Original subtitles

Long after the age of dinosaurs,

giants still roam this planet.

Engineered to withstand the test of time.

They come with supersized bodies.

Thick skin.

Sharp teeth.

And bad attitudes.

This is the world of giant killers.

AFRICA'S DEADLIEST

In Africa, lions are apex predators.

It's an accolade that doesn't come easy.

They have to earn it.

And the lessons start with Mom.

She's a master hunter,

and lethal in taking down prey.

She provides, but not forever.

By the age of three, the young males are forced out of the pride.

Now they must look after themselves.

This young lion lacks the skill and the experience to hunt on his own.

For the next year and a half, he must scavenge to stay alive.

If he's going to survive, he needs at least one partner.

The meeting of these two future kings marks the beginning of a reign of terror.

Between them, they can eat 300 pounds in a sitting.

On their shopping list, almost a fully grown wildebeest

every third or fourth day.

In the next 24 months, this bond will spread fear across the plains.

Together, they weigh almost the same as five fully grown men.

As a new coalition, they can take down bigger prey.

Which is bad news for buffalos.

These bovines carry close to a ton of meat.

But they're no pushover.

They come with a pair of lethal horns.

They are notorious for turning the tables on their attackers.

But these two males simply cannot resist

the challenge of taking down a worthy opponent.

They need to get very close to their prey.

At least within a hundred feet.

Lions are built for short bursts of power.

They don't do long distances.

The mother and her calf should rejoin the herd. Now.

But it's too late.

Razor-sharp claws pierce her flesh.

Each nail is one and a half inches long and hooks into her body.

To kill her, they must topple her.

One lion seeks a grip on her windpipe.

The other jumps on her back.

Raking her hind legs with his sharp claws.

Her death seals the fate of her calf.

He's next.

Hunger satiated, the two males are now driven by an instinct to mate.

To do that, they need to find a pride and dethrone the dominant males.

The invaders split up.

One takes on the old king.

The other tackles the second-in-command and his female supporters.

There's a lot at stake for these two muscled upstarts.

They can be severely injured or even mauled to death in this battle.

But they emerge the victors.

The new masters waste no time in advertising their new status.

They're in top form, and hungry.

A fully grown elephant is a dangerous animal.

They can trample a lion to death.

But a youngster with no experience is an easy target.

This time, there's no need to ambush.

They rely on pure strength.

With powerful muscles in their hind legs and chest,

lions can leap almost 40 feet onto their prey.

The male with the darker mane is the dominant one.

He jumps on top of the elephant and tries to sever the spinal cord.

The second male goes for the throat.

There's bad blood between elephants and lions.

But experts are beginning to notice

a greater aggression in elephant herds towards humans.

And it's scary.

No. No.

No.

Come on, move.

Move.

Easy, easy.

Hey!

Hey! Hey!

When six tons of elephant come at you at 28 miles per hour, you run.

Apart from size, their deadly tusks

can gore the thick skins of hippo and rhinos.

The story of this old bull could explain

why elephants are turning into giant killers.

His name is Isilo, "the big one."

He's one of a dwindling number of elephants on the planet

with gigantic tusks.

They are at least two and a half yards long.

And combined, weigh more than 120 pounds.

For almost 60 years,

Isilo has guided young bulls toward maturity.

The lessons start when adolescent bulls leave their mothers

between the ages of 12 and 20.

Older bulls like Isilo teach these bachelor boys the lay of the land.

They show them how to be dominant, without being bullies.

In their early teens, the sub-adults become sexually active and unruly.

The older bulls nip this friskiness in the bud.

Discipline keeps the raging hormones of young bulls in check.

But in some places in Africa, parental control is absent.

Every day, about 100 elephants are shot for their ivory.

Poachers target big bulls like Isilo.

On the black market, his tusks will fetch more than $20,000.

But if you kill off the big tuskers, the bull hierarchy disintegrates.

14,000 pounds of raging elephant versus a small vehicle.

And the problem is only getting worse.

