Original subtitles

(dramatic music)

- [Kevin] It covers a third of the world's surface.

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Ringed by fire,

constantly reshaped by the almighty clash

of Earth's tectonic plates.

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Creating lifeforms that, in turn,

become the architects of underwater empires.

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Here, the world's most primitive lifeforms

have outlived dinosaurs.

And found astonishing ways to adapt and survive

in one of the most competitive environments on the planet.

(dramatic music)

This is the Wildest Pacific.

(waves crashing)

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Coral reefs are the most bio diverse areas

of the Pacific ecosystems.

Bio diversity is the number of plants and animals

living together in one area.

More than a quarter of the world's marine species

live on reefs, even though they make up

less than 2% of the surface area.

There are many types of reef systems.

The predominant three are fringing reef

which grows directly from the shore.

When reef has grown out from a volcanic island

that, over millions of years, collapses,

it forms a ring of reef called an atoll,

a barrier reef runs parallel to coastline,

separated by lagoons.

A single barrier reef can sit off shore from an island,

or it can be a long network of reefs,

forming vast chains thousands of kilometers long.

The largest barrier reef on Earth is so big

it can be seen from space.

It runs parallel to the coastline

of Northeastern Australia,

this is the Great Barrier Reef.

A chain of 3,000 individual reefs and some 900 islands,

this systems is greater in size than the United Kingdom,

Holland and Switzerland combined.

This living superstructure is so significant to the world,

it's deemed one of its seven natural wonders.

The Great Barrier Reef is a marine creche

for tiny camouflagers

and apex predators.

A place where life flows to defend itself in curious ways.

And where migrators from across the world

undertake oceanic odyssey's to return home.

(dramatic music)

(light music)

Reef life begins with the delivery

of the tiniest of parcels, near millimeters across.

Once a year on a night after a full moon,

a mysteriously choreographed event takes place.

Coral polyps mouths widen within precious bundles

of egg and sperm.

Cued by the lunar cycle, weather, and water conditions

these corals have determined tonight is the night

to release their genetic hope into the Pacific Ocean.

Though coral polyps replicate themselves

to colonize an immediate area to migrate further afield,

they also synchronize a mass release in this way.

Entire reef site enveloped by a midnight blizzard.

Yellow, red, blue, and orange bundles slowly rise

to the waters surface.

The gametes have only a few hours to live.

In that short time,

they must find each other to spark into life.

When the coral egg and sperm join together

as an embryo, they continue to drift in currents

developing into a coral larva, called a planula.

No larger then a grain of rice,

the planulae will wind their way across other reefs

and lagoons for days, even weeks,

before sinking down to the ocean floor.

A small rock surface is enough for a larvae to attach

and develop into a coral polyp.

The multiplication begins and a new patch of reef

grows into the sunlight.

The annual coral spawning is a ritual

that has been taking place off the Australian Coastline

for tens of thousands of years.

Here, these tiny bundles have created

the largest living network of reef on the planet.

The Great Barrier Reef is built on the remains

of an immense mountain system,

The Great Dividing Range.

This` chain of mountains extends along the full length

of Australia's Eastern Coast,

some three and a half thousand kilometers.

Coral began to claim its kingdom

at the base of the range around 10 to 20,000 years ago,

after the end of the most recent ice age.

Sea levels began to rapidly rise,

some estimate by meters each year

and with it mountains became islands.

Coral empires rose up where ancient forests once stood.

The barrier reef is so long,

it spans 14 degrees of latitude.

The warmth and abundant food sources

bring long distance travelers,

like humpback whales.

Each winter they arrive at the reef's Southern outskirts,

midway through one of the longest

mammal migrations on the planet.

It's a 5,000 kilometer journey from their feeding grounds

in the Antarctic.

The whales have come here for the warmth and protection

of the Great Barrier Reef.

They travel north ensure of the reef system

along the coastline.

These waters are one of the worlds most significant

whale birthing areas.

More then 20,000 humpbacks come here each year.

The newborn calves wouldn't be able

to survive the icy polar waters.

After giving birth in the warmer climates,

the whales stay for the winter,

fattening their calves on milk

and teaching them to be cautious.

The return journey south will be perilous.

When they leave the safety of the reefs,

the cold water will bring great white sharks

and Orcas on the lookout for vulnerable juveniles.

