Original subtitles

Africa.

A continent of extremes,

where predators join forces

to wage a war for survival.

These killer armies work together,

to surround,

overpower,

and take down their victims.

Prey doesn't stand a chance

against swarms of Africa's deadliest.

Africa.

A continent famous for its extraordinary wildlife...

...but shaped by violent forces.

Fire and radical seasons wrench landscapes between extremes.

Plains that teem with life in one season

are scraped bare in the next.

Forests cannot survive the drought,

only rains hold the desert at bay.

Across two thirds of Africa,

grasslands peppered with trees take hold.

On these vast savannahs, the largest and toughest herbivores

on Earth have evolved.

To take them on,

leagues of the world's deadliest predators join forces.

Even killers that usually operate alone

will enlist an army if the prey is right.

This lone hunter lurks in waterways,

preying on the desperate that must drink to survive.

The Nile crocodile.

They terrorize waterways across the continent.

But in one Zambian river they've amassed into a reptilian fleet.

The Luangwa.

There are more Nile crocodiles here

than in any other river on Earth.

They thrive here because this landscape is deadlier

than any predator.

In the dry season, barely a drop of rain falls for six months.

The Luangwa is the last major water source,

but many don't make it in time.

Parched corpses litter its banks,

and feed the growing army.

But it's not just the dead that make the menu.

On the banks, hunger pangs gnaw at a herd of zebras.

The grass is clipped to dust.

They must seek better grazing across the river.

On land, zebras can kill with a kick.

But here in the river, they're out of their element.

It's the perfect opportunity for a massacre.

Crocodiles deploy like a fleet of living submarines,

and vanish.

Crocs can hold their breath for two hours

by excreting carbon dioxide into their guts.

Invisible just below the surface,

the deadly armada moves into position.

The zebra can't see the danger surrounding them.

Once they are in too deep to escape,

the crocodiles launch an ambush.

The zebras have one advantage-- they're warm-blooded,

so they're faster and more agile than the cold-blooded reptiles.

The crocs need just one clean bite.

The jaws clamp down with enough force to lift a pick-up truck,

and pull the zebras under.

The croc uses the water to make the kill.

Once the prey is dead,

the crocodiles must work together to devour it.

Their round teeth don't cut, and two-foot jaws can't chew.

The only way for the crocs to tear up the carcass

is to use each other as leverage.

They lock jaws and spin against each other

to wrench the carcass into pieces.

They swallow hooves, skin and bones whole.

Nothing is left behind.

But when these giants leave the water,

they lose their advantage.

Their long, flat bodies are clumsy and slow.

On dry land, different killers compete for the title

of Africa's deadliest.

One ranks amongst the most feared predators in the world.

Twice the muscle of a heavyweight body builder,

yet capable of speeds over 40 miles per hour,

lions can kill virtually any large mammal in Africa.

Yet even these mighty predators have a nemesis.

A prey animal famous for turning the attack.

The Cape buffalo.

Predation has shaped these wild cows

into one of Africa's most aggressive herbivores.

The half-ton goliaths are quick to charge

and famous for goring their enemies

with their two-foot horns.

When it comes to predators, their best defense is attack.

For lion prides to take on these fierce beasts,

they need the strength of numbers

and a foolproof plan.

Today, they have both.

This pride has driven their victim into the perfect trap.

Stuck in a Luangwa water hole,

this buffalo has nowhere left to run.

The lions have blocked all exits.

The bull can kill with a blow of his horns.

The lions can't tackle him head-on.

Instead, they'll wear him down.

In the water, fear and cold sap the strength the bull needs

to defend himself.

The lions just need to hold the bank,

and wait.

The adult lionesses conserve their energy.

They let the sub-adults taunt the victim.

Their expertise will be needed after dark.

By nightfall, they've maneuvered the bull out of the water hole,

and he's exhausted.

He's weak and bleeding from dozens of small wounds.

The lionesses step up for the coup de grâce.

The young males hold the perimeter to prevent escape.

Like clowns at a rodeo, the lionesses taunt the bull

to draw his attention,

but stay just out of range of his horns.

The distraction allows another female to attack from behind.

[bellows]

As the bull weakens, the youngsters join the fight.

The lioness on top bites into his spine to disable his legs,

as the rest target his tendons.