Where poaching is rife, young bulls become sexually active much earlier

because they don't have to compete with older bulls anymore.

And their bodies are flushed with raging hormones more frequently.

This could account for the increase in aggression.

Elephants could also be suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder.

An elephant whose family members are killed by people

is unlikely to forget it very quickly.

Just like we wouldn't forget if an elephant killed one of us.

In the dry season, hippos and elephants often compete for food.

This old bull wants exclusive rights to this river in Zambia.

But the hippos won't budge.

From an elephant's perspective, this is a blatant act of provocation.

A newborn calf gets separated from his mother in this standoff.

This elephant weighs at least 100 times more than the baby.

One step could squash it.

The mother waits for her calf to resurface.

It doesn't.

When giants clash, the young are often caught up in the middle.

Not many predators would attack a fully grown elephant.

But a baby is fair game.

And this one is on the menu of one of Africa's most feared killers.

Crocodiles.

Possibly the largest crocodile ever seen

lurks somewhere in the Rusizi River in Burundi.

Witnesses say he is 20 feet long and could weigh as much as 2,000 pounds.

He was last seen in 2008.

This huge man-eater is said to have killed 300 people.

Every attempt to catch him has failed.

He could still be out there.

When these giant predators hunt, they don't discriminate.

They will strike man or beast if the opportunity arises.

Their eyes look like periscopes on submarines.

The perfect design for an ambush predator

that wants to hide a bear trap of a jaw and a massive body.

Crocs can pinpoint their prey in 3D

and calculate the exact speed and distance needed to make a kill.

Underwater, they're in their element.

A semitransparent membrane slides over their eyes.

They can detect small objects within striking distance.

And they can hear low frequencies that we can't.

If there's a tiny vibration a few feet away,

they'll find the source.

Crocodiles are both deadly carnivores and caring reptiles.

This croc is a super-mom.

She babysits and plays taxi.

But given half a chance,

she'll turn into a cannibal.

A juvenile in the mouth of a croc isn't playtime.

It's a meal.

A recent study found that crocodiles

have the strongest bite on the planet ever measured.

And a very powerful tail.

In water, they clock 25 miles per hour.

Five times faster than a relatively good swimmer.

But their deadliest weapon is the fact that

they can launch half their body length out of the water as far as five feet.

The elusive man-eating crocodile in Burundi

has the power to attack and kill sub-adult hippos.

But here in the Luangwa River in Zambia,

crocodiles not only target the living.

They also rip into the dead.

The largest crocodile eats first.

And he can consume half his body weight in one sitting.

A thousand pounds.

That's the size of a horse.

Nothing stops a crocodile from getting his quota.

Not even lions.

In lean times, crocodiles can retreat into a den

and slow their heart rate to two or three beats a minute.

With a slower metabolism, they can survive two years without eating.

Like assassins gone into hiding,

they wait for the tide to turn.

And when it does, they emerge with their fat reserves depleted.

To catch up, crocs eat as much as they can in the shortest possible time.

Like all creatures, buffalos approach rivers with caution.

They always grow quiet here.

They're weary of crocodiles and other predators.

One would think these bovines are easy pickings,

but nothing could be further from the truth.

Buffalos are one of the most dangerous animals in Africa.

Hunters call them the widow-makers.

If there's a threat, buffalos don't give a warning.

They'll storm their enemies at 30 miles per hour

and ram them with their lethal horns.

Each year, buffalos gore more than 200 people to death.

It's the horns that kill.

They can be as long as 60 inches.

And they sweep upward in a deadly curl.

Young bulls must bulldoze their way up the ranks.

The fight can last for hours.

It only stops when one is dead or throws in the towel.

A broken horn signals the beginning of the end.

The old bull won't bleed to death,

but this injury reduces his chances in a fight.

For now, he hangs onto what little authority he has left.

But his time with the herd is over.

This is where the evicted end up.

Hiding in swamps.

Alone, he is now more dangerous than ever.

There is only one reason why buffalos would form such a large herd as this one.

They're in lion country.

There's protection in large numbers.

