Documentary, Sea Monsters - S01E02 A Walking with Dinosaurs Trilogy - Into the Jaws of Death
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00:00This is where you feel like you're most vulnerable, actually swimming into the cage with a great
00:10chunk of bait. It's a duck, the osteus. This is what we came for.
00:21This is Nigel Marvin. He's a zoologist and an expert in tackling dangerous animals.
00:27But his latest adventure is really testing his nerve. He's left the safety of the 21st century behind and traveled back to prehistory.
00:36His mission, to visit the seven deadliest seas of all time and to come face to face with the most terrifying sea creatures that the earth has ever known.
00:45So far he's experienced three of the deadly seas and from here on it's only going to get worse.
00:52He's about to meet the owner of these jaws and worse still, the most lethal shark the world has ever seen.
01:01But only if he can escape the Devonian seas and an armored fish called Dunkleosteus.
01:07Dunkleosteus.
01:08He's coming in again. He's fast this time.
01:10Dunkleosteus.
01:11He's coming in again. He's fast this time.
01:22No! Slammed the cage again.
01:26This is getting serious. He really won up the cage. Dented the bars there. He really wants this bait.
01:35I want to win the bet I had with the crew. This sea monster. I'm sure he can slice through chain mail.
01:43Look at that. He's coming. Closer.
01:49Oh God! Nearly wrenched my arm out of the socket.
01:53And it is chomping through that. Slicing through it. Chain mail and all.
02:00And I have won my bet.
02:02There's a little Dunkleosteus here. Right underneath me. He's looking for little tidbits.
02:13These armored fish. They flourished for around 50 million years. Then all of them became extinct.
02:21Wow! Wow!
02:25Listen to that. It makes you shudder.
02:29The big predator is crunching through that juvenile. Crunching through the plates.
02:38The Dunkleosteus was certainly showing its true form.
02:41It's not just a predator. It's a cannibal as well.
02:49And as for its table manners...
02:55Believe it or not, this is normal behaviour.
02:58The Dunkleosteus isn't being sick.
03:01But a fish like this that feeds on armored food needs to get rid of the indigestible bits.
03:07And it's regurgitated the bits of fish armor. And in this case the chain mail.
03:13And this is perfectly normal.
03:17Normal for 360 million years ago. Maybe.
03:20Maybe.
03:23But there's no time to rest on laurels.
03:26They've yet to reach the halfway mark in their voyage through the most perilous seas of prehistory.
03:33Ahead of them are four more ever deadlier encounters.
03:38Next up, our time travelling crew heads to an era closer to the present day.
03:43In fact, it's a mere 36 million years ago.
03:47Which is midway between the extinction of the dinosaurs and modern day.
03:51It's home to the meanest sea mammal that has ever lived.
03:55This must be one of the squelchiest of habitats.
04:14Mangrove swamps, they're lush, muddy.
04:16And there's water everywhere.
04:19As far from a desert as you could imagine.
04:22But believe it or not, this will one day become the Sahara.
04:27I'm on the site of what will become Cairo.
04:31And if I stood here for 36 million years, the Egyptians would come and start building pyramids on my head.
04:38The Eocene is the beginning of the time of mammals.
04:46They rule the earth, they rule the sea, and as I was about to find out, they even rule the bit in between.
04:59These look really promising, look.
05:03Feet have splayed out just like a camel's to support the weight, spread the weight,
05:07so they don't sink into the sand.
05:11But it's a really curious track.
05:14Look, they're widely spaced.
05:16Most animals, when they walk, it's one foot in front of the other.
05:19It's almost like this animal swings the weight of its body from side to side as it's walking along.
05:25This is really weird.
05:27So it must be a big, big animal that waddles along.
05:31Let me see if I can...
05:38Every tracker's dream, look.
05:42A pile of fresh dung.
05:44It's so fresh, you can almost feel the heat emanating off it.
05:49The Inuit, it's rumoured that they actually eat bits of dung to learn about the animals they're tracking.
05:55I'm gonna give that a miss, but...
05:58Oh yeah, if you smell that, it's a really sweet, not too unpleasant, a sweet smell.
06:03And I think the animal I'm looking for is a fruit eater.
06:06It's the only animal that waddles like that.
06:24It is a surreal creature with a funny name.
06:27It's called an Arsinoetherium.
06:30These creatures have extraordinary horns.
06:34You can tell this is a male because they splay out.