The Great Barrier Reef network

has an average depth of 35 meters.

On the oceanic side of the system,

beyond Australia's continental shelf

where the Great Dividing Range once stopped,

is a sudden and steep drop.

In some places of several hundred meters.

The oceanic side of the reef network is locally called,

"the hard line".

At these steep walls, the reef earns its name.

It acts as a barrier, protecting the coastline

from the powerful energy of waves

that have traveled thousands of kilometers

across the Pacific.

Here, hardy brain and boulder corals

are the reefs sentinels,

taking the brunt of the incoming energy.

A green turtle finally meets the reef's edge,

where she bumps into another.

She too has had a long journey, several hundred kilometers.

Like all turtles, she's following an internal homing beacon

to return to the very beach she was born on.

She's undertaken this journey every two or three years

since reaching adulthood.

Her home beach lies on a small island cay

at the Southern most tip of the Great Barrier Reef.

She has many reef crests and lagoons

to cross to reach her birth place,

but first, a weather and rest.

The open ocean has offered few landing places

and even fewer feeding opportunities.

For this herbivore, the alkaline floor provides both.

Currents bring nutrients to the walls

of the outer reef edges.

The nutrients bring smaller fish.

And those fish bring predators.

Reef sharks sit atop the current awaiting easy targets.

Dogtooth tuna have barrel shaped bodies,

weighing well over 100 kilograms,

and are streamlined for speed

with sprints of 80 kilometers an hour.

Barracuda have a row of razor sharp teeth

that angle backward to grip prey.

All have learned to hunt in packs.

Aware of their precarious position in the food chain,

the smaller fish have learned to communicate

in astonishing unison to school up for protection.

(light music)

A fish decides where and how to move

depending on its whereabouts in the school.

If the fish behind gets within a couple of body lengths

it speeds up.

If it gets to close to the one in front, it slows down.

Schooling fish watch one another.

But, they can also feel the waves their neighbors make

as they swim using pressure sensitive pores

along their body called lateral lines.

Arriving at the great barrier wall

is like reaching the outskirts of a bustling metropolis.

Painted clown fish in their anemone homes

tend to their tiny eggs.

One of the reef's largest residents is the humphead wrasse.

It reaches nearly two meters long

and up to 180 kilograms in weight.

The imposing fish is territorial,

so will be one of the first

to inspect new arrivals to the reef wall,

but tend to be more inquisitive then aggressive.

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At the walls deeper areas, soft corals take hold.

Here, they flourish away from the buffeting waves

and feed from the nutrient swirl falling from above.

Soft corals are octocorals.

Unlike limestone building coral polyps

that have six arms, these soft corals have eight,

and grow without the support of a casing.

Though not reef builders,

some species exclusively prefer to live amongst them.

Gorgonians, or sea fans, are an octocoral

that can live over a hundred years.

They grow across the current to net and feed on plankton

drifting by.

Within its ancient arms,

a tiny creature lives out its entire adult existence,

this is a pygmy seahorse.

Fully grown, it could fit on a fingernail.

A pygmy seahorse drifts as planktonic brown larvae

until it settles on a gorgonian.

Once in its host, it grows in a astonishing way.

This seahorse's color isn't predetermined by genes,

but by the species of gorgonian it falls into.

If a pygmy seahorse falls into a purple sea fan,

it will turn purple.

One living in a red and white species will grow

into those colors and even sprout knobby skin

for a better match.

This extraordinary adaption ensures

such a small vulnerable animal

is hidden well enough to survive.

Though one of the worlds smallest fish when born,

the pygmy's young have the highest survival rates

of all seahorses.

Another soft coral mimic is the juvenile rockmover wrasse.

It's brown feathery spines and tumbling swimming technique

imitates a soft coral caught in the current.

As it grows stronger, this wrasse will graduate

to the stony coral gardens above.

Here, hard corals harbor zooxanthellae algae,

which are the tiny organisms within the polyps

that give the Great Barrier Reef

its stunning array of color.

Many of the harder boulder and brain corals are decorated

with even more color, in the form of Christmas tree worms.

These multi-hued spirals unfold from the coral in pairs.

That's because their twin antennae

of a long soft bodied worm living inside.

Like the complex tree root systems of a large forest,

vast networks of Christmas tree worms,

colonize these coral heads in calcium carbonate tombs.

