Original subtitles

Since time immemorial, animals have roamed this planet.

Seasons have determined the ebb and flow of life

and death.

Hunger has dominated the tension between the hunters

and the hunted.

In Africa, the big cats clawed their way to the top of the food chain.

Every hunt is a deadly execution of power, stealth, and speed.

AFRICA'S DEADLIEST

Cheetah, the most successful hunter of all Africa's big cats.

Her slender, lightweight body wraps around a long and flexible spine.

With telescopic vision, she can spot prey from as far as three miles.

And in a sprint, she can outrun every animal on this savanna.

This is her kitchen.

Herds of migrating wildebeest.

And when they can't walk, she can't resist.

Within minutes, this newborn wildebeest calf can stand.

In less than half an hour, it will run.

It has to.

To go from zero to 60 miles per hour in three seconds

comes from a heart and lungs that are, relative to size,

three times larger than a lion's.

At top speed, this cheetah covers 22 feet with every stride.

This female can't afford to fail.

Today she's eating for four.

Now that she's got cubs, her food intake doubles.

She needs to make a kill a day in order to produce protein-rich milk.

Her offspring rely on it.

At one and a half months, the cubs follow her into the hunting field.

When they're a bit older, they stalk, chase, and wrestle.

Preparation for the hunt.

By the age of two, they're on their own.

Still wet behind the ears.

To survive, they need at least eight pounds of meat a day.

And mother's not around to serve meals.

As a trio, they stand a far better chance of pulling off a successful hunt.

But the firstborn is adventurous.

And he finds himself alone in no-man's-land.

His younger brothers are left to fend for themselves.

An unknown future awaits them all.

As rookies, they have huge expectations but little experience.

But hunger is a strong driving force.

At top speed, he covers over 91 feet in one second.

But if he doesn't trip up his prey within 60 seconds,

he's likely to lose this meal.

He is genetically designed for short bursts of speed.

After about 320 yards, he runs out of steam.

The two young brothers should have better luck.

They, too, are desperately hungry.

Together they can eat 73 pounds in one sitting.

A 500-pound kudu is a windfall.

One brother launches the attack.

His sibling covers the right flank.

But the long grass hampers his speed.

All their efforts come to naught.

Less than two miles away, the older brother tracks down his dinner.

He scans the horizon

and spots a weak link in the herd.

He will stalk his prey for an hour if need be.

This part his mother taught him.

Crush the windpipe before the victim makes a sound.

A bleating animal could draw unwanted attention.

Back in the east, the two brothers stake out new hunting grounds.

Land grabbing stirs their appetite.

Luckily, dinner with a limp walks by.

An injured impala should be a walkover.

Their first successful takedown.

But their victory is short-lived.

This hyena is hungry and could easily steal the kill from the brothers.

But he plays a watch-and-wait game until it's dark.

By sunset, it's all his.

In the west, the older brother also has little peace.

A pride of lions is on his case.

He's not on their menu, but they will kill him simply to eliminate competition.

In open areas like this, predators like lions and hyena

kill up to 70% of cheetah cubs.

By morning, he turns back east.

Unlike lions, cheetahs can't roar.

Instead, they chirrup.

He's calling his brothers.

For days he patrols the eastern boundaries.

He visits water holes.

And crosses ravines.

And then, finally, a familiar scent.

While female cheetahs lead solitary lives,

a brotherly bond can last a lifetime.

This reunion is a happy one.

As a coalition, they'll be able to target bigger prey.

Their first joint hunting expedition is a bit clumsy.

But in time, they will polish their skills,

learn each other's strengths, and gain experience.

Unlike lions, cheetahs rarely squabble over food.

Each brother gets his fair share.

As the sun sets, they will seek out a refuge for the night.

Cheetahs can't see as well as other cats in the dark.

This makes them vulnerable to hyenas and lions, as well as leopards.

Beneath the beautiful coat of this female leopard lurks a silent killer.

She's about the same weight as an adult male cheetah.

But she's got sharper claws.

Unlike lions that team up to take down prey,

she's a solo killing machine.

She's also capable of hunting prey twice her weight.

A fish eagle returns to its nest to find an unlikely intruder.

It's the female.

She's one of Africa's strongest climbers,

dragging prey much larger than her into the branches.

And she's a killer on the ground.

Her mottled coat makes her blend in.

This is her specialty.

Ambush.

Today she bites off more than she can chew.

An injury could be a death sentence for a leopard.

If she can't hunt, she'll either scavenge or die.

But then luck turns her way.

It's the three cheetah brothers.

They've just taken down a duiker.

The odds are not in her favor.

But she's not intimidated.

The coalition cracks.

The remaining two seem unsure.

One brother left.

He's not sticking around.

The leopard gets her meal.

But before she can take a bite, she's outranked.

She's got less than five seconds to make a plan.

