Original subtitles

(GROWLS)

\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\hAfrica, a continent of extremes,

inhabited by some of Earth’s largest,

weirdest,

and most fearsome creatures.

(ROARING)

Each evolved to fill its own particular niche

in the complex web of life.

(SNORTING)

Humans have tried to make sense

of these extraordinary creatures

for as long as we have lived beside them.

Our ancestors searched for meaning through stories.

Wondering why does the zebra have a striped coat?

These myths have endured for centuries.

Now science has led to some answers

and it turns out that fact

is sometimes stranger than fiction.

(MUSIC PLAYING)

(BIRDS CHIRPING)

Millions of years ago

an incredible diversity of life

evolved in Africa.

(LOW RUMBLING)

But one creature stood out from the rest, us.

We evolved alongside animals

but our intelligence set us apart.

And with intelligence came curiosity

about the world around us.

Our ancestors

turned to their imagination and created stories

of the natural world.

(THUNDER CRACKS)

They gave human characteristics

and magical powers to animals in the stories they told.

Today, over one billion people and thousands of ethnic groups

call Africa their home,

each with their own collection of animal fables

passed down generation to generation.

One story that most of us are familiar with is about Lion

as king of the beasts.

But some African stories say that it wasn’t always so.

FEMALE NARRATOR: \hA Kalahari bushman story

the belligerent Buffalo was a savage meat-eating bully.

Standing five feet tall,

with a spread of horns 3 feet wide,

he was a beast of monstrous proportions,

with a temper to match.

One day, a fierce old bull was about to kill Lion,

who begged for mercy.

Seeing an opportunity, Buffalo

decided to spare Lion his life,

but only if Lion agreed to hunt for him.

Day after day, Lion hunted for Buffalo,

who demanded more and more meat.

Lion turned on the fierce old bull,

sank his teeth into his neck,

and killed him.

From that day onwards, Lion has hunted Buffalo,

and Buffalo has only eaten grass.

The once mighty Buffalo now gathers in herds to stay safe

from the new king of the beasts, Lion.

MALE NARRATOR: \hThis is a story

told by generations of Kalahari bushmen.

Yet, as is often the case, the story holds many truths.

Buffalo are a favorite prey for lions.

so for a large pride with many mouths to feed,

a 1-ton buffalo will keep them fed for days.

But a feast like this doesn’t come easy.

Not only are buffalo huge, but true to the bushman’s tale,

they’re also fierce.

Only a large pride is capable of bringing one down

and success relies on a coordinated hunting strategy.

It starts with a dark moonless night.

Thermal imaging cameras help us see in the dark.

But a lion has its own built-in night vision.

An extra layer of cells in the lion’s eyes

and reflects it back into the retina

allowing them to see not only form,

but also detail in the dark.

The buffalo have to rely on sound and smell.

They can’t see the lions,

but they know they’re there.

(SNORTS)

As the myth foretold, the buffalo are safe,

as long as they stay in a herd.

A female lion distracts one of the buffalo,

isolating it from the group.

(LIONS GROWLING)

A young male takes over and keeps up the chase,

(LIONS GROWL)

Keeping clear of its lethal horns,

an adult female leaps onto the buffalo’s back.

She works to injure and weaken the buffalo

so that the other lions can move in.

(GROWLING)

But they’ve chosen a strong and powerful bull,

and a single kick could kill.

(GROWLING) \h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h(GRUNTS)

The odds are beginning to stack up

against the injured bull.

But then one of the females

takes a direct blow to her stomach.

(GROANS)

It’s a decisive moment.

Just like Buffalo from the myth, he was a fierce bull,

but this one was powerful enough to defend himself

from not only one, but a whole pride of lions.

(BIRDS CHIRPING)

The Shona people of Zimbabwe

say that at the beginning of time,

before people lived on Earth, the king of all animals

wasn’t the lion, or the buffalo.

It was the elephant.

Male African elephants can weigh

up to five and a half tons

and their tusks can be ten feet long.

So, it’s not surprising that many African myths and legends

feature this mighty animal.

FEMALE NARRATOR: \hAccording to the Shona,

Elephant was a kind and fair leader.

But fearsome and powerful Lion

thought that he should rule instead.

He tried to take Elephant’s crown many times,

but all the other animals thought that only Elephant

had all the right qualities to be king.

One year the rains failed

and a terrible drought came to the land.

Lion tricked the other animals into believing that Elephant

was hiding the last remaining water hole.

But his lie was discovered and his plan backfired.

As a punishment,

Elephant banished Lion from his kingdom.

