garibaldi.

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The nest he's guarding is that dark patch
on the side of the rock.

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Moray eels have powerful, crushing jaws
and sharp teeth,

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but they are not a threat to the garibaldi.

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The prey they lie in wait for is octopus.

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The octopus has blundered
into the garibaldi's nest.

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Morays stalk their victims not by sight,
but smell.

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That squirt of ink contains an anesthetic
that foils the moray's sensitive nose.

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Like a banner on a castle wall,

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the dazzling garibaldi
posts himself on his ramparts,

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a guard whose watch is never done.

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He protects his nest
from hungry fish and scavengers.

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Sea urchins are a constant annoyance.

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It's the male garibaldi
who makes the nest,

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nibbling it neatly out of a patch of algae.

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He ends up with a space
about a foot and a half across.

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This nest already has eggs in it,

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but if the male keeps things tidy,
he may still attract another female.

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When he sees her, he goes
straight to the courtship acrobatics.

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Each time he does a loop, he clucks twice.

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(CLUCKING)

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The courtship worked.
The female is laying eggs.

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From time to time
the male moves in to fertilize the eggs.

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Since the female will eat the eggs
if she gets the chance,

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her fierce little partner chases her away
as soon as the laying is done.

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(CLUCKING)

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In a couple of weeks,

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a swarm of tiny garibaldi
will drift away on the current

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to join the ebb and flow
of other new life in the underwater forest.

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Many will be caught and consumed
by animals like this tube anemone,

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a creature that snares its food
in a thicket of stinging tentacles.

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Others will escape into a great living mass

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of minute plants and animals
called ocean plankton.

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But even there they are still food.

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The pelagic jellyfish harvests them
with a paralyzing sting.

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The face of an escarpment
below the kelp forest.

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These corals look like plants,
but they're animals.

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Their branches
comb the passing current for plankton.

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Deeper lies an even stranger world,

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a sort of vast shag carpet of
diminutive starfish known as brittle stars.

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A sheep crab gallops clumsily
across the brittle star garden.

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Is this kelp crab
about to make a meal of his captive?

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No. The larger crab is a male.

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He shelters and protects
the smaller female,

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who is carrying a brood of eggs.

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These sarcastic fringeheads,

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yes, they are called sarcastic fringeheads,

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have moved into adjacent empty shells.

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The trouble is they're both males.

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In the face of threats like these,
one will have to leave,

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and his vacant shell
will be available for a female.

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Night gathers.

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A hungry sunstar storms through
a mass of brittle stars, who flee in panic.

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When daylight fades,

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creatures who shun the light of day
emerge from their lairs.

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Darkness is their special cloak.

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The California spiny lobster is protected
by a tough hide as hard as a rock

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called an exoskeleton.

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The only trouble with this suit of armor

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is that it has to be thrown away
once a year for the lobster to grow.

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It's called molting.

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The lobster has already
leaked out enzymes.

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The enzymes weaken his old shell.

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Now he drinks large amounts of water
in order to put pressure on the shell.

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Next, he expels the water from his body,

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allowing him
to struggle out of his old shell.

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It's an exhausting process.

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For 10 minutes, the lobster is defenseless.

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(CRACKING)

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The new shell will be soft and pliable.

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Before it hardens, the lobster will drink,
steadily swelling his body

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until he's about a quarter of an inch bigger
than he was last year.

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As the night deepens,
strangers ascend from the depths.

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Tonight, and only tonight,
the opalescent squid will mate.

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In a frenzy, they seize each other,
coupling again and again.

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When a male succeeds,
his tentacles flush red.

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Females produce egg cases
almost as long as their bodies.

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With strong threads,
they anchor the cases in the sand,

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covering the ocean floor
with swaying drifts of progeny.

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And this is how it ends.
Every adult will die.

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In the world of the kelp forest,
nothing goes to waste

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and every death provides a meal to life.

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Bat rays awaken to the feast.

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(BARKING)

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Sea lions are stuffed to the whiskers
with squid.

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(BARKING CONTINUES)

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What are these sea lions doing?

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Your guess is as good as ours.
No one's ever witnessed this before.

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Every morning they arrive
to chew these stems.

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We don't know why.

112
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Maybe this is the way
sea lions brush their teeth.

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This rocky environment
was once a part of the kelp forest.

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It's been transformed
into its present state by sea urchins.

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It's called an urchin barrens.

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Sea urchins
have a powerful appetite for kelp.

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Here they are stripping the ocean bare.

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Whole forests are set adrift
by these spiny little regiments.

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Packed as densely
as 300 to the square yard,

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the urchins
devour the giant kelp's holdfasts.

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But the urchins have enemies, too,
and the sunstar is a deadly one.

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There's a balance here.

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The urchins eat the kelp,
the sunstar eats the urchins,

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the giant kelp returns.

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The endless flux
of ruin and renewal of life itself.

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Like fish made of light,

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a school of Spanish mackerel
hunts along the edge of the forest.

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Special organs in their sides
help them weave and dart in harmony,

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as if they were a single creature.

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We are drawn to the ocean.

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Life came from the sea,
and perhaps all life longs to return to it.

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Each species follows its separate thread,

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but a thread that knits its fate
into the fate of others.

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None is exempt from this,
on land or in the sea.

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The destiny of each is tied to all.