[narrator] This is The Americas,
an extraordinary journey across Earth's great supercontinent.
The widest variety of life on the planet.
The untold story...
[squeals]
...of our home.
[epic orchestral music playing]
Tonight on The Americas...
The Caribbean.
[soaring orchestral music playing]
The tropical paradise
at the heart
of the supercontinent.
[soaring orchestral music continues]
This is a voyage
across sparkling, deep seas,
colorful shallows,
and far-flung exotic islands,
all revealing hidden natural treasures.
[soaring orchestral music continues]
But in paradise,
the stakes are high...
in deadly battles.
[bubbling]
Temperatures are searingly hot,
and nature's fury
is never far away.
[crackling]
How can island castaways
unlock the riches
of this sun-drenched world?
[choral music playing]
[orchestral music playing].
The Caribbean spans more than a million square miles.
It's fringed to the east by a chain of volcanic islands.
[orchestral music continues]
To the north...
by Cuba and the Bahamas.
And to the west...
by Central America.
But our journey begins...
[orchestral music continues]
...on the high seas.
[orchestral music fading]
It's a world of dazzling sapphire blue.
[slow ethereal music playing]
[timber creaking]
In these crystal-clear waters,
life must be on its guard.
A shoal of Spanish sardines
feeding on microscopic plankton.
An irresistible opportunity
for a sailfish.
[suspenseful music playing]
A pirate of the Caribbean.
[dramatic music playing]
With a streamlined body
and a bill like a rapier,
sailfish are perfectly honed
for hunting in these open waters.
[energetic music playing]
Time for the sardines to swim for their lives.
[energetic music continues]
Sailfish have speed and endurance,
but the sardines are more nimble.
[energetic music continues]
With the tightly-packed shoal moving as one,
it's near impossible to pick out a victim.
[thrilling music playing]
When some make a break for the safety of the depths...
[thrilling music continues]
...the sailfish drive them back to the surface
into a trap.
Blockers pin them from beneath.
[seagulls squawking]
While flankers raise their sails,
cutting off any escape route.
[dramatic music playing]
None of the hunters want to risk being skewered,
so they use a surprising tactic.
A sailfish can change colors.
This flash of stripes along the flank
is a sign to others to hold back
when he charges in.
[dramatic music continues]
Eventually, the relentless attack splinters the shoal.
The moment the sailfish have been waiting for.
[dramatic music continues]
In the final charge,
his bill becomes a weapon,
slashing through the shoal,
inflicting injury.
[suspenseful music playing]
Or picking out a single victim
with lethal precision.
[stirring music playing]
[light music playing]
The sailfish may have claimed their prize,
but the Caribbean Sea holds fortunes
these fish never reach.
[waves lapping]
Its deepest waters
are the hunting ground for the planet's largest predators...
sperm whales.
[whales clicking]
Exactly how they hunt
has long been one of the great wildlife mysteries.
Until now.
[birds calling]
The volcanic island of Dominica lies to the far east of the Caribbean.
It's shrouded in rainforest.
[birds calling]
And surrounded by mile-deep seas.
They're the perfect home...
[whale spout blasts]
...for one of the world's biggest babies,
a sperm whale calf.
This young male is barely six months old,
- but he already weighs two tons. - [clicking]
[clicking continues]
Below...
sleeping giants.
[stirring music playing]
Mom and the rest of the family
are taking a nap.
Their huge heads act like corks,
keeping them upright.
[stirring music continues]
But Mom always keeps
half an eye on her calf.
[whale clicking]
[clicking continues]
Baby sperm whales need to drink a bathful of milk a day.
[whales clicking]
But before he can suckle,
Mom must have a meal herself.
[clicking]
Sperm whales hunt their prey
in the great depths of the Caribbean Sea,
but exactly how
has long been a mystery.
[bursts]
[suspenseful music playing]
To investigate,
our team spent two years developing
a groundbreaking camera system.
The camera is harmlessly attached using suction
by scientists.
[bursts]
Now, we can get a whale's eye view
as they dive
into the abyss.
[dramatic music playing]
[whale clicking]
A calf can't hold its breath for long enough to reach the depths,
so it must wait at the surface.
[clicking]
[soft expressive music playing]
In a world first,
the camera follows these adults
as they begin their dive together.