Atop, the crown serve is gills to absorb oxygen

and as filters to catch passing phytoplankton

that slides down the spirals and feeds the worm.

Here, they can live for several decades,

the coral ever growing in size around them.

The outer wall of these reefs, levels into a reef crest.

The crest is the highest point of a reef.

It can span out in a long plate-like formation,

roughly three to 50 meters across.

This is the busiest hub of a reef ecosystem.

At high tide, large fish and sharks cruise in

from the open ocean taking advantage

of the buffet on offer below.

Strong branching corals grow in dense thickets

to help withstand the constant wave action.

Staghorn is a fast growing species,

gaining up to 20 centimeters each year.

The multi-hued algae within the tiny polyps

give these staghorn gardens their stunning color palate.

(light music)

The closely interlocking framework is an idea hiding spot

for smaller barrier reef fish,

striped humbugs, envious, and blue-green chromis.

Chromis graze above the reef crest

in thick shimmering clouds.

With protruding jaws that can extend beyond their mouths,

like a small pipette,

they suck the algae from staghorn polyps.

Chromis also use their powerful pounce to kiss,

or so it would seem.

These chromis are males, the lip locking is a showdown,

like a brief arm wrestle,

it's a square off to sort out the hierarchy.

Staghorns and other hard crest corals have another predator,

one far more devastating.

It's the crown-of-thorns, starfish.

This starfish reaches three quarters of a meter in diameter.

It can grow more then 20 arms,

each covered in venomous spines.

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The crown-of-thorns is a carnivore.

An animal that feasts almost solely on coral polyps.

It feeds by injecting its stomach onto the reef.

Then uses enzymes to digest and suck the polyps

out of their limestone casings.

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When the starfish moves on, it leaves nothing more

then the corals white skeleton behind.

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These starfish are fast and veracious.

In numbers they can decimate a small patch of coral

in mere hours.

They are prolific breeders,

each starfish can produce 60 million eggs in a season.

Population outbreaks every few years decimate kilometers

of the barrier reef in just a few months.

Crown-of-thorn starfish

have a particularly keen sense of smell.

There is one scent that will spur them

to move away as fast as they can.

It's the smell of a triton snail.

One of the largest marine snails in the world.

The triton can grow up to half a meter long.

It too has a highly evolved sense of smell.

It can detect the crown-of-thorn starfish, nearby.

It's a slow hunt, but a relentless one.

The triton snail is seemingly immune to the toxic spines.

(dramatic music)

It over powers the starfish with its large muscular foot.

The snail then sinks a long feeding tube called a proboscis

into the crown-of-thorns.

It's tipped with radula teeth,

the entire hunt and consumption

of the sea star lasts for around four hours.

It's one of the few natural predators

of the crown-of-thorn starfish.

(light music)

The outgoing tide is a queue for a flurry of activity

on the reef crest.

A trumpet fish is looking for an easy last bite.

It saddles up to a coral trout.

The trumpet fish employs a sneaky strategy

called shadow stalking.

It closely tailgates and uses the trout as cover

to plan its own ambush.

(light music)

The hunting party is ruined for this trout,

it looks for new feeding grounds,

but this hitchhiker is hard to shake.

The outgoing tide forces large predators

to retreat the crest for deeper water.

With fewer carnivores in close range,

surgeonfish amass in a hurried spalling rush.

Females and a small number of males

swim upward from the group

and hurriedly release gametes near the water surface.

Many surgeon species will do this dance daily

on the out going tide in a last minute bid

to carry their genes out to sea

where they have more chance of surviving.

(light music)

The reef crest at low tide

becomes another environment entirely.

The waters retreat leaves a vast platform of exposed reef

that also leaves animals exposed

to harmful UV rays and desiccation.

Predators know these few precious hours of low tide,

awful rich pickings.

Waiting birds stalk the flats, armed with long legs

and lifelike beaks to fish in the shallows.

For those who can't swim freely in strong currents,

the inshore tidal pools are a safer alternative

to the depths.

But to survive, they've had to develop

ingenious defense mechanisms.

There are few escape routes in the tidal pools.

The stone fish isn't a strong swimmer,

but it is the worlds most venomous fish.

The poisonous spines don't help capture food,

but they are a very persuasive deterrent

for becoming a meal itself,

if it can be spotted.