She leaps into the safety of the tree.

But this lioness will kill for a fresh carcass.

But the branches won't hold her 400 pounds.

She settles for something that dropped down.

It's a fetus.

The antelope was pregnant.

In peace, the female digs in.

But it's the calm before the storm.

This male weighs almost twice as much as the young lioness.

He wouldn't dare.

Just in case, the leopard climbs even higher.

The branches are thinner here.

If she falls, the males will kill her.

But not today.

In the contest between some of the deadliest cats in Africa,

the leopard keeps her trophy this time.

At night, she continues her good run.

And her senses kick into high gear.

Her eyes scan the darkness for movement.

Extra light-sensitive cells in her retinas enhance her night vision.

Her ears pick up the faintest rustle in the grass.

Her stiff whiskers act like probing fingers in the dark.

But it's her sleuth-like intelligence and mastery of surprise

that makes her such a successful hunter.

At the age of two and a half, she becomes sexually receptive.

When a male crosses into her territory,

he picks up a smell in her urine that tells him she's ready to mate.

But unlike humans, she needs to be stimulated to kick-start ovulation.

The mating ritual of leopards reveals a lot about the secret lives

of one of Africa's deadliest cats.

For the next five days, she will mate every five minutes.

That's about 250 times.

The male's genitals have more than 100 tiny hooks on it

that rake her insides as he withdraws.

This painful scraping triggers the release of eggs in her ovaries.

But her real trouble begins when a second male shows up.

When a female leopard in heat

stumbles into the overlapping territory of two males,

one would expect the fur to fly.

But it doesn't.

It's a father and son.

Very unusual.

They should be fighting for the right to mate with her.

But they don't.

This behavior has rarely been filmed.

The son watches as his father copulates.

And then they swap.

The female, of course, has a hidden agenda.

Male leopards will typically kill cubs that are not their own.

So she mates with both males to maximize the survival of her offspring.

This continues for days.

But that night, her plan backfires.

It's the young male's turn, but something goes wrong.

The aggression could be caused by exhaustion, inexperience,

or having Dad around.

Her life is in real danger.

The young male can be up to two times her weight.

He could kill her.

She escapes with a few minor scratches.

Three months later, two cubs open their eyes.

At the first sign of danger, she moves them to a new den.

The two territorial males won't kill her offspring

because both of them will think they're the father.

Silent stalking isn't just for leopards.

African wildcats are masters at catching prey.

She's got the same acute sense of hearing that all cats share.

Both ears swivel independently to scan for audio clues and danger.

At night, her eyesight is six times better than ours.

You won't often see African wildcats during the day.

They're shy and elusive.

But on a hunt, this cat is as good as a leopard or cheetah.

She walks on tiptoes, ready to unleash her secret weapon.

A powerful jump.

This cat weighs between 10 and 18 pounds.

And yet she can leap six feet into the air.

Her spine is so supple that she can twist her body 180 degrees

and still land on her feet.

She can even survive without water.

Her prey's blood satisfies her liquid requirements.

But despite these survival skills, her life is in jeopardy.

A tawny eagle spots a potential dinner.

The cat is nearly two times heavier than the bird.

But this raptor has a wingspan of almost five feet.

In this deadly game of survival, size does matter.

In full flight, the wildcat clocks 30 miles per hour.

Moments later, she disappears into the dry landscape.

Frazzled but not fazed.

To top that, another feline jumps even higher than African wildcats.

And when it does, every law that determines gravity is null and void.

Caracal.

Born with an arsenal of weaponry including razor-sharp claws.

Super-long ears that locate the faintest movement of prey.

And long, powerful legs.

It's the only small cat in Africa to hunt prey three times larger than itself.

Guinea fowl is a regular meal.

They're skittish birds, always on the lookout for danger.

Like lions, caracals carry most of their power in their legs.

They can launch their 40-pound bodies 10 feet into the air.

At an air force base in South Africa, guinea fowl are a real problem.

They frequently fly into the turbines.

Until someone had the bright idea to let caracals take over traffic control.

A mating pair and their three kittens

are given a quick tour and an induction course.

Their best-selling feature is that they kill more birds than they can eat.

Sometimes as many as 10 or 12 birds at a time.

And that's exactly what pilots want to hear.

The guinea fowl problem at the air base is still being managed in this unique way.

It's their killer instinct that makes caracals such effective runway marshals.

These three young lions were born with the same instinct,

but they don't know what to do with it.

They still prefer to play while Mom does the hunting.

Soft padding underneath her paws muffles the sound as she calculates her next move.

As she gets closer, she measures the distance between her and her target.

Her strike zone is 100 feet.

She accelerates to 36 miles per hour.

And then 570 pounds of muscle and teeth plow into flesh.

With a bite almost five times stronger than ours, she suffocates her quarry.

The wildebeest goes into shock.