It wasn’t until the great elephant leader died,

that Lion finally became king of the beasts.

\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\hLike the Shona story, the importance of water

is central to many African myths and legends.

In a continent where so many places

are dependent on seasonal rains

and suffer crippling droughts,

access to fresh water is vital for survival.

If the rains don’t arrive on time,

the effects can be devastating.

As the dry season progresses animals congregate

around the dwindling rivers.

Baby elephants are vulnerable as daytime temperatures

push into the hundreds.

(LOW RUMBLING)

(SNORTS)

This calf needs to feed every hour.

And her mother must drink every day

in order to produce enough milk.

She knows there’s a river a mile away,

but she also knows it’s home to a resident pride of lions.

Other water sources in the area have dried up,

so she has no choice but to risk going to the river.

The lions could kill her calf

if it gets separated from the group.

The baby instinctively stays close to the adults.

(GROWLS)

It’s a standoff reminiscent of the mythical battle over water

and who would be king of the beasts, Elephant

or Lion.

The family protects the calf

with a barrier of muscle and might.

(TRUMPETS)

The elephants send a clear message of strength.

(TRUMPETS)

(ROARS)

(ELEPHANT TRUMPETS)

(ROARS)

It’s enough.

The lions clear a path to the water,

and let the family drink in peace

this time.

The people from Chad, in northern Central Africa,

believe that the skin of an elephant has magical powers.

Could that be true?

Unlike most mammals,

an elephant’s skin doesn’t have sweat glands,

so they need to find other ways

to dissipate body heat and stay cool.

Elephants search for mud in a drying-out lagoon.

(RUMBLES)

(WATER SPLASHES)

They suck up liquid mud into their trunks

and cover their bodies with the cool concoction.

(TRUMPETS)

Wrinkled skin traps layer upon layer of the wet mud,

keeping it moist for up to 20 hours

and helping the elephants to stay cooler for longer.

As the mud dries,

the process of evaporation replicates the action of sweating,

drawing heat from the body as the liquid water evaporates.

When the mud finally dries, wrinkles keep it in place

where it acts like a sunscreen.

Without the wrinkles, the mud would not only quickly dry

in the scorching heat,

but it would also flake off their undulating body.

This is just one part of the elephant’s

incredible cooling system.

Heat radiating from the elephant’s body

makes it appear to glow under a thermal camera.

Its ears however are dark, indicating that they are

much cooler than the rest of its body.

Under the thin flat skin a lattice of blood vessels

brings blood from the elephant’s body core

closer to the surface.

As the elephant flaps its ears,

air passes over the blood vessels

cooling the blood and dissipating body heat.

The ears and skin act like a personal air conditioning unit

and are perfectly designed

for life in a hot, tropical country.

So it’s no wonder the people of Chad believe

that an elephant’s skin has magical powers.

In many ways, it does.

It’s late August in Southern Africa

and temperatures soar to over 115 degrees Fahrenheit.

It’s half way through the dry season,

and it won’t rain for another three months.

Hippos don’t have the benefit of a mud-slinging trunk,

nor a wrinkled skin,

so have to rely on staying underwater to keep cool.

Noisy and boisterous, hippos are big characters

in the African landscape

and most African people have a different hippo story to tell.

But there’s one tale known throughout Africa.

\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\hHippo was once a land animal

of the forest and plains.

But he was greedy and grew fat.

The fatter he got

the more he suffered from the heat of the day.

So he asked God if he could live in the cool river.

But God had already promised the river to Crocodile.

Hippo pleaded and God eventually agreed.

But only on one condition, that he promised never to

eat the fish that belonged to Crocodile.

Hippo made his promise, which he keeps to this day.

He shows God that there are no fish bones in his dung

and laughs with joy to be in the cool river.

(SNORTING)

(SNORTING)

\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\hThis dominant male heads up a herd

of 15 females and young males.

He spreads his dung, not, as the story says to prove to God

that he hasn’t eaten fish,

but to mark out territory

and send a clear message to other male hippos

that this is his patch of river.

And that gape is no laughing matter.

It’s a threat to stay back.

During the dry season space in the river gets tight,

and bachelor bulls take advantage of the chaos

to move in on the dominant male’s turf.

(ROARING)

But he won’t give up his territory

and females without a fight.

The old bull has won, for now.

Dry season temperatures in Southern Africa

can go from 50 to 100 in a day,

requiring animals to find ways to deal with

both hot and cold.

Even these biological facts

can find their way into African fiction.

A Kalahari bushman story tells of how Crocodile

got his amour-plating.