06:37The females, they're much more fertile.
06:39And this is what he uses for defence and for fighting.
06:43They've got disadvantages to look.
06:45He's looking at me now, but he can't look because the horns are actually covering his eyes.
06:50He knows we're here, but he's not approaching or anything, not running away.
06:58He's edgy, but I really want to get a closer look.
07:09I'm gonna try something and see whether he'd like to eat something from the 21st century.
07:20Let's go.
07:50It might look like a rhino, but this mammal is in fact more closely related to the elephant.
08:03More surprising still is that it lives like a hippo.
08:12Arsinoetherium is a sea monster after all, well at least an amphibious one.
08:17There's plentiful food in the mangroves for a huge vegetarian like this, but living here
08:22is difficult.
08:23A beach in the morning is a lagoon by midday.
08:26Arsinoetherium, though, is adapted to deal with the changing tides.
08:33A creature that's as happy in water as on land.
08:37In fact, probably happier.
08:40The Iocene is a momentous time for mammals.
08:47As well as amphibious species, new types have evolved which are totally adapted to life in the ocean.
08:53Here were some of them.
08:55Doradon, a species of ancient whale.
09:00And whales were the reason I'd come here, though not for these tiddlers.
09:05I was after a far bigger, meaner whale that eats Doradon for breakfast.
09:18It was time to find the tyrant that rules these waters.
09:34We're sailing right here in the middle of the Tethys Sea, which runs between Europe and Africa.
09:39This is a pretty unfamiliar map, because it's not like this in the 21st century.
09:44This sea closes up and dries up, and we're actually sailing over what will become the Sahara Desert.
09:50And this is the monster that we're looking for.
09:56Bacillosaurus, that name means King Lizard, because when these fossils were first found in 1832, they were thought to be giant reptiles.
10:04But this is in fact a primitive whale.
10:07Here's an artist's impression from around 1960.
10:10And as you can see, they thought Bacillosaurus were very reptilian too.
10:14Just like sea serpents, or even the Loch Ness monster.
10:18And this skull is what's chilling to me.
10:23There's no whales with skulls like this in modern times.
10:26Great peg-like teeth at the front of the jaw for seizing prey.
10:30Once inside the mouth, the prey is then sliced up by these big teeth at the back, great big cusps at the top.
10:36They are for slicing through flesh.
10:39This is by far the biggest predator in the Eocene seas.
10:44Drop the anchor!
10:48But how on earth do we find one?
10:51The configuration of the bones in the fossil skulls of Bacillosaurus is really good evidence that they can hear pretty well.
10:58Modern whales, they are so noisy, and we're hoping that Bacillosaurus is just the same.
11:03We've got underwater recording equipment here, and if we can eavesdrop on their conversations,
11:08we should be able to locate where the whales are.
11:11Fingers crossed on this one.
11:13It's nothing, it's just shrimps and fish, isn't it? No whales there.
11:36Nothing there.
11:37Let's move off somewhere else.
11:39Okay.
11:43Let's move off somewhere else.
11:44Let's move on.
11:45Let's move on.
11:46Let's move on.
11:47Let's move on.
11:48Come on.
11:49Nigel.
11:50So we've got something in there.
11:51Oh, that is spooky.
11:52It's definitely a whale.
11:53Yeah, definitely.
11:54Nigel, think we've got some in there.
12:10That is spooky.
12:11It's definitely a whale.
12:12Yeah, definitely.
12:13And maybe we've found the Sinosaurus.
12:23The whale's still in the vicinity, but where is it?
12:38The trouble is, sound travels much farther and faster in water than in air,
12:42and he could be miles away.
12:43So what we need to do is try to entice him to us.
12:46That sound, that eerie sound that you're hearing,
12:49that's what we recorded earlier, that's his calls,
12:52but we're playing them right out into the ocean with a massive speaker,
12:55and hopefully he'll think there's another whale in his territory,
12:58and come towards us.
13:04Scientists have tried this with modern whales with mixed success,
13:08but it was the best hope we had of bringing in a Bacillosaurus.
13:15It's getting louder. It's as loud as it's ever been.
13:20.
13:25.
13:26.
13:27.
13:29.
13:30.
13:34.
13:35I don't know how long these animals are going to hang around.
13:42You've got to be fast on this one.
13:53I had no idea what I'd find.
13:56I had no idea what I'd find.
14:26I had no idea what I'd find.
14:33Oh, wow!
