All language subtitles for Australia Land Before Time IMAX 2002 1080p BluRay EN Sub

One of nature's masterworks

the ultimate long-distance athlete

At full speed it uses less energy
than any animal its size

The Kangaroo is shaped
by the land in which it lives

one of the most
challenging places on earth

Australia is a vast
ancient weathered land

isolated from all others for
40 million years

It is a place of extremes

more like another planet
than another continent

Travelling over Australia's
3 million square miles

is like crossing an ocean of dry land

Primeval landscapes belie its rich
resourceful life

Australia is almost equal in size
to the continental United States

It is the driest
vegetated continent on Earth

Surrounded by three oceans
it is the world's largest island

It shares no border with any other country

Here some of the Earth's oldest rocks
hold fossils from the dawn of life

In its heartland are mountain ranges
that once rivalled Everest

built up and worn down over time

and remnants of a once vast inland sea

Most of Australia's native animals
are unique

Their journey on this continental raft

has taken them through cool forests
and fiery deserts

and changed them forever

The survivors have been refined by
poverty and uncertainty

Some have climbed up out of adversity

Some have outrun all their predators

Most have adapted to hard
fickle conditions

A few are unchanged
since the days of the dinosaurs

Now sheer diversity of species

spreads the risk
that life is required to bear

The story starts millions of years ago

when Gondwana the great super continent
began to break apart

Africa South America
and India were formed

but Australia and Antarctica
were still joined as one last giant land

forested and lush

By 50 million years ago
the breakup was complete

when Australia parted from Antarctica

A massive ocean current
began to flow around the South Pole

and Antarctica's life perished
under a blanket of ice and snow

Australia pushed northwards
from the freezing latitudes

and remained isolated
for the next 30 million years

It became an ark of survival
for its cargo of ancient life

Searing winds began to dry the land

and its moist rainforest all
but disappeared

At the centre
the desert was taking over

Australia's plants
and animals faced a choice

adapt to the drying conditions
or retreat

Now the symbol of
Australia's red heart is Uluru

the Earth's largest exposed rock

It commemorates the relationship
between life and this land

Today Australia is the
Earth's flattest continent

lts mountains were worn to their stumps
millions of years ago

The Nullarbor plain on its southern coast

has the world's
longest unbroken coastal cliffs

Once you could walk to Antarctica
from here

If the dry Outback is a land ocean
these parallel sand dunes are its waves

Stretching beyond the horizons
they cover nearly half of the continent

Millions of years of rain
and drying winds

long ago leached the goodness
from most of its soil

In the red centre there is no regular
predictable pattern of rainfall

Poor soils and a savage climate
now challenge all life in this land

Nature responded to the
changing conditions

The kangaroo started
its journey as a marsupial possum

the size of a mouse

As forests contracted some kangaroos
evolved to live in the trees

and others learned to eat grass

When food is plentiful
the males are active

and courtship disputes are
traditionally settled

with a round or two of kick-boxing

Mothers and babies
sensibly keep out of the way

On most continents animals breed
in response to the seasons

In Australia
it is the availability of food

that prompts the kangaroo to reproduce

To capitalise on good times
the mother can support a production line

one joey in the pouch one at foot

and another in the womb as an embryo

She can even supply her babies

with two different formulas
of milk at the same time

one for each generation of young

The koala evolved from the
same marsupial possum as the kangaroo

When the baby
is big enough to leave the pouch

it rides on its mother's back

Like the kangaroo

the koala evolved
in the moist rainforest

As the forest dried it adapted
to live on the leaves of the gum tree

Now it drinks little water

and its digestive system
can extract moisture

and nutrients from leaves that would
be toxic to most other mammals

Koalas use as little energy as possible
resting about 19 hours a day

Some members of the family however
are active at any hour

When moving from tree to tree
they normally descend backwards

Consequently tree top traffic jams can
sometimes leave one out on a limb

For years on end much of the Australian
inland receives little or no rain

Two thirds is classified arid
and one half is desert

The Outback as it is called
covers most of the continent

By rights nothing should live here

this ought to be a lifeless wasteland

But it is not

The closer we look the more we find that
some of Australia's forest inhabitants

have met the desert's challenge
with subtlety and resource

Now a diverse underworld of ants
rodents marsupials and reptiles

are among the most
successful desert dwellers on Earth

By day most life in this land ocean
is hidden beneath the surface

Many of the desert animals
come out to feed in the cool of night

These tiny hopping mice survive
because they rarely need to drink

Most of the water they require
is contained in the seeds they eat

In the heat of the day
they huddle together in deep burrows

creating a humid atmosphere
that helps to conserve moisture

In this arid region hardy mulga trees

provide food for one of Australia's
four thousand species of ants

Six feet below the surface

honey ants hang like clusters of golden
grapes in cool humid larder chambers

These specialised ants
are living honey pots

They are force fed by worker ants
on nectar

harvested from the sap of mulga trees
growing above

When food is scarce

these honey pots feed the workers
by regurgitating their nectar on demand

Their underground storehouse will see the
whole colony through the toughest of times

