Original subtitles

[narrator] Pointy bits. Whether they're on the top,

out in front,

or corkscrew,

sometimes it takes a sharp tool to stay on top.

Jabbing...

They're trying to do as much damage as possible.[narrator] Stabbing...

They just get full of rage

and want to fight everybody all the time.

[narrator] By crook...

It can gouge an opponent.

[narrator] ...or by hook.

Whether within species or an apex alpha.

Because if you get in the way,

you might get a bill through your head.

[narrator] The battle isn't over

until someone gets the point.

Every day, everywhere, our planet is a battleground

Turf wars,

food fights

and mating mayhem rage on

as animals outwit and outmanoeuvre their own kind

in Battle of the Alphas.

Across southern Africa,

the world's largest antelope roams.

The eland.

Eland are nomadic.

So they're moving around constantly,

and as a result of that, they're never defending territories.

[narrator] They may not fight over territory.

But they fight over everything else.

Males fighting over females.

Males fighting females over food.

Females fight females over males and food.

It's just absolute chaos if you're an eland.

[narrator] Only the kids seem to get along.

An eland bull is a big beast.

Up to a tonne,

twice the weight of a female.

With horns over one metre long.

This is the biggest of the antelope.

It's got these spiral horns that it uses for defence

and for conflict with other elands.

[narrator] But a fight can be averted

if they listen carefully.

Because what sets this alpha bull above his peers

is the tone of his click.

Male elands have this quite bizarre evolutionary trait.

It's the clicking sound that they can make

using tendons in their forelegs.

[narrator] As the tendon slips over a bone in the knee,

it vibrates like a string on a violin...

or a cello,

or a double bass.

The length and the width of that tendon

grow as the animal gets bigger. And that has the result

of making the sound deeper.

[narrator] The sound can travel over hundreds of meters.

Elands can send very accurate information

to the other elands around

about how big it is, how fit it is,

and how you probably don't want to fight with it.

And this is actually really clever

from an evolutionary point of view.

Because any potential eland that's roaming around

wanting to come in and fight can hear this sound.

And he knows that if he's got a tendon

that sounds like a cello...

and his opponent's got a tendon that sounds like a double bass,

he's going to get outplayed. He doesn't stand a chance.

[narrator] But an alpha isn't an alpha

until a challenger comes along to prove it.

If the knee click's not enough,

it has other things to show off

that can hopefully prevent the fight from happening.

[narrator] It starts with the face.

Older, more powerful males have a darker face mask.

He also has a large dewlap,

which is that flap of skin under his neck there.

Essentially, it's his way of saying,

"Look at me, I'm going to win. Don't come near me."

All these pieces of equipment that show off

just how big an antelope this is.

And with any luck that makes the competitor go away.

But of course, some competitors just never get the message.

The last thing any animal really wants to do is fight.

It uses up a lot of energy that would be much better

to put in something like foraging or mating.

[narrator] If a challenger is unimpressed with the click

and all those traits are falling flat,

it's time to hit some sharp notes.

He's going to put his horn into the ground

and dig up some dirt, like he's plowing,

kind of like he's drawn a line in the sand.

[♪]

And then what happens next is a little bit gross.

What he does is he squirts some urine onto the ground.

He puts his horn back down and start mixing it up again,

kind of like a hormone cocktail. And then he's like,

"Oh yeah, you want to taste this."

[narrator] But the other bull is calling his bluff.

Is it foolhardiness?

Or is it ukali?

This rage of hormones, this surge of testosterone

that essentially makes the bull act crazy.

And it's a Swahili word "ukali."

They just get full of rage

and want to fight everybody all the time.

[narrator] Time to bring out the horn section.

If you look at the neck of an eland,

you'll see that it's powerful, it's big, it's strong.

It's like this big, chunky powerhouse.

So they wrap their necks around each other,

really try to overpower the other one,

show that they're more dominant.

[narrator] The corkscrew horn gives each bull

leverage on the other.

But it turns out that most of the force

isn't a stabbing motion, it's a bending motion.

And if you're going to bend a horn,

it's going to be way stronger with that spiralling

than it is if it's just straight.

And that's why the males have that spiral.

[narrator] They push.

They shove.

Each tries to make his point.

And they're trying to stab each other in all the soft parts of their face.

So the eyes, the cheeks, anything they can get to,

they're just trying to do as much damage as possible.