(dramatic music)

A blue-ringed octopus will, at least,

grant a potential predator a curtesy warning.

At roughly the same weight as a light bulb,

this small shy octopus is one of the most lethal animals

on the planet.

Its tiny frame harbors a deadly poison.

Relaxed, it could blend in to any tidal scenery,

but when threatened, electric blue rings light up

all over the small mollusk skin.

(dramatic music)

In the marine world, this color display is akin

to throwing on a red hazard light.

It serves as advance notice.

The octopus's glands hold enough venom

to paralyze 10 humans.

It doesn't take much for a small crab to succumb.

(water gurgling)

Elsewhere in the crest shallows,

harlequin shrimp has something a little more ambitious

in its sights, or rather antennae.

It detects the scent of a starfish in the water.

This shrimp feeds almost exclusively on sea stars.

When its managed to drag it back to its lair,

it will feast on the starfish for weeks.

The reward will be worth the effort.

An epaulette shark emerges from the coral.

The sinking sun is its cue to feed.

When its much larger cousins have been forced out seaward,

this shark takes advantage of a live skeletal structure.

Named for the military like patches above its pectoral fins,

the epaulette shark has evolved

to wind its way through staghorn thickets.

And to move between tidal pools, it can walk.

The pectoral and pelvic fin pairs are strong and splayed.

These sharks can slow their heart rate

to survive on very little oxygen for up to an hour

to allow it to wait out the tide in shallow pools.

Here, it shares its space with a relative

that also defies the typical idea

of what a shark should look like.

The name wobbegong is an indigenous Australian word

for shaggy beard.

Part of the carpet shark family,

few others bear the name more accurately.

Its grown tassels of skin around its jaw

to blend in to the reef shallows.

It has eyes atop of its head to allow for ambush hunting.

But this shark has a mouth designed to vacuum in prey

rather then pin it with sharp teeth.

The reef crests often give way

to barrier reef island lagoons.

Usually surrounding a sand cay,

lagoons are a shallow body of water

separated from the deeper zones by reef and rock.

They often have an entry and exit channel, granting access.

Gentler water conditions in these shallow protected areas,

allow nutrients to amass and corals to flourish.

Lagoons foster some of the most iconic

Great Barrier Reef species,

brilliantly hued parrotfish,

bizarre and intricate sea slugs,

and resident coral trout.

A pair of reef lizard fish await passing prey.

These are perfectly designed ambush hunters

modeled to blend into the background

and equipped with sharp needle like teeth

to lock on to the right opportunity.

Longfin bannerfish sweep coral and rock

looking for polyps and worms to pick at.

They're efficiently adept at hovering,

using their pectoral fins to brake, turn, and even reverse.

They saw past juvenile snapper peering out from a crevice.

Schooling up in numbers until they grow big enough

to venture beyond the protective walls.

The white blotch razorfish is also engineered

for lagoon life.

It raises a top spine as a rotor in the calmer waters,

or lowers it to sprint.

It can just as quickly activate all fins as brakes

until a safe hiding place is close to hand.

(mysterious music)

This intricately patterned reef fish is a saddleback toby.

It's a type of puffer fish.

Despite being a smaller bony fish,

these tobies are often spotted free swimming,

away from the protection of nearby reef and rock.

It's thought such confidence is bolstered

by their defense mechanism,

their liver and skin contains a deadly neurotoxin.

These puffer fish have big-like mouths

to pick at small invertebrates and algae,

which they synthesize into the lethal toxin.

The poison is so strong,

most predators will avoid the fish onsite.

The black saddle filefish is a completely different species.

It's not at all poisonous, and is highly nutritious

for large fish and crabs looking for a meal.

In an astonishing act of evolutionary mimicry,

this filefish has taken on the exact markings

of its toxic neighbor,

dots, yellow lines, and black saddles.

It even tries to hover nearby

to share the untouchable status.

It's estimated in every school

of saddleback puffer fish,

about 5% are filefish imitators.

Lagoons are very social areas.

Vast schools in varied species and size amass.

(mysterious music)

Red-throat and spangled emperors

grow up in mangroves in sea grass beds

before graduating to lagoons.

Here, they shoal together to forage the reef and floors

for crustaceans and small sea stars.

For others, lagoons are the starting point.