Arid Australia
is the land of the lizards

There can be up to forty seven different
varieties in just one area

The Thorny Devil has a sticky tongue
and it's picky about what it eats

Out here black ants are one food
that never runs out

The devil is perfectly adapted
to the desert

lts prickly skin collects moisture
from the air

and a system of fine channels along
its body

carries the water to its mouth

The biggest and most fearsome of the
desert lizards is the perentie

which is both scavenger and predator

This lizard can exceed six feet in length
and outrun a human

It hunts anything
including the most aggressive

and deadly of Australia's many snakes
the King Brown

Sometimes though the King Brown
is more than even a perentie can manage

The venom from this snake's bite
will kill a human in minutes

Luckily for the perentie it is immune

While much of Australia's life
was adapting to the dry inland

some of its plants and animals retreated
to the mountains of the east coast

Here moist valleys and cool peaks

provide a haven for Australia's
living links with the past

In scattered pockets
of primitive rainforest

descendants of Gondwana's
original plants and animals thrive today

These Antarctic Beech trees began
growing between 3 and 5 thousand years ago

but their roots
are in the ancient super continent

Most of Australia's native plants
and animals

began to evolve in wet
cool forests like these

One of the most remarkable living links
with that ancient world

is found in the creeks
and freshwater rivers of the east coast

The Platypus suckles
its young like a mammal

yet lays egg like a lizard

It hunts under water with its eyes shut

using electric sensors in its bill

The first Europeans
to see it were dumbfounded

To them it was a living contradiction
if not a practical joke

The Platypus though has survived
for 120 million years

Today it exists nowhere else on earth

The nearest surviving relative
of the Platypus

is the Echidna

With its tubular snout and long
sticky tongue

it lives on ants and termites

Unlike the Platypus the Echidna moved out
of the cool forests

and now ranges across the whole continent

When threatened it digs in rapidly

presenting an array of sharp spines
to its attacker

Drought

It can last for months
or years at a time

Long periods without
rain push all life to the limit

The young and the old
are first to feel the effects

Clear skies parched earth and searing
heat become the rule of life

Some will perish before the next rains come

Now the kangaroos of the desert

call on another remarkable strategy
for survival

The female can halt the growth
of her developing embryo

keeping it in a state of suspension
until conditions improve

Only then will she give birth

For the joey already born
the future is now uncertain

But the unborn embryo will be ready
when good times return

Surviving kangaroos will either move
to new territory in search of food

or batten down near remaining waterholes
while at least some grass remains

Emu families
have a similar hard choice to make

Whatever they decide it will be a gamble

Relief from drought is unpredictable

and often arrives a long way
from where it is needed

Each year the tropical wet season
brings storms

and flooding to Australia's far north

As the monsoon unfurls curtains of rain
a transformation begins

As the wetlands fill crocodiles emerge
from scattered waterholes

where they've been confined
during the dry season

They will build nests above
the high water level

and lay up to 100 eggs

Vast networks of wetlands that have been
dry since last season are flooded again

Sometimes this powerful event
can also transform Australia's arid centre

In years when rains are heavier
and more widespread than usual

the water flows inland
to the parched interior

Slowly heading south
water spreads across the plains

In six months or more
it may reach the centre of the continent

Under cloudless skies
the water creeps quietly inland

filling hundreds of dry waterways

In dry sandy creek beds
millions of tiny drought resistant eggs

like seeds are waiting

Subterranean life that may have been dormant
for years begins to stir

Stimulated by seeping water

the burrowing frog
awakes from its long sleep

Carefully it parts the membrane that has
kept it moist through the drought

Like the frog many creatures are primed

for the good times
that are about to unfold

Alerted by an ancient program
in their minds

Egrets arrive
and take up feeding positions

Fish have already started reproducing
in streams that until a week ago

were tracks of dry sand

Thousands of waterbirds join in a frenzy
of feeding and breeding

that may happen only once
or twice in a decade

Briefly the desert blossoms
in a colourful tide of new life

One of the few large predators in this
land also participates in the bonanza

Australia's wild dog the dingo

arrived from nearby Asia about
four thousand years ago

lts pups will feed on the plentiful
supply of rodents and reptiles

that are also multiplying
in the abundant conditions

Tens of thousands of pelicans

are drawn by the
irresistible call of inland water

Responding to reflections far away
in the sky

the birds fly hundreds of miles to gather
on the shores of newly filled desert lakes

With more than
half a million nesting birds

colonies of this size are a rare event

Pelicans normally breed in small
scattered communities

producing one chick a year

Here they'll produce five
or more in quick succession

and go on doing so
as long as the food supply lasts

Millions of years ago

pelicans were breeding in the vast lake
system that covered much of the interior

Ancestral knowledge seems to draw them
back to their primeval home range

The water ends its long journey at the
centre of the continent in Lake Eyre

Nearly a million square miles

of the continent drains into the
world's largest dry salt lake

It fills completely only about
twice a century

Inevitably the flow of water stops

The earth and blasting sun suck away
at the stagnant pools where life

newly born there is on borrowed time

Trapped by receding waters

some of these fish will provide a final
feast for the birds

Millions more
will return to the mud of the riverbed

enriching it for the next generation

With their food supply running low

the great flocks of pelicans
become nomads once more

rising to search for that
far flash of water over the horizon

Those who have left their run too late
go back into the earth

The familiar desert
will now reclaim this place

Suns will scorch it
winds will dry it out

Most living creatures will dig in
and take refuge underground

Some will flee to the gentler edges
of this great land

And the hardy ones will await a new flood
in some future year

In Australia life has struck an
unlikely deal with an uncertain climate

The continent has been a ship of refuge

for an alternate order of ancient life

as it crept northward through the eons

its passengers have had to adapt
again and again

In this land beyond time

life has learned to ride out the hard times
and flourish in the good times

Far more than merely surviving
life has triumphed in Australia