[bellows]

Pain and exhaustion win at last.

The bull can fight no more.

Suffocation brings the battle to a merciful end.

The reward is worth the risk.

The bull's giant carcass will feed the pride for a week.

Buffalo are one of lions' primary prey,

but hunts aren't always this successful.

Numbers are the swing vote between these enemies.

When the buffalo have backup, the odds change.

Some of the largest buffalo herds in Africa

roam the Luangwa Valley.

Among their ranks are hundreds of weak, vulnerable calves,

but they are guarded by mothers who will kill to protect them.

When threatened, the herd moves in a tight convoy.

The adult females hold the front line

and look out for danger,

to protect the weaker animals at the center.

To breach the solid wall of angry muscle,

lions must risk their lives.

If a lion gets cornered by them, it's in deep trouble.

A tree offers temporary refuge.

Lions are awkward climbers.

The herd won't leave until they've drawn blood.

The lion loses its fight with gravity,

above a sea of enraged buffalo.

The herd shows no mercy.

This is a game of survival,

and every lion eliminated may be a buffalo saved.

But brute strength is not always the best defense.

600 miles south of Luangwa, in the dusty bush of Tuli Botswana,

one cast of prey animals have found a less brutal way

to stay alive.

Antelope traded strength for speed.

Their spring-loaded legs allow rapid acceleration

up to twice the speed of the fastest Olympian.

Here, only the fastest and fittest survive.

Because this is wild dog country.

A quarter the size of lions, but double their speed,

these dogs kill fast, brutally, and often.

One dog weighs little more than a German shepherd,

but they're armed with the most powerful jaws for their size

of all mammals.

Working together, they're the most efficient killers

on the continent.

What they lack in size, they make up for in numbers.

Their home base is the den where they hide their cubs,

but they're always ready for action.

A herd of eland passes dangerously close

to the hidden barracks.

It's time to move out.

These giants are the slowest of all antelope,

but that doesn't make them an easy prey.

They're ten times the size of a wild dog,

and they, too, can kill with their horns.

It could be suicide to tackle the herd head-on.

Like the lions, the dogs need to weaken their prey,

but they won't do it with pain.

This will be a battle of endurance.

The pack slits into two groups-- flankers and chasers.

Flankers move ahead to block side escape routes,

as chasers start to push the herd from behind.

There's no stalk.

They want the herd to see them, and bolt.

The flankers channel the fleeing antelope through the bush,

as the chasers increase the pace,

until the prey can run no more.

Exhaustion drives the eland to stop and face their enemies.

The pack splits up and isolates victims.

Three eland go down.

Each dog latches on with jaws like a bear trap

and jerks hard to rip open the skin.

Though it looks brutal, shock numbs the pain,

and death is swift.

In a matter of minutes,

there's nothing left but bones and a bloodstain.

Stomachs full, they head home.

But this meal isn't over.

Each dog's gut literally acts as a doggie bag.

At the den, the hunters regurgitate meat,

and share it among the pups and the adults.

They feed more than 30 mouths off a single hunt,

but tomorrow, they'll do it all over again.

Feeding this growing predator militia is a full-time job.

This landscape teems with prey,

but most of it is too small to make the wild dogs' radar.

The undergrowth hides a resource that large predators don't tap.

The tiny creatures that crawl the woodland floor

are packed with nutrients,

but giants like lions and wild dogs

would have to eat thousands of them to stay fed.

But a predator one-tenth their size evolved to cash in

on this hidden stash.

Banded mongooses are top of the food chain below the grass line.

They live in large, close-knit troops,

and like wild dogs, they stick together.

But on the hunt, their tactics couldn't be more different.

It's every mongoose for itself.

Each animal raids the undergrowth

for anything that crawls...

and hordes what it finds to itself.

So why do they stick together?

At half the weight of a dachshund,

mongooses are small predators with a big problem.

They're also prey.

Every predator larger than them is a threat.

Especially to the bite-sized babies they hide in their dens.

Hunting together means there's always a set of eyes

scouting the terrain.

They're always ready to retreat at the first sign of danger.

But not everyone makes it.

Ever-present danger has groomed mongooses

into nervous, flighty creatures.

Yet there are some deadly predators

that bring out a side to this troop that borders on suicidal.