14:35And there it was, the long, streamlined shape.
14:38This had to be Bacillosaurus.
14:41But it was nothing like the sea serpent of early drawings.
14:44It was a whale, but unlike any I'd seen before.
14:47It didn't have blubber.
14:49In this warm water, it didn't need it.
14:51It looked for all the world like a whale on dire pills.
14:54And look at this thing.
14:57Compare it with the boat.
14:58That gives a great idea of scale.
15:01And he's over half the length of this 80-foot boat.
15:0550 feet or so.
15:07And this really is a fearsome predator.
15:10I'm glad I'm next to the boat.
15:12I wouldn't fancy being in open water with this one.
15:17I wish the sound technician, I wish he'd turn this off.
15:21It's really starting to distress the whale.
15:23He's coming in close.
15:24He's actually bitten the speaker off.
15:42He's shaking it like a terrier.
15:44Shaking a rat.
15:45So we've lost our speaker.
15:49But it doesn't matter.
15:50We had a really brilliant view of a Bacillosaurus.
15:56This, though, is a world on the verge of great change.
16:00The continent of Africa is moving north towards Asia and Europe,
16:04causing this ancient seaway to disappear.
16:08Bacillosaurus will disappear with it.
16:11Next in store is the Pliocene.
16:16The time when our earliest ancestors were starting to walk upright.
16:21It's surprising what lived in our seas just four million years ago.
16:37We're in Peru, right on the rim of the Pacific Ocean.
16:42And living out there, there's something terrifying.
16:46So if you're afraid of sharks, you'll be a gibbering wreck
16:50when you see what we're going to try next.
16:54Look, the most famous jaws in history are great white sharks.
17:00I've swum with those in the open ocean,
17:03but they're minnows in comparison to the prehistoric shark I'm hoping to meet.
17:08Megalodon, the biggest carnivorous fish that's ever lived.
17:13That name, Megalodon, what it means, it means big tooth.
17:17And I don't think I need to explain why.
17:20By hunting a Megalodon, we were getting into ever more dangerous waters
17:33and caution had started to creep in amongst the crew.
17:37There was disagreement about our next course of action.
17:41I think we should head straight out into the deep water.
17:44The weather may change. Let's look for the adults.
17:46I think we should start with the juveniles.
17:48We haven't got enough time to do that.
17:49I think we should go for the smaller ones.
17:52We couldn't be sure how Megalodon would behave.
17:55Some argued that it would be worth studying smaller, safer juveniles
17:59before risking a dive with an adult.
18:02In the end, I had to agree.
18:05I'll do one dive with the juveniles
18:07and then I think we ought to head out into the drop-off
18:09and try to find the adults.
18:10With sharks, it's all about diving in the right place.
18:17Like young great whites, juvenile Megalodon
18:19tend to be in shallow water away from the adults.
18:23Partly for their own safety,
18:24but also they do prey on very different things.
18:28There shouldn't be any adults on this dive.
18:37I'm hugging the kelp here.
18:39I don't want to be caught out in open water.
18:42Big predators, they don't like going into dense weed like this.
18:46The other thing is I'm hoping to find the creatures
18:48that juvenile Megalodon prey on
18:50and they are the oddest of creatures.
18:57There, Odominosotopsleptodon.
19:00That name is a mix of Greek and Latin
19:03and it means the whale that walks on its teeth
19:06and if it turns towards us,
19:08you can see why one tusk is about a foot long
19:12but on the other side, the right-hand side,
19:14look at that.
19:15It's about three feet long
19:17and the males probably use those
19:19for jousting with us
19:21and with each other in the breeding season
19:23just like narwhals.
19:25Slurping sounds.
19:26They are superb.
19:29Flippin' heck, look!
19:30I can't take my eyes off that.
19:51The biggest great white shark ever
19:54was just over 20 feet long.
19:56That thing, it must be just three years old
19:59and that's that size already.
20:02Just imagine diving with a full-grown Megalodon
20:0520 times the weight of this one.
20:08What had I let myself in for?
20:14We'd seen a juvenile Megalodon
20:16but we hadn't yet learnt that much about them.
20:18I specifically wanted to see how they hunted.
20:23We couldn't just wait around for an attack to happen.
20:26We needed to make it happen.
20:33This Odebinosa tops,
20:34it wouldn't fool you or me
20:36but hopefully as a decoy
20:37it will fool the juvenile Megalodons.