FEMALE NARRATOR: \hAt the beginning of time,

Crocodile had smooth, golden skin.

He kept it that way

by spending all day in muddy water,

only coming out after the sun had gone down.

Whenever the animals saw Crocodile

they would compliment him on his beautiful skin.

He started to come out of the water during the day

to show it off to as many animals as he could.

He became boastful and obsessed with his own beauty,

and didn’t notice that his skin had started to blister

and bulge under the baking sun.

It wasn’t until the other animals began to laugh at him

that he became aware of what was happening,

but it was too late,

his skin had turned thick, bumpy and ugly.

Crocodile never recovered from the humiliation and shame

and today, he prefers to hide his body underwater,

leaving only his eyes and nostrils above the surface.

In reality,

the African Nile crocodile’s habit of staying submerged

has nothing to do with shame,

it’s all to do with heat regulation and stealth.

Crocodiles are powerful ambush hunters.

Their eyes, ears and nostrils are located

at the top of their head,

allowing them to hide in the water

while still being able to see, hear and smell potential prey.

(CHIRPING)

They wait, submerged,

until prey comes close enough to strike.

(CHIRPING)

But there is some truth in the Kalahari bushman’s story.

Nile crocodiles are nocturnal reptiles

and, unable to fully regulate their temperature,

need to cool down in the river

and bask in the sun to warm up.

And their sides and bellies

are smooth and golden in color,

it’s only the upper part of their body

that has thick armored skin.

The bumps and scales are bony deposits laced with

thread-like blood vessels.

As with many animals, the surface blood vessels help

with raising and lowering the crocodile’s body temperature.

But it is the bone embedded in the armored skin

that provides facts stranger than fiction.

Staying submerged for a long time

leads to dangerous levels of carbon dioxide

accumulating in the crocodile’s blood,

which turns it acidic.

But recent studies have shown that the alkaline calcium

in their bony scales neutralizes this acidity,

allowing crocodiles to stay hidden underwater for longer.

So, it’s millions of years of evolution,

not too much showing off in the sun,

that has created the crocodile’s incredible skin.

By October, the dry season in Southern Africa

is at its peak.

Rivers are dwindling and pools drying out.

It’s still a month before the rains are due to arrive.

The land and animals are at breaking point.

Zebra moving into the vast plains of western Zambia

is a sign

that rain could be on its way.

Young males arrive ahead of the main herd.

They’re here to stake a claim on a patch of,

what will be, a grass-eater’s paradise.

These bachelor bands of young stallions

stay in gangs until the chance comes for them

to claim their own harem of females.

But to do this they will have to fight the dominant stallion

from the harem.

Battles between zebra males

involve fierce kicking and biting.

And young bachelors sometimes

bite off more than they can chew

when taking on a stallion.

(SNORTING)

(SNORTS)

(SNARLS)

This greenhorn has yet to earn his stripes.

No other animal in Africa has such dramatic coloration.

The zebra’s vivid stripes

have baffled scientists for decades.

Little wonder local people

have composed their own stories

to explain the extraordinary markings.

\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\hThe Zulu people from Southern Africa

tell a story about a bossy baboon

who claimed a river for himself.

Brave Zebra, whose coat was all white in those days,

challenged him.

Baboon was a good fighter and his teeth were long and sharp.

He bit and pushed Zebra into a bush fire.

The flames licked up his pure white coat,

singeing the fur in a striped pattern.

Zebra was so angry

that he kicked Baboon right over the river.

Baboon landed hard on the ground

and stripped all the hair off his backside.

To this day, Zebra proudly wears his striped coat

and Baboon can’t hide his bare bottom.

(BIRDS CHIRPING)

MALE NARRATOR: That coat is not only bold, it’s brilliant.

When zebra run together the collective stripes merge,

making it difficult for a predator

to pick out one animal from a mass of moving stripes.

The zebra are reduced to a mere ghost in long grass.

The stripes are also thought to act

like a kind of insect repellent.

Scientists have shown that biting flies prefer animals

with plain coats over those with contrasting stripes.

No flies on him,

but possibly more on him.

The wildebeest, or gnu,

is zebra’s plain-dwelling neighbor, and frequent ally.

A larger herd has more eyes to spot danger,

and more voices to sound the alarm.

It’s said that God made the gnu from the bits and pieces

left over after creating all the animals.

He gave it a mule’s face,

a goat’s beard,

the horns of a cow, and the body of a horse.

It certainly behaves like all the bits and pieces

came from different animals,

wanting to go in different directions

as it darts about the grassland!

Perhaps it’s those darn flies.

