Original subtitles

Teeth and claws.

Speed and cunning.

Nature provides their power.

Equipping them for the tools to survive.

With the weapons to endure.

They are the masters of their game.

They are Africa's Deadliest.

AFRICA'S DEADLIEST

Off the coast of South Africa,

a transient orca.

But she's not alone.

She's with her family, a pod.

And today, like most days, they'll swim up to a hundred miles looking for food.

They chatter in a unique dialect

that's practically gibberish to other pods.

Right now, their focus is on what lies ahead.

Their roving puts them on a collision course

with the world's largest toothed whale

surfacing for air with her calf.

The sperm whales are bigger than a school bus.

And no animal ever found has a larger brain.

But that doesn't always help.

Whalers in the 18th and 19th centuries hunted sperm whales for lamp oil.

Today, these leviathans face a more ancient foe.

The ravenous orcas are hungry enough to literally eat a whale.

Like a wolf pack,

they single one out.

Sperm whales can dive deeper than any other whale.

But not faster than the orcas.

Especially with a calf in tow.

Instead of speed, the sperm whales, the loudest animals on Earth,

blast their assailants with underwater clicks louder than a rifle shot.

The racket convinces the orcas to chase easier prey.

This miles-long oil slick is a good place to start.

Multimillions of sardines form one of the largest migrations on the planet.

Highly social common dolphins come to feast.

Chatting in high-pitch tones at hundreds of clicks per second.

Dolphins can swim almost 30 miles per hour.

Orcas, even faster.

And they're not after sardines.

Usually communicating with each other,

today, they stay silent as death

to hunt dolphins.

The huge pod of dolphins can outmaneuver the attacking orcas,

but they won't all escape.

Each orca eats about a hundred pounds of food a day.

Mammals, birds, and sharks.

The dolphins scatter, so the pirates press ahead.

Conserving their strength until they reach their next meal stop.

Crozet Island,

where half a million pairs of king penguins

aren't exactly waiting for them with open arms.

Male or female, it's good to be king.

These rulers are about as tall as a yardstick.

The world's second-largest penguins live in a mostly peaceable kingdom,

where they hobnob and choose an annual mate.

And when they're hungry, they fish.

Though today, that might not be such a good idea.

Here come the orcas.

And they're even hungrier.

Penguin Island is under siege.

The orcas have marauded across 1,500 miles of ocean so far,

confronting giant whales, agile dolphins,

and now, unsuspecting king penguins.

The birds face a choice.

They're safe as long as they're on the island.

But they need to eat.

Which means they need to fish.

The orcas need to eat, too, but they don't eat fish.

The killer whale looks like he's fumbled his catch,

but orcas sometimes play with their food.

He knows he'll get enough to eat.

The well-fed whales will swim back to the coast of Africa.

The males will split up to mate with members of other pods,

but they'll be back.

While orcas ply the wide ocean,

southern Africa's sea of grasses provide wildebeest with tender shoots.

These natural lawn mowers are crucial prey for many savanna predators.

Like this clan of spotted hyenas.

One of Africa's tightest cliques.

This young male left his birth clan, as all adult males do.

He's joining his new clan on the bottom rung of the social ladder.

So-called laughing hyenas have one of the strongest bites on the planet,

and they'll haze this newbie without mercy.

He'll rise in rank only if another member dies or leaves the clan.

Months later, he's settled in, but he still sometimes travels alone.

Despite his canine looks, he's more closely related to a cat than a dog.

And though he has a reputation as a scavenger, he's a hunter.

He's Africa's second-largest carnivore after his archrival, the lion.

Their territories overlap.

And so does their prey.

Which can make the big savanna feel a little overcrowded.

Especially if you're a wildebeest.

With a lion on the job, the hyena doesn't need his clan to bag big prey.

The lion disagrees.

The hyena, who can devour bones, fur, everything but horns,

will wait his turn...

and still find enough to eat.

A lone lion makes a kill only about one out of six tries,

so she's not in a sharing mood.

But everybody wins, except the wildebeest.

This season, there's no shortage of wildebeest on the plains.

Or big cats skilled at taking them down.

And a hyena who thinks stealing from rivals is his ticket to success.

He's about to find out it isn't.

One lone hyena saunters into the lions' den.

He's after an easy meal of fresh wildebeest.

Lions and hyenas are like rival gangs vying for turf.

A single hyena isn't an immediate threat,

but he's still the enemy.

And one hyena is one too many.

The thieving hyena sees the lions as a catering service.

But he's biting off more than he can chew.

If you taunt the kitty, you're bound to get scratched.

Sometimes violence is a last resort, but sometimes it's the whole point.

In the dense forests of Gabon, a community of chimps enjoys hanging out.

Each community has its own turf.

These chimps make bonds, break bonds, come and go from the troop.

The alpha male, the chief chimp in charge,

keeps order like a frontier sheriff.

His group can be social, kind, or alarmingly brutal.

Right now, the chief is itching for action.

He gathers some henchmen.

For reasons clear only to the chimps,

the chief feels it's time to prove his power

by staging a raid,

without any provocation.

In another part of the forest, where all is calm and peaceful,

a small family of chimps relaxes in a glade.

They groom each other to strengthen their bond.

They don't know what brings the neighboring chief

to this neck of the woods.

Until it's all too clear.

Without warning, he attacks,

forcing the family to fight for its life.

In an instant, a peaceful afternoon shatters into violence.

And just as fast as it began,

it's over.

The invaders regroup before heading home.

They leave bloodied.

Chimps spontaneously invade neighboring troops.

Apparently, to prove their dominance.

Even females aren't spared the violence.

In fact, they're often the targets.