Schooling is a survival strategy

for these striped catfish juveniles,

at least until they're large enough

to travel beyond the walls.

The young catfish gather in dense balls.

From a distance, they can look

like a single entity swimming about,

sending predators in another direction.

(mysterious music)

They also work as a team when it comes to feeding.

Striped catfish mouths are ringed by four pairs of barbels,

fleshy arms that sweep the seabed

for tiny shellfish and worms.

Other fish will often hover nearby knowing the catfish ball

will fastidiously uncover anything hiding

just below the surface.

The front line of the school will forage

and flick up morsels to the rows behind,

they fall back and the next wave

takes on the work at the front.

The school becomes an efficient fast moving mass,

mowing its way along the seabed.

(mysterious music)

The lagoon seabeds are often lined

with spectacular giant clams.

It's the largest mollusk on Earth,

an enormous animal between two scallop shells.

These clams can grow well over a meter long

and weigh more then 200 kilograms.

On the barrier reef, their often deeply embedded in coral.

It's simply grown around the clam

over its hundred year lifespan.

The animal within slides out along the shell's edges.

Like coral, it harbors an algae

that helps it harness sunlight.

In the center a siphon,

one tube to breathe, feed, excrete, and spawn.

(dramatic music)

Another pacific mollusk giant is the broadclub cuttlefish.

Broadclubs are part of the Cephalopod family,

mollusks that, for the most part,

discarded their shells long ago.

They have distinctive bright yellow rings

at the lower edges of their eyes,

broad tentacles for capturing prey,

and a centralized pair for feeding and egg laying.

At 10 kilograms,

the broadclub is the second largest cuttlefish.

Despite its size, it's exceptionally adept at hovering

through the water.

This animal shell is on the inside of its body.

It's called a cuttlebone, it's highly porous,

and the cuttlefish controls the gas levels within it

to move up and down.

An undulating skirt around its body,

helps with direction control.

Tonight, a number of broadclubs are gathered

around a crop of fire coral.

A rare stinging species only found on the Northern fringes

of the Great Barrier Reef.

A female has a clutch of eggs to deposit.

The stinging coral is a safe nest.

A male hovers nearby, it wants to protect her

so she can deliver the eggs he has fertilized to safety.

But other males know it's also a chance to mate.

A game of chase ensues, but the stakes are high.

This is the final chance for their genes to continue.

(intense dramatic music)

Several arrive, sensing opportunity.

(intense dramatic music)

The dominant male chases the smaller ones away.

Broadclubs have an exceptionally advanced

skin pigment network, it flashes color to communicate.

The dominant male flashing an angry red.

One section of his skirt lights up, like a raised fist,

it's the side closest to the rival he's intimidating.

(intense dramatic music)

The subordinate males back away.

Male or female, none of these cuttlefish will live long

after reproducing.

With a moments respite, the female deposits her eggs deep

into the fire coral.

The eggs immediately harden and firmly attach in their nest.

Tiny cuttlefish begin growing within.

It will be another 40 days before the juveniles emerge.

They'll be on their own,

but at the very least the toxic fire coral

will help keep the eggs safe until then.

Also meeting in the lagoon shallows of dawns early light,

green turtles.

This female has wound her way through the barrier reef

and finally arrived at the island where she was born

as a hatchling.

She will mate with as many males as she can

to fertilize the eggs she has ready to deliver

to their own beach nest.

The males, usually smaller, hang on for up to 24 hours

until she signals it's time for them to move on.

She'll soon need to leave the water

to deliver the precious eggs on her own.

A strawberry hermit crab is also getting ready

to venture topside onto land,

but first a quick change.

Hermit crabs have a soft abdomen,

which requires extra protection.

They seek out the old shells of mollusks, like sea snails.

This crab has found one that may be a better fit.

After measuring it up,

it holds its body up out of the old one and into the new.

It scurries off toward shore.

(mysterious music)

(birds chirping)

(soft music)

These hermit crabs live most of their lives on land,

but they need seawater nearby to keep their gills moist.

Unlike most other crabs,

they have joints that allow them to walk forward.

Strawberry hermit crab communities

can number in the hundreds.

On the Great Barrier Reef,

they have colonized Southern island cays.

There are roughly 300 of these sand cays,

all along the barrier reef system.

Some are barely more then a hint of sand,

others kilometers across.