Like the zebra stallions,

these young males stake their claim on the plain,

taking a gamble that the rains will come

and the females will follow to their particular patch.

Wildebeest are the largest species of antelope and,

like other members of this group,

use scent to mark territory.

Males dump dung and urine on bare patches of earth

known as stamping grounds,

the smelly centre of their territory.

They rub their heads in the earth

adding scent from glands on their face.

Then it’s time to have a good old rub-down,

and fully cover themselves in their personal perfume.

Nice!

Now to show off!

Those jerky, disconnected movements

aren’t really caused by biting flies.

This is how he marks his territory.

The rocking gallop, the swishing tail,

the leaps, bucks and head tossing,

and that trot, are all part of the display.

He’ll add a few snorts and grunts

to make it clear to all the other males

where his boundary lies.

(SNORTS)

(SNORTS)

But this challenger has crossed the line.

They initially check each other out by licking the air

and tasting each other’s scent.

Then there’s a standoff as they size each other up.

The interloper drops to his knees,

indicating that he’s ready to fight.

(GRUNTING AND SNORTING)

But it’s just a skirmish

and it’s over as quickly as it began.

Like bored teenagers, these young males spend all day

acting out ritual displays of territory and dominance,

strutting their stuff while waiting for the rain

and the females to arrive.

(THUNDER RUMBLES)

(THUNDER CRACKING)

Sometimes the rains

don’t always come when they’re supposed to.

In a finely-tuned system a change in the plan

marks the beginning of a new struggle for survival,

especially for the very young, the old and the weak.

It’s a time when predators thrive, for a while.

But when the rivers run dry and the ground turns to stone,

even they find it hard.

Every creature needs water

however they get it.

The roots of the riverside trees tap into the very last

reserves of underground water.

The leaves contain a tiny but precious source of moisture,

enough to make the difference

between life and death in a drought.

The savannah plant eaters

have stripped the trees almost bare.

Only one animal can reach the very last leaves.

The tallest animal on Earth.

A male giraffe can be 18 feet tall.

And with a 17-inch long tongue,

this male can reach 19 feet up a tree!

His tongue is not only long, but also prehensile,

meaning it can curl and grip,

allowing him to carefully pluck leaves

even from branches covered in thorns.

And a modified joint in his neck

allows his head to tilt to the vertical,

helping him to reach as far as is physically possible.

This bizarrely built giant has inspired many African myths

and legends.

FEMALE NARRATOR: \hA story from East Africa

tells that during a drought,

when all the animals were dying,

a kindly shaman took pity on Giraffe.

He gave him magic herbs that made his neck and legs grow

long enough to help Giraffe reach the last leaves

on a tree, and survive the deadly drought.

(BIRDS CALLING)

\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\hThis male giraffe’s long legs and neck

give him an advantage

over other animals of the African bush,

especially when times are hard.

In a competitive world, advantage drives evolution.

And the scientific facts

behind the giraffe’s incredible body

are more extraordinary than the magic in the myth.

(BIRDS CHIRPING)

Adult giraffes have a heart that weighs up to 26 pounds.

This powerful muscle

simultaneously pumps blood eight feet down

to the giraffe’s feet

and eight feet up to it’s head.

This requires a blood pressure that’s two and half times

higher than a human’s.

To maintain this high pressure,

their skin is thick and stiff,

acting like a giant compression bandage.

The jugular vein is lined with extra muscle.

And one-way valves in their neck

allow the giraffe to lower its head

without flooding its brain or bursting blood vessels,

and raise it without fainting.

These adaptations to living the high life

give giraffes a very long neck’s length

ahead in the race for survival

and go to show that fact can be stranger than fiction!

The giraffe’s ability to tilt it’s head to the vertical might

have been the inspiration

for an ancient Kalahari bushman myth.

FEMALE NARRATOR: \hThe story tells

that at the beginning of time,

the Sun didn’t know its way around the universe.

God saw that Giraffe often stared curiously into the sky.

So he asked Giraffe

to watch over the Sun

and check that it never lost its way again.

And so, to this day,

the Sun always rises in the east

and sets in the west.

God was so pleased with what Giraffe had done,

he rearranged a group of stars in his honor.

The bushmen call this constellation Tutwa,

meaning "giraffe".

It’s also known as The Southern Cross.

MALE NARRATOR: \hFor the predators of Africa,

moonless nights are the best time to hunt.

But myths say there was a time when there was

no true darkness.

FEMALE NARRATOR: A story told by the Kono people of Sierra Leone

said that long ago the sun shone all day

and a full moon shone all night,

making it hard for predators to hunt.