This herd of Cape buffalo is at least 300 strong.

But the lions cannot resist the temptation.

If they cause the buffalos to panic, the wall of defense might break.

But the buffalos stand fast.

A sub-adult steps forward to see if he can turn the tables.

His defense strategy backfires.

From the sideline, the herd seems unsure what to do next.

His desperate bleating is a call to war.

With military precision, the column reforms.

And en masse, the buffalos advance.

The lioness is astute.

She knows a lost cause when she sees one.

In the end, even the male must bow to buffalos.

Not far off, a similar drama unfolds.

A pride of lions has just flushed out an old bull from his hiding place.

There's no herd here that will come to his aid.

But even in old age, he embodies the spirit of buffalos.

Tenacity.

Seven lions versus one buffalo.

And still he stands his ground.

But the odds are not in his favor.

Help comes from an unexpected source.

Elephants get very aggressive around lions.

They know very well that these cats are killers.

And the buffalo's distress triggers the elephant's rage.

It saves this buffalo's skin,

for now.

Revenge is not a word one would like to use when describing animal behavior.

But when buffalos corner their old enemy, they show no mercy.

As the life-and-death struggles play out on the plains,

Africa's scavengers watch from the wings.

They pick up the pieces

and try very hard to sidestep the predators.

It doesn't always work.

Some of the deadliest hunters are the least visible.

The African rock python is the largest snake species in Africa.

It can grow as long as 30 feet.

His modus operandi,

constriction.

His tongue picks up a chemical trace of a rodent in the air.

Up to eight heat-sensitive pits on his lips pinpoint his prey like a radar gun.

His cheek muscles can stretch open to embrace something

as big as a fully grown impala.

Or a six-year-old child.

After swallowing the mouse, potent acids begin to dissolve the carcass.

The bigger the snake gets, the larger prey it can kill.

African rock pythons are known to attack prey monkeys, antelope,

and even crocodiles.

Speed is not the python's forte.

Ambush is more his style.

And he can set his trap in water

and on land.

This python normally hunts at night, but he's hungry.

Today, he's out looking for something a bit more substantial than a mouse.

Like a jackal.

It's death by squeeze.

Every time the jackal exhales,

the snake's coils tighten.

At the moment, the python is listening to his heartbeat.

He has ears inside his body.

He hears vibrations traveling through the ground and air.

When the heartbeat stops, he loosens the grip.

And then he slips his muscular face over the jackal's head.

Now the python is in danger.

He must digest the jackal before it rots.

Oxygen stirs his metabolism.

To digest big prey, a python increases its oxygen absorption

into the blood by a factor of 36.

It took only a few minutes for this python to snuff out a life.

But moments later, peace returns to the savanna as if nothing happened.

Giraffes embody the silence and grace of Africa.

But they are not the gentle giants we thought them to be.

Even apex predators show them respect.

And it's not because they're beautiful.

They know about that deadly kick.

It's a kick with enough force to crack a lion's skull.

These African wild dogs can rip a zebra to pieces,

but they don't often go for adult giraffes.

The safest giraffe snack is a juicy leg that can't kick anymore.

But throw a few more hyenas into the mix, and they become bold.

They're after this.

And they'll show no mercy.

The hyenas know it's only a matter of time.

The mother, however, will have none of it.

She's relentless.

Even when it's obvious that her calf has died.

More backup arrives.

And the mother must give up the fight.

The same scene plays out in another part of the reserve.

With different actors.

Lions have just killed this calf.

The adults are cautious.

They know the danger.

But a young lion is in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Her sharp hooves slam into flesh.

The giraffe swats the youngster repeatedly with her front legs.

Her body weight crushes his lungs.

Today, both the giraffe and the lions leave a carcass behind.

During the mating season, these beauties can turn into beasts.

All it takes is a female in heat.

Their secret weapon is elongated cervical vertebrae.

Like us, they've got seven of them in their necks.

At the peak of mating season,

males square off all over the plains to strut their stuff.

And then the fighting begins.

The two horns provide excellent artillery.

