Original subtitles

The earth…

Of all the one planet that I have been to,

this planet is the most remarkable…

because, unlike Mars, it’s not just dust and stone and broken robots.

The Earth planet contains life.

There’s some.

There’s some more.

Hello life.

Oh, just look at the life on those ones.

Journey with us on a journey to discover that life.

This is Round Planet…

The Story of Everything.

Story. Everything’s a story now, isn’t it?

Whatever happened to a mundane series of events with no meaning or end?

Hmm.

Two thirds of the Earth’s surface is water,

which begs the question, who on earth called it Earth?

Most of our animals live in the sea, where they form a living soup,

or a massive death chowder, as I prefer to call it,

where it’s eat or be eaten.

Top level predators, like these pointy-tooth killers,

hog the limelight with their camera friendly silhouettes.

But, as in broadcasting, behind the stars are the backroom boys…

Never complaining about the brainless bigwigs who are in charge,

or their criminally low pay.

Just plying out… I mean, their trade

and honing their craft for the love of it.

It’s time to celebrate… the ocean’s underdog assassins.

OK, they’ve been slapped with the ugly stick,

but beauty is in the photoreceptor of the beholder...

and these guys have turned killing into an art form.

They say it’s tough at the top,

but let me tell you,

it’s even tougher at the bottom…

or in the middle where I am.

They hunt in the oceans. They don’t hunt the actual ocean, Tabitha.

Clarity is everything in this job.

Our oceans are full of small, ugly, but killer killers,

and nowhere more so than the shallow seas,

where conditions are optimised for life to proliferate.

This might look like the Pacific coast of Canada is leaking into the ocean,

but it is, in fact, a miracle of nature.

The summer sun has warmed the shallow coastal waters…

creating a plankton bloom.

A million organisms cram into each litre of seawater.

Many of these organisms are the undeveloped spawn

of clams and crabs…

sea urchins and anemones.

Some presenters, mentioning no names, struggle to say anemone.

I find it easy. Anemone.

Where there are ready meals like this,

there are also killers…

Like these see-through stalkers.

They look like haunted marshmallows,

but moon jellyfish are voracious predators…

accompanied by the sound of the theremin wherever they go.

A group of jellyfish is called a swarm or a smack,

which is probably what the scientist who named them was on.

Unlike actual fish, jellyfish have no spine, no heart,

and no lovely, pouty lips,

but they do have a mouth, which doubles up as an anus,

and four gonads.

Imagine that! An extra testicle.

Jellyfish trap small animals against their mucous covered bodies

and channel them towards their mouth bums.

It’s a killing technique so simple,

they’ve survived for 600 million years without a brain.

A ray of hope for some of my BBC colleagues.

And because they’re dumber than a bag of doorknobs,

they’re oblivious to this eggy monstrosity.

The fried egg jellyfish

is one of the few animals named after an ingredient in a full English breakfast.

Another being the sausage dog.

I once wrote a paper proposing renaming the Kermode bear as the hash brown bear.

The Linnean Society greeted me with silence,

but who am I to argue with the experts?

This killer has stinging tentacles up to six metres long.

It uses them to ensnare the smaller jellies.

Ruthless.

For more mind-bending marine killers, we head to the tropics.

Beautiful ocean, islands and reefs.

Journey with us through the world’s seas

and discover its secrets…

Just as if you were enjoying one of my oceanography lectures

on a Prince Churchill cruise liner.

As a matter of fact, I have one coming up in the Caribbean,

stopping at Barbados, friendly Tobago, exotic Montserrat…

No, Tabitha, it’s not advertising. I’m giving information about fish.

It’s all about the fish. Very reasonable prices.

Anyway, on with our story.

Tropical seas are low in nutrients,

so fish love the reef, because it provides food and shelter in a featureless desert,

but the reef is like a burger bar on an industrial estate…

Busy during the day… Scary at night.

Some of the reef fish manage to get some open eyed shut eye.

With fish in a trance-like state, other reef predators become active.

This is a cone snail

and although it looks like a cheap baddie

from an old episode of Dr. Who,

it’s the most venomous animal on the reef.

By the by, if you were thinking that a cone snail

would move faster without a shell,

it wouldn’t.

It would just become more sluggish.

The fish is rather blasé about this threat.

“It’s just a snail,” thinks the fish. “It’s not a shark.

I’ve got hours to swim away from that snail.”

But the crafty cone snail pumps so much insulin into the water,

it sends the fish into diabetic shock.

The cone snail vacuum-packs its victim into its huge, extendable mouth

and injects it with a lethal cocktail of chemicals called conotoxins.

It seems cruel, but that’s the way I’d choose to go.