[whales clicking]
And as they descend,
it also eavesdrops on their secret conversations.
[whales clicking]
A thousand feet down
in the twilight zone,
the whales separate to hunt alone.
[suspenseful music playing]
Her destination is the seabed,
2,500 feet down.
A place no natural light can reach.
[suspenseful music continues]
She's here to hunt squid.
And uses sound to find them in the darkness.
[whale clicking]
Each click she makes is louder than a gunshot.
It echoes off any prey within half a mile.
[steady clicking]
[rapid clicking]
She's locked on.
[buzzing]
[loud crack]
Got it.
A cloud of squid ink is all that's left of her prey.
[dramatic music playing]
A sperm whale can devour a hundred pounds of squid
on a single dive.
[soft dramatic music playing]
On the surface, her hungry calf has been waiting for nearly an hour.
[placid music playing]
When you're this young, time can really drag.
[placid music continues]
[whales clicking]
Finally, the adults are on their way back to the surface.
[whales clicking]
A calf can hear his mom's clicks below him.
His calls and tail slaps help her home in.
[whales whistling, clicking]
[whale clicking]
[gentle music playing]
And now, it's time to suckle.
Sperm whale milk is over 30 percent fat,
so it doesn't dissolve in water.
[slow serene music playing]
Calves feed like this a handful of times a day.
[serene music continues]
Blissfully unaware of the lengths and depths
their moms have gone to.
[serene music fades]
The sperm whales' open ocean world makes up 95 percent of the Caribbean.
But it's in the sunlit shallows where most life is found.
[slow stately music playing]
A world of colorful coral cities
and secret underwater nurseries.
And this is a destination
for a lemon shark,
one that's about to face
the most important moment of her life.
[delicate music playing]
The shallow waters of the Caribbean are perhaps the most beautiful.
[delicate music continues]
Coral reefs
are like a bustling underwater city.
[animated music playing]
They are home to thousands of species.
Though today, it's only a handful of protected reefs
that still truly thrive.
[animated music fading]
Surprisingly, the Caribbean's richest reefs
are found alongside a mysterious world.
[stately music playing]
And it's here that many of the reef's inhabitants
begin life.
These are the mangrove forests.
A quarter of the Caribbean's mangroves are found on its northern fringes...
In the Bahamas.
[gentle music playing]
This female lemon shark is making a special journey,
back to the very same bay in which she was born.
She's heavily pregnant.
And now, as close as possible to the edge of the mangroves,
it's time to give birth.
Two perfectly formed
tiny sharks.
[gentle music continues]
This pup will never see Mom again,
because where he's going,
no adult can follow.
His new home will be deep amongst the mangroves.
[soft music playing]
The mesh of underwater roots
keeps larger predators out.
[light suspenseful music playing]
So it's the safest place in the whole Caribbean
for a young lemon shark to grow up.
[birds chirping]
As he picks his way through this twisted maze...
[light suspenseful music playing]
...he's heading to a secret lagoon at its heart.
[graceful music playing]
Although it's full of fish,
newborn sharks
aren't very good at catching them.
[fanciful musical flourish playing]
You might not think it,
but young sharks
have to practice.
[playful music playing]
And practice.
He's definitely going to need help.
And for that, lemon shark pups do something remarkable.
[sedate music playing]
They make friends.
Scientists have discovered that a young pup learns quicker
by hanging out with more experienced sharks.
[sedate music continues]
It's a kind of shark school,
where he can hone his technique as he grows up.
The older sharks have learned it's best to hunt
amongst the mangrove roots.
[sprightly music playing]
And over time,
the young pup eventually catches on.
[adventurous music playing]
Got one.
He's graduated.
[birds trilling]
There are over 7,000 islands in the Caribbean.
[elegant music playing]
Each a slice of paradise.
[seagulls calling]
And every one...
different.
[animals calling]
Where life plays out
in its own way.
[waves splashing]
Away from the crowds,
every island also has its own unique
and extraordinary wildlife.
[soft music playing]
From tiny...
to giant.
[squawking]
And the Caribbean island with the most spectacular wildlife...
is Cuba.
[light rhythmic music playing]
Eight hundred miles long and a hundred wide.
[light rhythmic music continues]
Deep in the forest,
life is on the move.