Snakes are specialists at invading the narrow dens

where mongooses hide their infants.

When scouts spot one, they put out a call to arms.

The entire troop races to meet the enemy.

This Mozambican spitting cobra can kill a human.

Its bite packs a potent cytotoxin that dissolves flesh.

Yet this one killer, the mongooses will fight.

The snake is a deadly threat to their young,

but if they defeat it,

it doubles as a protein-rich meal.

Eons of conflict with snakes has armed them for this moment.

They're virtually immune to cobra venom.

Now, the mongooses' teamwork pays off.

With so many moving targets,

the cobra can't choose who to attack.

Biting isn't its only weapon.

It can shoot a blinding jet of venom

straight for its enemies' eyes.

The mongooses' lightning-quick reflexes

keep them out of the line of fire.

They keep the pressure on, until the snake tries to escape...

...and attack when it's on the retreat.

With needle-like teeth, they tear the snake apart,

and devour it.

Mongooses and their relatives

are among the top natural enemies of African snakes.

But 10 million years ago, one of their ancient relatives

abandoned the undergrowth in search of richer pickings

on the open plains.

Giants roamed the savannahs, and when they fell,

mountains of meat were left for the taking.

Feeding off these carcasses, the mongooses' evolutionary cousins

transformed into predatory giants themselves--

the spotted hyenas.

Though famed as scavengers, these bone-cracking killers

had fought their way to the top of the food chain.

They're powerful, brutal, and capable of ripping prey open

before it even hits the ground.

In one landscape, spotted hyenas have even ousted lions

as the apex predators...

The Maasai Mara.

The dens of large hyena clans dot this savannah,

but these are no happy families.

Hyena society is a dictatorship.

The matriarch rules,

and the highest ranking females enforce her will.

Rank is inherited at birth, and defended until death.

The pecking order governs everything--

those with rank breed, hunt and feed first.

Those without are forced to fight for scraps

against their clan mates.

Spotted hyenas are among the most brutal to their own kind

of all mammals.

Clan members bear the scars of battles with their own,

yet this vicious system holds the clan together,

and grooms its members into some of the toughest hunters

in Africa.

Hyenas aren't built for speed.

Their claws are dull, and they're no good at stealth.

Their greatest weapon is cunning.

A herd of topi and wildebeest are the perfect victims

for a deadly scam.

The bustle of hundreds of bodies keeps prey distracted.

The hunting group spreads out.

One by one, hyenas amble straight into the herd.

They barely give prey a second glance.

The act fools the herd into thinking

they're just lone hyenas wandering the plain.

The topi barely react to the predators

infiltrating their ranks.

Once the hyenas are in position, they search for soft targets.

Topi are fast, agile antelope, but they have one fatal flaw.

They need to rest often to digest the course grass cud

fermenting in their guts.

On the ground, they're sitting ducks.

The hyena matriarch ambles into close range of a sleeping topi.

She has backup nearby.

Her dominant females are edging closer.

The matriarch drops her disguise and charges.

The topi is caught before it's perceived the threat.

The nearest ally drops her guise, and races in to help,

as the matriarch holds on with vice-like jaws.

The second hyena latches on as backup bursts out of hiding.

Working together, they tear open the abdomen with sheer force.

The rest of the clan tears the victim apart

before its heart stops beating.

The big females feed first.

Their low ranking clan mates must content themselves

with scraps.

Beyond the mainland, life is governed by different rules.

Temperature is the catalyst that shapes these oceans.

To the west, the Aghulas Current brings icy waters

from the Arctic.

To the east, the warm Benguela carries tepid waters

from the tropics.

At the southern tip of Africa, they collide.

This stretch of ocean is called the Agulhas Bank.

The clash of temperatures creates massive upwellings

of nutrients.

It's the perfect spawning ground for enormous shoals of sardines.

To protect themselves from predators,

these remarkable fish band together in their thousands,

yet they move like one giant organism.

It's hard for predators to lock on to a target

amidst the shimmering mass,

but one hunter has learned to turn the sardines' defenses

against them-- the common dolphin.

These high-speed marine mammals patrol this stretch of coast

in small armies.

Pods of up to 1,000 strong

cruise at more than 20 miles per hour

as they search for prey.

It's like looking for a needle in a haystack.

There may be only one sardine shoal

in more than 200 million gallons of ocean.