All feeling is numbed.

Try as they may, the hunting skills of the three juveniles pale in comparison.

They've got ambition but no plan of action.

They have no idea how to pull down something as big as a giraffe.

Or what to do with something as small and spiky as a porcupine.

The only thing they do know is that they won't go hungry

if they tail along after the females.

But every time they join the hunt, it ends in disaster.

They either make too much noise or they charge too soon.

Their lack of experience puts the entire pride at risk.

They are three years old,

the age when young males are normally kicked out of the pride.

With so much testosterone, it's a job for the fathers.

But the two pride males are out patrolling the borders of their territory.

And while the bosses are away, the unruly sons throw their weight around.

This pride is three times the size of a normal one.

Apart from the three juveniles, there are 23 mouths to feed.

And to do that, these deadly cats team up

to form one of the most coordinated hunting units in the wild.

Ambush is their attack strategy.

Two lionesses break off to cover the flanks.

The others lie in wait.

Their job is to cut off any escape routes.

She spooks, then chases the prey.

It's a role she performs on most hunts.

And tonight there's plenty of backup.

There's only one drawback of a big pride.

Food always seems to disappear so quickly.

Mature lions and subadults can eat as much as 60 pounds of meat in one sitting.

They're nearly two wildebeest short.

These three young males bully the females and the younger cubs off the carcass.

And with every meal, they're becoming more aggressive.

Their rough-and-tumble days are amping up.

Now they turn on each other.

Every kill triggers a stampede.

And every carcass, a fight.

There is an even bigger threat.

The raunchy teenagers are beginning to show interest in the pride females.

They're treading on dangerous ground.

Mating rights belong to their fathers.

While the pride males are away,

the females continue to struggle to provide.

But despite all their efforts, the smaller pride members go hungry.

In a feeble attempt to feed himself, one of the juveniles makes his first kill.

It's an impala calf.

And he's not going anywhere.

As if they know there's trouble at home,

the two dominant males return that very same night.

And it's not a moment too soon.

Their duty is to protect the pride from hostile takeovers.

In return, the females sacrifice their kills.

The three juveniles are less sure what to do.

Having the pride males around is intimidating.

With the two heavyweights back in the ring,

it is now possible to target much bigger prey.

One of these Cape buffalos is four times heavier than a fully grown lion.

Toppling nearly 2,200 pounds of bone and flesh is no mean feat.

It demands teamwork.

The plan is to tire the buffalo out.

And so the pride surrounds him,

and the lions take turn nipping in for a bite or a swipe.

Despite the assault, the buffalo makes a heroic stand.

One of these deadly cats finally seals the deal.

Under the combined weight of the lions, the buffalo buckles.

And a female delivers the death bite.

This is when the three teenagers let their masks slip.

With all that meat under their noses,

they fall back into their aggressive behavior.

And they forget that there's a pecking order.

And the dads will have none of it.

Tonight, the fathers perform one more duty.

They evict their sons from the pride.

As outcasts, the destiny of these three subadults is unclear.

If only they could take a few tips from a distant relative

who is out hunting this very moment.

Majestic and graceful.

Widely distributed but rarely seen.

It's a serval.

Relative to body size, the serval has the longest legs

and the biggest ears of any cat in Africa.

It suits her hunting style.

With her long legs, she can pounce as far as 13 feet.

And leap 10 feet vertically in the air.

On the hunting grounds, patience is another vital skill.

Servals are known to sit with their eyes closed for up to 15 minutes.

And do nothing but listen.

Her long, oval-shaped ears operate like satellite dishes.

She can pick up ultrasonic high-frequency sounds of a rodent burrowing underground.

The only fighting chance a rodent might have would be a windy day,

which would impair the serval's listening abilities.

Unfortunately for this rodent, today is dead calm.

This cat also goes by the name of the "Savanna Stalker."

She's so well-camouflaged that in tall grass, she goes undetected.

At 24 pounds, this cat can leap three times her body length.

The long grass is not an obstacle for this cat.

She scares the rodent out of hiding.

Finally, a full-body pounce, and dinner is served.

Lions and leopards have a hunting success rate of 10% to 30%.

The serval's impressive 50% puts her on par with cheetahs.

Gazelle aren't normally on the serval's menu,

but this feisty cat is not intimidated.

She's punching six times above her own weight class.

She's in the wrong ring, and hiding won't help.

As always, she lands on her feet.

In darkness, she changes tactics.

A nighttime snack will do.

Something easier to catch and more size-appropriate.

Her large ears scan a 180-degree radius and pick out prey.

She finds the rodent in no time.

But like all cats,

she can't resist the urge to play with her food before the feast.

Stealth is the hallmark of all cats in Africa.

They're the silent snipers of the wild.

And when they strike, they do so with speed, power, and deadly accuracy.

[TRANSLATOR CREDIT]

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