[jazzy rhythmic music playing]
The start of the strangest animal migration
anywhere in the Americas.
[car engine rumbling]
[insects chirping]
[birds calling]
The lowland forest of Cuba...
[soft dramatic music playing]
...is the land
of the red...
crab.
[soft spirited music playing]
For most of the year,
these land crabs
live underground.
But it's now the mating season.
[soft spirited music playing]
The females
need to find a male,
head to the sea,
and lay their eggs.
And to do that,
they must start an epic,
six-mile journey.
[spirited music continues]
Around ten million crabs
are on the march.
[spirited music rises]
Only one thing stops them.
[dramatic music playing]
The intense heat of the midday sun
- can bake a crab... - [fly buzzes]
...to death.
So every traveler needs to find shade...
fast.
[ominous music playing]
[light rhythmic music playing]
In Cuba,
siestas...
save lives.
[light rhythmic music continues]
But as the day cools off,
a female crab's mind
turns to more romantic matters.
And here,
at the edge of the forest,
males have been waiting for this very moment.
[sultry jazz music playing]
In a tight embrace, they mate.
[sultry jazz music continues]
Now, she retreats into his burrow
to let her brood develop.
[soft dramatic music playing]
Fourteen days later, she resumes her journey.
Now with 80,000 eggs cradled under her shell.
[soft upbeat music playing]
She's only a few hundred feet from the sea,
but the biggest danger is still to come.
[car horn honking]
[ominous music playing]
The coastal highway.
Out here, a crab must be on her toes.
[tense music playing]
Giants.
[upbeat music playing]
And nowadays,
they're frighteningly quick.
Look out!
[car engine rumbling]
A crab can see danger coming,
but for many...
[tense music playing]
[shell crunches]
That's just not enough.
[dramatic music playing]
[upbeat music playing]
It takes split-second timing...
[car engine rumbling]
...and a bit of luck.
That was close.
[gentle music playing]
After all that, the warm Caribbean Sea awaits.
[gentle music playing]
It is a little crowded on this beach.
[waves lapping]
But she's found a good spot.
And with a little shimmy, finally,
she releases her precious cargo of eggs
into the sea.
And with her job done,
now she can return to the safety of her forest home.
But in the Caribbean, safety can never be guaranteed.
[thunder crackling]
At the end of summer,
when sea temperatures are at their highest,
storm clouds are born.
[thunder rumbling]
[dramatic music playing]
They feed on warm, moist air from the ocean.
[dramatic music continues]
Growing and growing...
[thunder rumbling]
...until they tower six miles into the sky.
The larger a storm cloud,
the more powerful the winds.
And as they approach 80 miles an hour,
a storm...
becomes a hurricane.
[dramatic music continues]
Up to 500 miles across,
these colossal weather systems track west
with the trade winds.
The Caribbean's islands are right in the firing line.
[dramatic music intensifies]
[thunder crackling]
[thunder rumbling]
Of all the natural forces in the Americas,
a hurricane is the most devastating.
[thunderous crashing]
[wind roaring]
[wind howling]
Two-hundred-mile-an-hour winds destroy almost everything in their path.
[branches snapping]
[wind howling]
In some years,
the Caribbean's islands are hit by as many as four deadly hurricanes.
[wind whistling]
The most powerful strip the land bare.
[soft dramatic music playing]
But all is not lost.
[light dramatic music playing]
Caribbean plants have evolved
to bounce back after the destruction.
In a warm, moist climate,
new shoots can grow up to seven inches a day.
[light dramatic music playing]
In just a few months, entire forests start to green up.
[birds chirping]
But what about the wildlife
on these islands?
[calling]
When Hurricane Maria hit Dominica,
three-quarters of all purple-throated carib hummingbirds died.
In the aftermath,
their food, nectar-rich flowers, were scarce.
So the survivors had their work cut out.
[whimsical music playing]
[wings thrumming]
This male must patrol an area the size
of five football fields
trying to find enough.
[carib chirping]
A tiring commute
until, at last,
one miracle plant comes into flower.
[wings thrumming]
[light upbeat music playing]
The heliconia gives a hungry hummingbird
all the nectar he needs.
[wings flapping]
[upbeat music playing]
[wings thrumming]
[chirping]
But there's one thing still missing.