By banding together, the dolphins pool their senses

to scan miles of ocean at a time.

They have excellent eyesight and hearing,

but they also have a sixth sense--sonar.

Dolphins emit low-frequency sounds

that bounce back off the shoal

and allow them to pinpoint fish even in low visibility.

[squeaking]

Once they lock on to a shoal,

they work together to herd it into a dense mass

called a bait ball.

The tighter the fish are packed, the easier they are to catch,

but keeping them in formation takes teamwork.

Half the pod circles the shoal to herd it tighter and tighter,

while the other half bolts through the throng

snatching up fish.

Mid-battle, they switch roles so that everyone gets to feed.

With this strategy,

each dolphin eats half its body weight in a week.

But when winter hits, everything changes in this stretch of sea.

A band of cold water spreads up Africa's warm east coast,

and expands the bank's unique habitat.

Billions of sardines merge into a supersized shoal

and migrate up the cold channel

as nutrients well up from the ocean floor.

The hordes of sardines are packed so densely

that they blot out the light.

Back on the Aghulas Bank, the dolphins prepare for a siege.

Pod by pod, they abandon their home,

and head north up the coast towards the feast.

One by one, pods join forces,

and merge into a fleet of dolphins up to 5,000 strong.

[squeaking]

They march up the coast

in a front more than half a mile wide,

searching for the first sign of the sardine run.

[squeaking]

The instant the common dolphins hit the sardine super-shoal,

the entire army descends.

The giant band of fish keeps surging onward up the coast.

If the dolphins hunt on the main shoal,

they have to constantly chase its tail.

But they have a smarter strategy.

Hundreds of dolphins at a time join forces

to break giant bait balls off the moving bank of fish.

Circling together, they bring the fish to a halt,

and herd them into tight masses up to three stories tall.

With the monstrous bait balls under their control,

they gorge themselves.

But there is a downside to the dolphins' military efficiency--

it can be abused.

Sharks are experts at sniffing out an opportunity.

Many species can smell a teaspoon of blood

in 2,500 gallons of seawater.

Over 400 million years of evolution

has honed them into the oceans' deadliest guild of predators.

Ranks of blacktips, duskies, bronze whalers, and bull sharks

home in on the scent of shredded sardines.

The cold-blooded sharks are not as agile as the common dolphins.

When they hunt on the open shoal,

it simply morphs around them, just out of reach.

It's much easier to muscle in

on the dolphins' captive bait balls.

The dolphins have no choice but to share.

Large sharks are among their few natural enemies.

They're unlikely to hunt the dolphins,

but a defensive bite could be deadly.

The pillaging sharks send the dolphins' order into chaos.

But the more fish spread out, the harder they are to catch.

So the sharks push them against a wall they can't escape--

the surface.

The water boils with sharks and fish,

which opens up the battle to another line of attack.

Gannets--the ocean's air force.

Squadrons of birds rain down on the bait ball like missiles

from 100 feet in the air.

They hit the water at a bone-crushing 60 miles per hour.

At that speed, most animals would be dead on impact.

But the gannets are built for this.

Their bodies are perfectly streamlined

to minimize resistance.

And they have sacs in their necks

that work like airbags to absorb the blow.

But what tips the scales between life and death

is high-precision flying.

The birds dive into a soup of bodies,

yet they rarely hit the other predators.

Even though their wingspan is as wide as a car,

and they literally require a runway for takeoff,

they fly with uncanny control.

Their specialized eyes pinpoint a target below the surface

from three stories up.

And they shoot down between the sharks and dolphins

with perfect accuracy to snatch it.

If they miss their prey on impact,

they use their waterproof wings like paddles to swim it down

at depths of up to 30 feet.

Their nostril-less beaks are watertight,

and they can hold their breath for more than 30 seconds.

But even down here, the greatest danger is head-on collision.

There are literally hundreds of predators

competing for the feast,

yet the birds negotiate the throngs of sharks and dolphins

with incredible underwater agility.

The three hunting armies reduce the massive bait balls

to a handful of fish in a matter of hours.

As they feast, more predators pour in,

yet attacks between them are rare.

It is one of the most extraordinary synergies

of predators on earth--

three swarms of some of Africa's deadliest,

attacking in unison to annihilate their common prey.

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