This is The Americas,
an extraordinary journey across Earth's great supercontinent.
The widest variety of life on the planet.
The untold story...
...of our home.
Tonight on The Americas...
Patagonia.
Patagonia is an untamed wilderness
at the far south of the world.
From ancient mystical forests...
and sky-high ice worlds...
...to the bountiful coast.
This is a world of both rugged beauty and...
...dramatic change.
Here,
all life must do battle...
...at the very end of the supercontinent.
Patagonia straddles both Chile in the west
and Argentina to the east.
Its most southerly point lies only 600 miles from Antarctica,
a place where three great oceans collide.
Here, the island of Los Estados
is a vital refuge...
for the world's most devoted parents,
rockhopper penguins.
Every spring, over a quarter of a million come ashore,
all hoping to raise a family.
Couples pair for life
and return to the same nest year after year.
They take turns caring for their chicks.
And today,
Dad is on duty.
His chick is just a few days old.
And it's hungry.
But there is no food here.
The chick must wait for Mom to return with a meal.
And she is on her way.
But getting ashore means risking her life.
On this jagged coast,
there is no easy landing.
Looks like she made it.
A sea lion.
A penguin predator.
There is no match for a mother's determination.
To get home, however,
there's still a mountain to climb,
literally.
And with a belly full of krill,
it's slow going.
One wrong step, and...
it's back to square one.
But Mom's not called a rockhopper penguin for nothing.
Strong claws...
and a sharp beak
are put to good use.
Now, she just needs to find her partner.
One somewhere
amongst hundreds of thousands of penguins.
Her partner's unique call...
...helps guide her to him.
Reunited.
And at last, it's dinner time.
Only the courageous can raise a family down here.
And tomorrow, they must do it all again.
From Cape Horn,
Patagonia's towering, rocky backbone runs north for over a thousand miles.
The weather is ferocious
and unpredictable.
Yet, the symbol of Patagonia's mountains
calls this place home.
In Patagonia's mountains,
it can seem like all four seasons
in one day.
Life here is as hard as it gets.
This is a female puma,
known as "Petaca."
She's an experienced hunter.
But since the sudden arrival of snow,
it's been difficult for her to make a kill.
A guanaco could feed her for a week.
But to succeed,
she will need to get close.
In the snow,
she's lost her camouflage.
So she must use whatever cover she can find.
Now speed is her only hope.
But in this deep snow,
she is no match for the guanaco.
She'll go hungry today.
And so will her cubs.
At just four months old,
they are entirely dependent on Mom.
They need a change in their fortunes.
And in these mountains,
change...
is never far away.
Within days,
the snow disappears.
Now Petaca has her camouflage back.
And her speed.
She must get a firm grip on the neck.
If she gets it wrong,
a single kick could be fatal.
It's now been a week since Petaca and her cubs last ate.
On the wind...
...a scent.
A carcass.
But it belongs to someone else.
Conflict with another puma
could be deadly.
Petaca is taking a huge risk.
But this is no stranger.
It's Petaca's older sister
with her two larger cubs.
And she seems happy to share.
Pumas have long been considered solitary.
But rarely-seen encounters like these
reveal that they are far more social than we once thought.
Petaca's cubs aren't sure
what to make of their cousins just yet.
But there is a lesson to be learned here.
A family that shares can provide a lifeline
in Patagonia's hostile mountains.
Mountains that have been carved
by a colossal force.
Glaciers.
Monsters on the move.
This is San Rafael.
And for a glacier,
this one moves fast.
It travels more than 60 feet a day.
Millions of tons of ice break away.
Some slabs are the size of a skyscraper.
Glaciers are so powerful,
they can cut through solid rock.
And they've sliced Patagonia's coast
into over 40,000 islands,
creating isolated lost worlds.
Home...
to the weird and the wonderful.
Patagonia's west coast
is cloaked in ancient forests.
It's a strange legacy of the Jurassic.
And there are certainly strange creatures here
found nowhere else on Earth.
Perhaps the most bizarre...
is the Chilean stag beetle.
These aren't antlers.
They are, in fact, giant jaws.
The bigger they are,
the greater his chances of winning a mate.
But first, he has to find one.
Microscopic hairs can detect the scent of a female.
And it seems there is one...
all the way up here.
Three, two, one.
We have liftoff.
These beetles are known as "flying deer."
You can see why.
And it's hard to gain any altitude.
Looks like he's got to do it the hard way.
It's a hundred feet to the top,
the equivalent of you or I trying to scale the Empire State Building...
twice over.
Finally,
there she is.
But he's not the only one attracted by her scent.
A rival.
It's time to put these jaws into action.
And it seems his opponent has the upper hand.
Has his rival got it in the bag?
Not yet!
We have a winner.