Once it's done, it's as if it never happened.

Except for the bloodshed.

Injury is one thing.

Killing a rival is another.

On the Okavango Delta, where the parched Kalahari Desert swallows an entire river,

this great, flat wilderness supports some of Africa's most diverse wildlife.

These plains zebras live in harems.

Several mares to one dominant stallion.

Today, that stallion's about to face a challenger.

Zebras may look like peaceful, identical grazers,

but if a zebra crosses a line, there can be hell to pay.

Zebra stripes are like personal bar codes they use to recognize each other.

Today, the herd knows there's a stranger among them.

Stripes can also be good for their health.

Compared to solid-colored animals,

the bold pattern can lower a zebra's surface temperature

by more than five degrees.

Zebras in cooler parts of Africa have wider stripes

than zebras closer to the equator.

And disease-carrying horseflies seem repelled by stripes.

But bug bites aren't what have these zebras hot and bothered.

It's mating time,

and an intruding stallion's wooing a mare with some gentle necking.

But not if the dominant male can help it.

The upstart doesn't back down.

The fight is on.

Winner takes all.

One kick can shatter a lion's jaw,

and they're not pulling any punches today.

Victory to the chief.

The dominant stallion must beat every challenger to retain his title.

If posturing or pushing isn't enough, the violence escalates.

Male zebras have spade-sharp teeth

and can bite off each other's tails in battle.

But a bite to the flank can end the fight faster.

It's a high-stakes gamble that leaves the challenger lame.

And lame often becomes lunch.

The victor keeps his title as alpha stallion.

He'll continue to pass his genes to the next generation.

At least until the next challenge.

Dominance is hard-won for animals of all sizes.

African elephants, the world's largest land mammal,

never stops growing.

And they never stay in one place very long.

To survive, elephants pay attention to two seasons.

Rainy season, for their thirsty herds.

And mating season, for those other needs.

Which, today, a big bull hopes to satisfy.

He'll have to get in line.

Because another fellow's already called dibs on mating with this herd.

So now the challenger, amped up on 50 times his normal testosterone level,

has to prove he's the best bull for the job.

No one can throw his weight around

like a five-ton bull elephant with raging hormones.

Except another bull elephant.

But his smaller rival in the fight for mating rights gets the message.

He backs down, possibly saving his life.

But losing everything else.

The herd will move on without him, his urges unsatisfied.

Male elephants flare into musth.

Their testosterone soars, along with their rage.

And they can stay that way for months.

For the losing bull, the game's not over.

He finds another bull similar in size, so it's game on.

There's only one way to determine who's the boss.

Armed with a 260-pound pair of tusks,

an enraged bull can pierce and flip a car.

And these gladiators mean business.

But this is a contest of dominance, not a death match.

At some point, someone cries uncle and the winner is declared.

For some, success is more like a popularity contest.

Mile-high, in the mountains of Ethiopia,

gelada baboons dwell in the cliffs and grasses.

Of all the world's primates, only humans climb less.

This family of several mothers and their babies belong to a harem.

United by this big male.

At least for now.

If he fails to satisfy them, he's out of the picture.

Many primates flash their red behinds to signal sexual interest.

But geladas mainly sit on their assets.

So, they flaunt their butt-shaped chests instead.

The harem moves like minesweepers, plucking grass, their main food source.

They form a community picnic of up to 600.

Roots and tubers add some excitement to the alpha male's routine,

but he's about to get more excitement than he expected.

This younger male dares to challenge him.

And a female eggs him on.

Divorce, gelada style.

With no fanfare, the harem shifts its alliance to the virile young contender.

The split is seldom amicable.

When the male tries to return, his replacement's ready to rumble.

Testosterone, bravado, and rock-star hair.

When the older gelada's exhausted, the fight's over.

He'll join a band of other bachelors.

And might even start fresh with new wives.

Even if he loses the fight, his harem might decide to keep him anyway

and toss out the new guy.

Up here, it's always ladies' choice.

Miles away and far below.

The female inhabitants of this small island

have little use for males, aside from breeding.

Each year, thousands of fur seals give birth to a new generation

off the coast of South Africa.

After spending their first few weeks on the island,

the young seals are ready to hit the water.

And their mothers are ready to mate again.

After they've filled their bellies.

So, they seek out bait balls. Dense and shimmering schools of sardines.

But some young seals have other culinary ideas.

But not far from Seal Island,

Bird Island.

A squawking rookery for Cape gannets.

Expert fishers in their own right.

Every two or three years, male and female gannets build a nest

and raise a single chick,

which outweighs its parents eight weeks after hatching.

The baby fat gives the chicks the reserves to live about 10 days without eating.

With their five-foot wingspan, the grownups make flying look easy.

But it's going to take some practice.

Lots of practice.

While the eager fledglings learn to sink or swim,

the adults go fishing.

Dropping into the bait ball from three stories up,

they join the seals for a bite.

A thick skull and air sacs on their faces brace them

for a 60-mile-per-hour impact.

This fledgling's already mastered it.

The birds maintain their barrage until they're full.

Back on Bird Island, not much progress.

The youngsters are determined, alone and defenseless.

The ones in the water are in the greatest danger.

The lucky ones find a chance to catch their breath.

Others get whipped around like corks.

And the tide's taking a turn.

Some young male seals realize

there's more to life than chasing tiny sardines.

Young gannets, fat and flightless.

By ordering off the menu,

the voracious seals can pose a real threat to some bird colonies.

Whether it's a hungry predator or a rival for rank,

every animal faces its own particular nemesis.

And in every case, brains, brawn, and instinct declare

who is Africa's deadliest.

[TRANSLATOR CREDIT]

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