Quietly in my sleep, I mean.

Not the bit where I’m sucked up

by some gastropodan freak. Eesh.

The snail will not need to eat again for several days.

If you ever hit the buffet brunch on a Prince Churchill cruise

you’ll know the feeling.

What’s that, Tabs?

Yes, I know my photo’s in the brochures, but I recommend them anyway.

Okay, okay.

Other cruises are available.

They’re inferior, but they are available.

Anyway, life on the reef is lethal,

but outside the reef, things are even lethaler.

Lethaler? No, that’s not right.

More lethal? That sounds wrong too.

Things are even more lethaler. Good.

Scrawny killers, like these pearlfish,

have nowhere to hide from bigger predators out here,

unless it’s inside another animal that everyone else finds pretty rank.

The sea cucumber is like a lump of living intestine,

destined to spend its life sifting the sea floor for detritus.

With its face,

if you can call it a face,

planted in the sand all day,

it has to breathe through its anus.

This pearlfish smells the cucumber’s bum-breath

and heads straight for the back door.

Oh no, I fear the worst.

The sea cucumber fears the worst.

Pucker up, for heaven’s sake!

Oh. Too late.

Just one of the downsides of breathing through your arse, I suppose.

There’s room for more than one pearlfish inside, so this one has invited a friend round.

To while away the time, some species of pearlfish eat their host’s gonads.

Others have sex in the body cavity. That’s a sure-fire way of getting a bad review on Airbnb

if ever there was one… at least in my experience.

Oh, California! Huh.

Home of sunny days, sandy beaches, beautiful women and... kelp.

Yes, this bit is about the kelp. Sorry.

These kelp forests only grow in shallow seas that are rich in nutrients.

Many predators are drawn here…

So space is at a premium.

When the mollusc that lived in this shell

moved out... or died... as we call it in the biz,

a squatter moved in.

This is the... sarcastic fringehead.

Are you serious?

So that’s ok, but the hash brown bear was…

what did the Linnean Society call it?

Frivolous.

I give up, I really give up.

The thing about the sarcastic fringehead

is that it really likes having another sarcastic fringehead move in next door.

Actually, I was being sarcastic.

Now, there is more competition for food.

See? That’s what I mean by the whole naming thing.

Why isn’t this fish called the brolly gob or the Steve Tyler trout?

This display of aggression is entirely harmless and the winner is usually the animal with the biggest gob.

My money’s on the one on the left.

No, the right.

No, the left.

That one.

The fringehead will take on all comers and there’s a new kid in the kelp forest…

Though it’s not actually a kid.

That would be a health and safety nightmare.

It’s an octopus.

Each of its eight arms is covered in suckers.

Half the octopus’ nervous system

is split between its arms,

giving each limb a mind of its own.

At least two of them are thinking,

“I’m a pacifist, why can’t we all just get along?”

But one thing is for certain,

most of this octopus is not giving up without a fight.

Oh. He seems to have given up...

without a fight.

The sea is so vast, it can make a man mad.

Anything could live down here.

Our imaginations are the limit.

That and science, which, frankly, here in the depths has gone a bit doo-lally.

So when you see psychedelic stuff like this,

you’d be forgiven for thinking we’ve made it all up.

Starfish are one of the few animals to have an odd number of limbs.

Some are also fearsome predators, like this sunflower seastar.

With up to 24 legs and 15,000 tube-like feet,

this dustbin-lid sized echinoderm

can move at a staggering 1.2 metres a minute in pursuit of prey

and, like a dustbin, it eats any old rubbish.

This seastar has an array of sensors to help it find prey.

A rudimentary eye on each arm helps it navigate

and a strong sense of smell helps it hone in on a victim.

Once it’s captured its prey,

the seastar extrudes its stomach

and oozes digestive juices onto its victims,

turning them into soup.

But not everything on the ocean floor is on the menu.

This clam is not ready to become chowder

and gives the seastar the finger.

Or is that the foot?

And this scallop would rather become comedy boob-wear for a mermaid

than fruits de mer for a purple bath toy.

Despite failure after failure…

The sunflower seastar is a formidable predator.

Even this king crab is jealous.

He only has a paltry ten legs.

Or is it eight legs and two arms? I’m never quite sure.

I think… oh.

Well now it’s either 11 legs or eight legs and three arms.

But whatever.

He’ll only be disappointed when he finds the leg doesn’t fit.

Luckily, the seastar will grow back its missing limb,

but will its pride ever recover?

I wonder if a seastar has pride.

Hmm. Where was I?

Ah, yes.

Australia is riddled with crabs.

Or crabs are riddled with Australia, depending on whose side you take.