20:39If they're anything like great whites
20:41when they see this in silhouette at the surface
20:43they should come up to investigate
20:45and it will enable us to learn a bit more about them.
20:48Our dummy didn't swim as well as an Odebinosa tops
20:58but the young sharks didn't seem to be put off by that.
21:02After just 15 minutes
21:04our onboard camera got the shock of its life.
21:07Look at what's happened to the decoy.
21:22Did it hit it from below?
21:23Straight up from underneath.
21:24You can see the damage that was done here.
21:27It seems that Megalodon
21:28has one of the same hunting techniques
21:30as great white sharks.
21:32What they do
21:32they can't afford to be injured by their prey.
21:34They sneak up from below
21:35make a devastating attack
21:37and the power of that big fish
21:39well look what it's done to this decoy.
21:41This is obviously weaker than a real animal
21:43real sinew and muscle
21:45so that's why it smashed it in two.
21:47But if this was a real animal
21:48it would of course bleed to death
21:51then the shark would come in
21:52when it was really weak
21:53and then make the final coup de grace.
21:58Megalodon are probably relatives of great whites
22:01and we now knew that the juveniles
22:03attack their prey in a very similar way.
22:07But what about the adults?
22:08How did they hunt?
22:10And what does a shark
22:11over 50 feet long prey on?
22:16Leaving the juveniles behind
22:17we took our boat a few miles offshore.
22:20It was time to meet a monster.
22:35Stop the anchor!
22:37Anyone who's tried to get close to sharks
22:41knows this eye-watering stench.
22:44It's the smell of chum
22:45that's a mix of fish blood
22:47fish oil
22:47bits of fish pieces
22:49what we're going to do
22:49is throw that over the side
22:51there'll be a trail of odour
22:52which will go for miles in the current
22:54a Megalodon will smell that
22:56and start zigzagging towards the boat.
22:58When it gets close
22:59we've also got this amazing delicacy for it
23:02a great big bag of fish chunks
23:04and that should entice it
23:05and keep it around the boat.
23:07And if they do come
23:08what we've got here
23:09is shark cam.
23:11There's a little camera inside this.
23:14We want to get an insight
23:15into the world of the Megalodon.
23:17I've got to get close enough
23:18to attach it to the base
23:19of the massive dorsal fin of a Megalodon.
23:22It won't hurt the shark.
23:23This will dissolve in a couple of days.
23:24The camera will pop up to the surface
23:27and then we'll find it
23:28and hopefully get some insight
23:30into the behaviour of the wild Megalodon.
23:32Oh my God.
23:37There's energy yes sir.
23:38The témoji on the way
23:39is with soda for advertising
23:39and this water.
23:40We've got to be played
23:41perfectly well
23:42and this will
23:42the sauna.
23:42I'm sure there's something to the left over there.
24:04Are you sure?
24:05Yeah, I'm pretty certain.
24:12Look at that thing.
24:14It can't be anything else but an adult megalodon.
24:16It's more like a sail than a fin,
24:18and what we've got to do now is get the cage into the water.
24:29I can't see this.
24:30You can see the blood and the fish oil leaking out of the chum bag.
24:47I need to be really prepared for this with a camera.
24:50We may only get one chance at it.
24:52Who knows how long the megalodon's going to hang around.
25:00This is scary.
25:03I'm scared.
25:12Look!
25:13It's going straight for the cage.
25:21Oh, my word.
25:30Oh, my God.
25:56What thing prepares you for this?
26:00I feel like just shooting to the surface and getting out of this cage, but I've got to pull myself together.
26:15I'll just admit I am really, really scared of this.
26:19He looks like he's taking a pass now where he's going to be really close.
26:34And then see whether I can get the shortcut on.
26:41Missed that time.
26:50I've got to get the camera onto the fin.
27:11This is hopeless. This is harder than I thought. The fin is just too high.
27:19And he's coming straight out the cage.
27:49I can't attach the camera from the cage.
27:57So I'm going to try from this platform.
28:00The chumble, don't put it over the side. Keep your eye on the sharks.
28:04If you can get it in a line along here, please.
28:07And I'll be ready.
28:19I'll be ready.
28:20I'll be ready.
28:21I'll be ready.
28:22I'll be ready.
28:23I'll be ready.
28:25Do you have what it takes to capture a Megalodon?
28:29Visit bbc.co.uk slash science and test your survival skills in the seven deadly seas.
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