But it could be short-lived.
A female is a magnet for dozens of males.
Time to get back into the ring.
It's win or go home.
After all that,
he just has to summon up the energy to reach her.
Mating complete.
She now needs to lay her eggs on the forest floor.
And he can help her get there.
Turns out, these jaws aren't just for fighting.
Journeying east,
mountains strip the clouds of moisture.
Creating a stark, arid heart.
This is the Patagonian Steppe.
And it's home to living dinosaurs.
The Patagonian Steppe stretches 260,000 square miles,
nearly the size of Texas.
There is so little shelter from the elements
that many here seek sanctuary underground.
But some are way too big for that.
A Darwin's rhea,
South America's answer to the ostrich.
Three feet tall,
it's one of the largest birds in the world.
And this super-sized male
is father to a super-sized family.
Most birds share parenting duties.
But with rheas,
things are different.
After laying the eggs,
the females leave.
So it's up to Dad to raise the family...
alone.
And he's not the only one out here.
All across the plains,
dedicated dads are on duty
around the clock.
For 40 days and 40 nights,
they barely move.
By late spring,
Dad's efforts have been rewarded.
Fourteen healthy chicks.
Now the real work begins.
It will be six months before his chicks are independent.
And they have a lot to learn,
like what's good to eat,
and how to keep well-groomed.
But the most important lesson is to stick together.
Out here, it's easy to get lost.
And keen-eyed hawks
would soon grab a lone chick.
This neighbor has only three chicks left.
And for our dad,
it's a warning.
Keep your family close.
What is that?
It's a distress call.
From a chick.
But not one of his.
That's no problem for this super dad.
Male rheas have such strong paternal instinct
that if they find any lost chick,
they will adopt it
on the spot.
And when you already have 14,
well, what's another one?
The summer in the Patagonian Steppe
brings ferocious westerly winds.
Gusts of over 70 miles per hour scour the land,
triggering events so large,
they can be seen from space.
Dust storms.
They rage for hundreds of miles,
until they reach Patagonia's Atlantic Coast.
Millions of tons of iron-rich dust are swept into the ocean,
flooding it with nutrients.
And fueling life
on an astonishing scale.
Patagonia's rich seas attract giants.
Weighing over four tons,
these are the largest seals on Earth.
Fully grown bulls are the size of a pickup truck.
But it's their colossal trunk-like nose
that has earned them their name...
...elephant seals.
Sixty thousand gather
on the remote shores of Peninsula Valdes to breed.
But only the most dominant bulls have the right to mate.
Meet the undefeated heavyweight champion...
...the beachmaster.
For two months, he's guarded his harem from rivals.
And not surprisingly,
he's exhausted.
But he can never really rest.
A contender is trying his luck with one of the females.
The beachmaster sounds a warning.
His huge nose amplifies the sound to 130 decibels.
It's as loud as a jackhammer.
But it's not enough to deter his opponent.
Time for this beachmaster
to throw his weight around.
Both bulls stand ten feet tall
and are armed with razor-sharp teeth.
The beachmaster is paying the price for enduring months of fighting.
He's flagging.
Defeat would mean losing everything.
One final push...
...forces his opponent back out to sea.
He's the winner today.
But there are deadlier challenges on the way.
Patagonia's Atlantic Coast
draws the ocean's smartest predator.
Orca.
Here, they have learned to do something hardly ever seen...
...to hunt seals on dry land.
Along this coast,
this orca is one of only 16 known to hunt this way.
Scientists have named her "Jasmine."
She is the matriarch responsible for a family of growing adolescents
and now, a grandchild as well.
The teenagers need to start earning their keep.
But Patagonia's exposed coast
is no place for a beginner.
Luckily, Jasmine knows
the perfect training ground.
Caleta Valdes,
a lagoon protected from the open ocean by vast sand banks.
Here, the water is calm.
And there is plenty of prey.
Young elephant seals.
The orca students might be eager to get started,
but no one is quite sure what to do.
They need to learn the trick,
how to actually reach the seals.
So that is today's first lesson.
Under Jasmine's supervision,
the students launch themselves onto shore...
...each time edging a little higher.
But you get it wrong,
and you could end up stuck.
Jasmine knows just what to do,
and comes to the rescue.
Next,
target practice.
Now to try the real thing.
Close.
Not close enough.
There is just one more skill to master.
How to conceal that giant dorsal fin
and learn the art of disappearing.
Turning on her side, Jasmine demonstrates just how.
Every hunt needs an element of surprise.
The youngsters will still need plenty more practice.
But Jasmine is passing her knowledge
on to the next generation.
And for now,
it's time to celebrate.
For all life in Patagonia,
conquering the elements can unlock the riches
of this bountiful land.
The last great wilderness
in the Americas.