A mate.
[gentle music playing]
Luckily,
these blooms are a magnet to female caribs.
[wings thrumming]
[gentle music continues]
The trouble is,
it's the same for less-welcome visitors.
[tense music playing]
[bird chirping]
Nectar thieves...
like bananaquits.
[wings flapping]
And even worse, a real heavyweight,
- [chirps] - an Antillean bullfinch.
[birds chirping]
To get to the nectar,
this vandal rips out the heart of the flower.
[brazen music playing]
And a flower without nectar
will never attract him a mate.
So he must fight off these feathered felons...
[birds chirping]
...with everything he's got.
[dramatic music playing]
[bananaquit chirps]
[dramatic music continues]
For a lonely male,
finding love on this island
might take time.
After the hurricane,
there were very few of his kind left.
[chirping]
[wings thrumming]
Could it be?
Yes, a female...
[stirring music playing]
...inspecting his heliconias.
She likes the flowers.
[gentle music playing]
She likes the nectar.
But what about him?
[wings thrumming]
[chirps]
Now, he's got to shine.
[wings thrumming]
[soaring music playing]
Don't blow it, big fella.
[chirping]
She likes his moves.
[soaring music continues]
Success.
But he's not done yet.
To mate with as many females as possible,
he's gonna have to defend
his flowers...
[wings flapping]
...day after day.
From dawn...
till dusk.
[dramatic music playing]
Life on Caribbean islands isn't ever straightforward.
But on one of the most isolated tropical islands of the Americas,
survival relies not so much on hard work,
but on extraordinary levels of ingenuity.
[stately music playing]
Isla Jicarón,
40 miles off the western shore of Panama.
[waves crashing]
On such a small and remote island,
food is limited.
And worse, there's nowhere to go when it runs out.
And yet, somehow, life still clings on.
[light mysterious music playing]
Castaways.
White-faced capuchins.
[peaceful music playing]
[chatters softly]
[chitters, murmurs]
[chatters softly]
These two young males spend their days scouring the coast
for anything they can find.
[peaceful music continues]
On a desert island,
opportunity can come from unlikely places.
[suspenseful music playing]
A sea almond.
[suspenseful whimsical music playing]
[capuchin chitters]
The nut inside is full of delicious fat.
[capuchin chittering]
But it's protected by a sturdy shell.
[resolute music playing]
- [chatters] - And getting into it
is frustratingly hard.
To solve this puzzle,
a young monkey might need some inspiration.
For that, he must head across the forest...
to a crystal-clear stream.
- [birds chirping] - [faint trickling]
An occasional hangout for older
and wiser capuchins.
[whizzes]
The adults have worked out that the trees here
are particularly fruitful
and the nuts collect
in convenient pools.
[upbeat whimsical music playing]
[chatters]
A unique scenario
that allows a monkey
to do something ingenious.
[suspenseful music playing]
Take one softened nut...
[suspenseful music continues]
The correct-sized rock...
[dramatic music playing]
...and a series of well-aimed blows.
[dramatic music continues]
It was once thought that only humans
were smart enough to use stone tools.
- [cracks] - But these capuchins
have both a hammer...
and...
[cracks]
an anvil.
[chatters]
They're one of only three types of monkey on the planet
to have mastered this complex skill.
And it's not as easy as it looks.
[chatters]
[flowing music playing]
For an inquisitive youngster,
the nuances of nut-cracking...
[thumps]
...are almost hypnotic.
[whimsical music playing]
[thumps]
He learns by watching his elder's technique.
[light music playing]
And when the anvil is free...
[capuchin chirping]
...trying to copy it.
[thumps]
Watch your toes.
[thumps]
[cracks]
It's a bit pummeled...
[gentle music playing]
...but he has cracked it.
Well, sort of.
[thumps]
By learning to use tools...
- [thumps] - ...these remarkable monkeys
have given themselves a break
from the challenges of island life.
[gentle music playing]
For now, at least.
[gentle music continues]
Living in the tropical islands of the Americas
can be tougher than it looks.
[gentle music continues]
But both above
and below the waves...
[soaring music playing]
...life uses every trick in the book...
[soaring music continues]
...to make this wondrous place...
paradise.
[soaring music continues]
[epic orchestral music playing]