Propelled by a powerful swing,

those horns can tear flesh and bruise bone.

Increase the force and it can shatter vertebrae.

The trick is to avoid the sledgehammer swing.

Both males have danced this deadly dance before.

Timing is crucial.

One direct blow could lead to serious concussion or even death.

Carcasses litter the stomping grounds of Africa's giant killers.

Most of them belong to the plant eaters.

But there's one herbivore that breaks the mold.

Rhinos.

The living versions of battle tanks.

4,400 pounds of dense bone and muscle.

A large head.

A thick neck.

A skin that is almost 2 inches thick in places.

And a horn that can be as long as five feet.

Even lions make way.

Rhinos are impossible to topple and too difficult to kill.

Pound for pound, elephants outweigh rhinos about three to one.

It's obvious who's got right of way here.

But rhinos are stubborn.

And they've got short tempers.

They charge at 30 miles per hour,

and can change direction quickly, despite their bulk.

Almost anything puts them on alert.

One reason is poor eyesight.

But there's nothing wrong with their hearing.

Independently, their ears scan for audio clues.

The slightest rustle, the sound of a footstep.

Nothing escapes their attention.

If the wind is right, these deadly giants can smell an intruder

from as far away as 600 feet.

It's a buffalo.

Both these grumpy bulls weigh around 2,200 pounds.

They're like two heavyweight boxers, but armed to the teeth.

The rhino horn proves to be the deadlier.

The buffalo throws in the towel and escapes with a deep gash in his chest.

Apart from man, adult rhinos don't have any serious contenders in the wild.

A lethal horn and a bad attitude have served them well

for almost two million years.

And they're not the only monsters of the past.

There's a predator in this ocean that is 20 feet long

and weighs 5,000 pounds.

The most dangerous time to be in the sea is during sunrise and sunset.

That's when great whites hunt.

The shark can see the silhouette of its prey.

But the prey can't see the shark.

This one is perfectly camouflaged.

His slate-grey body blends with the rocky seafloor.

On top of that, great whites have acute color vision.

And we know they can smell two and a half pints of blood

in water the size of an Olympic swimming pool.

On top of that, they've got sensitive electroreceptors that cover their snouts.

With these, they pick up the electric signature of their prey.

And this is one of their favorite hangouts.

The east coast of Africa.

Over the last 10 years, there were 43 shark attacks along this coast.

Surfers often bear the brunt of these attacks.

It is possible that sharks mistake them for seals.

Fortunately, this great white is only passing through.

It's a female, and she's pregnant.

She swims to get away from other great whites.

If she doesn't, they'll eat her pups.

Her destination, Bird Island.

Thought to be the nursery area of great whites.

Here, there is enough food to sustain a population of juvenile sharks.

As they grow bigger, their teeth change to suit bigger prey.

Juveniles eat rays and smaller fish.

Adults eat dolphins, seals,

and the dead.

This is the carcass of a sperm whale.

The jaws of a great white feature seven rows

of 300 serrated triangular teeth.

When they bite, the jaws push forward.

The lower jaw stabs the prey with serrated blades.

The upper jaw snaps down in a bite

that's thought to be three times stronger than a lion's.

We now know that over a period of nine months,

one great white traveled as far as 13,600 miles.

In the past five years, as many as 900 great whites

have patrolled the waters around Seal Island.

They size each other up.

The bigger sharks are more dominant.

They control these waters.

This is the drawing card.

Young pups on their first fishing trip.

They're inexperienced and totally naïve about the dangers lurking below.

From the sharks' perspective,

this is 100 pounds of calories on a platter.

Catching them is not that easy.

In full attack mode, great whites swim twice as fast.

But seals can turn a tight corner.

Sharks can't.

The cat-and-mouse game begins when seals launch themselves off the island.

Moments before the attack,

the great white rolls its eyes back into its skull

to protect them from those sharp seal claws.

The success rate of a shark with lots of experience,

80%.

Size puts these giant killers on the top of the food chain.

Ferocity keeps them there.

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