A sand cay is a small low island resting on top of a reef.

Cays form in the reefs when currents push sand on top,

building until they breech surface level.

Eventually, vegetation takes hold

and with it crabs, birds, reptiles, and mammals,

any life form that can migrate, move ashore,

or hitch a ride on floating debris from the mainland.

These small landing pads become important rookeries,

nesting sites for birds and turtles.

The sand comes from the reef ecosystem itself,

shells, coral, and skeletons

all breakdown into calcium carbonate fragments.

It can take thousands of years for enough sand

to collect on a reef crest to support vegetation.

The first seeds are sown by birds.

Some use this cays as stopovers on migration routes.

Others build nests, fish in the surrounding lagoons,

and live out their entire lifecycle on one sandy cay.

On this Southern barrier reef island,

a peculiar relationship has developed

between noddy terns and the resident trees.

Heron Island supports one of the most significant

nesting sites for black noddies in the world.

Around a hundred thousand of these terns

make their homes here, amid pisonia trees.

Pisonias produce small sticky seed pods.

The seeds attract insects and insects attract birds.

With the food source so readily available,

the noddies are inclined to build nests

within the pisonias branches.

It also benefits the pisonia,

the sticky seeds cling to the terns feathers.

When they travel offshore to other islands,

the birds fly with the seeds onboard,

and spread the trees to new cays.

Pisonia forest appear to flourish even more so

when they're nurtured by the bird droppings

of black noddies.

However, the relationship isn't always a kind one.

The noddy tern coats at times become so thick with seeds,

they can no longer fly.

Downy baby terns are particularly vulnerable.

The birds often die at the base of the same tree

that has nurtured them.

Their bodies add fertilizer to nourish the pisonia,

encouraging more seed pods.

The circle of life and death on this sand island continues.

(birds squawking)

(mysterious music)

It's been a long journey for the green sea turtles.

They left their feeding grounds two months ago

to find this very beach.

They've wound their way from the outer reef walls

through lagoons to shore.

They're tired, and the final act

will be the most exhausting yet.

In the few hours of low tide,

they must find a place to dig and lay their egg clutch.

On land, 150 kilograms of body and shell

is a heavy load to haul uphill,

across rocks, and tree roots.

The barrier reef is home to a number

of important turtle rookeries all in its sandy cays.

Competition for space can be fierce.

Other nests are unearthed in the rush.

They need to dig deep enough to keep the clutch

of more then a hundred eggs safe from predators,

and warm enough to hatch.

The turtles must beat the incoming tide.

If they don't reenter the water before it turns again,

the exposed lagoon flats are too long for them

to traverse in the dry.

Trapped in the sun, they'll parish.

This green turtle is too tired and too late

to make it all the way up to the beach,

she deposits her eggs anyway.

The eggs won't survive without a warm sand home,

but island life will make fast work

for the meal left behind.

Others have been more successful,

and make the final exhausting return to sea.

They've grasped the few hours they have between tides,

and now their crucial role

in continuing their kind is complete.

They can't stay to defend the nest or see their young born.

When incoming waves meet the sand it's their queue to leave.

It's another small window to safety

before the tide turns once more.

(mellow music)

In the new year, in the Southern summer's later days,

the first of the hatchlings break free from their shells.

(mellow music)

Hundreds of babies weighing little more then 25 grams

burst forth from a single nest.

It's a common survival strategy on the reef,

start with a great number of young

and one may just live long enough to reach adulthood.

Instinctively, the head to the ocean.

It's a a perilous run in broad daylight.

Birds and crabs are on the hunt for a quick meal.

When they reach the safety of the sea,

the survival game begins, anew.

Just one in 1,000 of these tiny turtles

will live out the next few decades and return to this beach.

The cays of Australia's Northeast Coast,

are such valuable nesting sites

due to the protection afforded them

by the Great Barrier Reef.

Barrier reefs shield the coastline

and foster their own ecology.

None on Earth are bigger then this one.

A living structure that spans more then

two and a half thousand kilometers.

The Great Barrier Reef is not only a guard

for the continent it boarders Westward,

but is a nursery for the Eastern ocean.

Currents leave the reef and travel to the open sea.

The barrier reefs larvae and seeds are carried far off shore

where they learn to adapt in new Pacific places.

(dramatic music)