The supreme god Yataa decided to help predators

by bringing darkness to the land.

He put darkness into a basket

and told Bat to take it to the Moon.

But Bat got hungry on his long journey.

So he put the basket down and flew off in search of food.

Other animals found the basket and let darkness escape.

To this day, Bat sleeps during the day

and flies around all night, trying to recapture darkness.

MALE NARRATOR: \hAt the end of the dry season

fig trees provide a welcome feast for fruit bats.

Like sweet beacons in the night,

the bats are drawn to the tree

by the scent of the ripening fruit.

Just like the myth foretold,

fruit bats spend most of the night flying around,

but not in search of darkness, they’re foraging for food.

They need to eat half their body weight

in fruit every night, and figs are a favorite.

Using its rasp-like tongue, the bat mashes the fruit

against its teeth extracting flesh and juices

and then discards the pulp.

It’s not long before the undigested remains

come out the back end.

In this way, fruit bats play an important role

in maintaining the diversity and health of African forests.

The seeds from the fruit they eat

can be dispersed many miles away

from the mother tree,

neatly deposited in their own little pile of fertilizer.

(BATS SCREECHING)

As dawn breaks, thousands of straw-colored fruit bats

return to their day-time roost in an evergreen swamp

in central Zambia.

They’ve recently arrived here, some having travelled

over 1,000 miles from central Africa.

Their arrival is timed to coincide with the onset of

rains and fruiting trees in this part of Zambia.

By the end of November, there will be 10 million bats

in this half square-mile patch of swamp.

Unlike the myth, the straw-colored fruit bats

don’t spend all day sleeping.

Some of the time is spent socializing

and arguing over their section of branch.

As day becomes dusk and temperatures fall,

the bats get ready to head out into the surrounding forests

where the fruiting trees grow.

The straw-colored bat is the second largest bat in Africa

with a wingspan of nearly three feet.

Designed for endurance rather than speed,

their wings carry the bats 40 or 50 miles

in search of fruit every night.

But first they have to get past the resident predators.

It’s only during this limited season that the fish eagle

will switch from its usual diet of fish to bat.

Having traded speed for endurance,

the slow flying bats

are easy pickings for the agile eagle.

(SHRIEKING)

For those that survive,

there’s a busy night of foraging ahead.

(THUNDER RUMBLES)

(THUNDER CRACKING)

Distant storms could mean that the rains are finally

on their way,

but dawn brings another clear, cloudless sky.

The storms didn’t quite make it

to this part of Southern Africa.

The San people of Southern Africa

have a story about rain and why

it comes and goes in parts of Africa.

FEMALE NARRATOR: \hThey say that long ago,

Elephant and Rain decided to get married.

At first all was good,

but then they started to quarrel

about who was more powerful.

Elephant would say,

"I am the strongest of all living things!"

Rain would reply, "All that lives, lives through me!"

Elephant was too proud

to accept that Rain’s nourishing powers

were greater than his strength.

So, to teach Elephant a lesson, Rain decided to leave,

taking all the moisture with her.

Drought soon came to the land,

making life hard for all the animals.

Elephant begged for Rain’s forgiveness,

but she ignored him.

The drought deepened and all the animals,

including Elephant, suffered terribly.

Rain had proved her point and finally returned

but now she only stays for a short time

to remind elephant and all the animals

just how powerful she is.

MALE NARRATOR: \hThe Zulu people call

the southern ground hornbill the rain bird.

They believe its booming call brings rain to the land.

A female finds a high branch in an open patch of the plain,

and starts to call.

(CALLING)

She’s joined by a male.

Their duet is an affirmation of their territory

and their life-long bond.

They will mate just before the rains arrive.

Could the Zulu story be true?

Is rain finally on its way?

(THUNDER CRACKING)

A curtain of rain sweeps across the parched plains,

finally breaking the drought.

(TRUMPETS GENTLY)

As if by magic the landscape is transformed.

For the young male wildebeest, their gamble has paid off.

Females flood into the plains and feast

on rich grasses in their patch of paradise.

Rivers fill and the once dry pools teem with birds,

and happy hippos.

Trees blossom and fruit,

and creatures of all shapes and sizes

feast on the bounty that the rain provides.

Africa.

A land of magical stories,

filled with strange creatures that inspired and terrified.

(LOW RUMBLING)

The myths and legends

still hold meaning to the people who live there,

yet our scientific understanding

of the natural world

has offered us even more to wonder and marvel,

showing that fact is often stranger than fiction.

(BATS SHRIEKING)

(MUSIC PLAYING)

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