So if you have kabourophobia, a fear of crabs,

I suggest you don’t go swimming off the coast of Melbourne in the winter.

If you do have it, you’ve probably changed channels by now.

Anyway, for those of you who haven’t switched over,

these crabs are here to change shells.

If the thought of thousands of starkers crabs scuttling about

fills you with dread, panic not.

These crabs have already started growing a new shell under the old one.

All they have to do is pop the old one off,

expand, and wait for the new one to harden.

The whole process takes quarter of an hour,

which is blinking ages in sea time.

And a slinky, soft crab is irresistible to predators.

They think there’s safety in numbers…

There isn’t,

because here comes ray.

Sharks and rays are close relatives, not just flatmates.

Flat mates, I’m charging extra for that.

I’m just having some toast.

With eyes on the top of his head, ray doesn’t see the crabs underneath him,

but he doesn’t have to.

Mmm, yes.

Ray here has electrical sensors around his mouth

that work as extrasensory dinner detectors.

Hmm, shall I have the brown crab or the absolutely identical brown crab?

Decisions, decisions.

Very nice.

Oh.

You’ve got something stuck on your top lip, ray.

Ah, there you go. Gone.

In this show we’ve travelled all around the world

and seen how important the small, ugly animals are to the ocean food chain.

So, hmm, to end the show we’re heading back to Canada.

Well, it’s the bit next to Canada.

It is the sea after all.

These are herring.

Even the most perceptive of you may be thinking,

“what does an animal that allows itself to get skewered to a gherkin

have to do with ocean hunters?”

But stay with me.

These silver wrigglers play an important role as both predator and prey.

Right now, the plankton bloom off the coast of British Columbia

has drawn hundreds of millions of herring in these shallow, coastal waters.

They’re here to massacre as many microscopic animals as possible.

Herring are marvellously in sync with each other.

If they were dancing on a TV talent show, they would certainly make it to boot camp.

How they maintain these schools at night is the real miracle.

If a miracle can involve gassy emissions.

They make tiny, squeaky noises out of their swim bladders;

A phenomenon called fast repetitive tic or FRT for short.

Don’t judge,

imagine being a little herring in a big, dark, whaley ocean.

No wonder it’s squeaky-bum time.

Talking out of your backside is commonplace in tv,

but these are one of the few… what? Bloody humpback whale!

Oh, well sadly, herring have not learnt to fart the word scarper yet.

This mother and calf have travelled for three months

and covered over 4,000 kilometres

to join other whales at the annual herring fest.

Mum has lost a third of her body weight on the way,

which some unkind people say she could do with.

But whales like being the size of a whale

and I think it’s great that they’re comfortable with that.

These fellows employ a more conventional form of communication…

Facebook.

No, no, no.

No, they push air from the lungs through membranes in the larynx, obviously,

but for something more tuneful, head to the piano bar

on any Prince Churchill cruise at 6:30 for songs of Cole Porter.

Stop flapping your arms, Tabitha, you’ll fly away.

Anyway, this mournful dirge isn’t the humpbacks trying to share

their whaley wisdom with us so we can save the planet.

It’s straight up sonic warfare,

and once a tasty school has been located,

they encircle them like a pack of blubbery sheepdogs.

The whales then breathe out, creating a ring of bubbly bubbles

so thick, it traps the herring inside.

They then herd the stupefied herring

to the surface, where thousands can be swallowed in a single gulp.

It’s truly one of the most magnificent sights known to man.

Right up there with a leaping salmon.

Or sunset from the pool deck of a Prince Churchill… sorry, Tabby?

Ok, that’s one too many.

Over the course of herring fest,

millions of herring will die,

so that a few whales can get fat and happy.

It’s a metaphor for capitalism really.

Yes, whales bring a bit of cash in via tourism and that,

but they'd be nowhere, nowhere, I tell you,

without the humble, hard-working pros, the herring.

When planning this show, I was put under immense pressure

to come up with a snazzy sequence about sharks.

“Give the people what they want,” said my executive producer.

Well, nobody knows my audience better than me,

so I gave you bum fish, crabs, snails and herring,

because without these backroom boys and their staggering ingenuity,

we’d be nowhere.

So viva la small stuff and power to the ugly.

No, that’s okay, Tabitha, it’s fine to cry.

I’m feeling emotional too, just let it out.

Let it out.

Filming in the ocean carries many risks

and unfortunately, lead cameraman Darth de la Sponge got the bends.

Having spent the entire budget on humpback whales,

we had no choice but to let him recover in our homemade decompression chamber.

Unfortunately, we forgot to ask him for the making-of footage first,

but, to be honest, after all that death,

it seems more important to have some fun with dolphins.

Think of it as a DVD extra.