Fights between bulls can end with death,

but most of the time,

one of them figures out that they've lost.

[narrator] To work it out,

sometimes they just have to keep their ears pricked.

And wait for something to click.

[♪]

Speaking of getting to the point.

It's flown 8000 kilometres

from South Africa to northern Europe.

The white stork is coming home to breed

If you can imagine a stork returning from a long migration

and coming back to the nest that they used

for maybe the last five, six years.

And arriving maybe a day or two later than normal

behold, there's already another stork sitting there.

This is going to lead to trouble.

[♪]

[narrator] A nest is worth fighting for.

A stork nest, for its size and its beauty

and its complexity, is truly

one of the mega-mansions of the bird world.

It is an incredibly impressive structure,

and it is enormous.

You're looking at something that can be about nine feet deep

and four or five feet wide.

Layer after layer after layer has been added throughout the years.

Because it's so labour-intensive,

they don't want to rebuild a nest year after year.

[narrator] And no nest lasts forever.

Maybe you had a nest site and a mate,

but it got damaged, blown down in a storm,

something happened.

You might try and sneak in

on the territory of an established pair.

[narrator] There are plenty of storks in the housing market

and nests don't come with locks and keys.

The race is on to establish ownership.

The male is the first to return.

Like they say, possession is nine tenths of the law.

The same is true with stork nests.

These storks are really motivated to come back

from migration as early as possible and stake their claim.

But of course, if you have a really nice nest in a neighbourhood,

you're going to be the target of other birds

for wanting to nest at your location.

[narrator] When a stork feels challenged,

it will perform several visual displays.

Really kind of showing that they're big, they mean business.

And if you land here, I'm going to use this beak and attack you.

They have this very characteristic

bill-clacking noise that they make.

[clacking]

And that shows that they're feeling kind of angry.

[narrator] A prime nest is worth fighting for

but fighting beak-to-beak is risky business.

The bill of a stork is absolutely its best weapon.

It is long and straight and pointed and very sharp.

They could very easily kill any bird with that beak,

but it is a tool of last resort.

[narrator] A fight can break a bill.

And it would probably impede their ability

to properly catch food.

It would be a death sentence if their beak got damaged.- They do throw their heads back and they start to posture

with their neck and their wings.

It'll hiss, it'll pump its wings up and down very quickly.

[narrator] A big male has a wingspan of a 1,5 metres.

And it's a very intimidating-looking display

for any bird that's thinking this might be

a nest they can take over.

[narrator] If the invader presses his point,

the defender will move to "threat display".

The resident stork will actually try to cover up the nest

with its wings and look and hiss.

And give a threatening look to any birds that come down.

[narrator] And these conflicts can be contagious.

You are going to attract the attention of other white storks,

who might think that there is a nest up for grabs.

And this third lone stork,

who hasn't had any success in finding a nest site of their own,

may be attracted to this argument and to this competition

because they might be able to benefit also.

Finding a nest site and building your own nest

is a lot of work.

So it's easier to try to steal a nest.

[narrator] But sometimes home invasions

can have unintended victims.

And if there are eggs and chicks,

they can fall victims to this kind of skirmish.

In the fight to keep a nest, they've lost

their entire hope for that breeding season.

[narrator] This prompt pair has fought to keep a sweet home

In the world of the white stork

the early bird gets the castle.

[♪]

From sharp bills to pointy horns.

An alpha rhinoceros can weigh u to 3,5 tonnes.

Even the elephant knows not to mess

with this angry busload of muscle.

Its head alone weighs nearly a tonne.

But for all that size, it has a pretty small brain.

And the eyes don't even work that well.

But don't you confuse that for them not being able

to process the world around them.

[growls]

They are amazing super-sniffers.

So a lot of that brain space is actually dedicated

to detecting and analyzing

chemical information like odours.

[narrator] Odour plays an outsize role

in rhinoceros social life.

The medium is the message that can start a fight.

The poop for the rhino is more than just

waste being eliminated. It's a message board.

Big male looking for a female that wants to mate.

Where does it go? Social media.

They're reading all the status updates

There is a female around that is ready to mate.

So, it's also a dating app.

[laughs]

[narrator] All species of rhino communicate through their dung.

She's sniffing it and getting information

about his overall condition.

There are other males in the area looking to mate

that they're going to have to compete with.

[narrator] Hormones in the rhino scent trail

deliver data on age, strength and fertility.

The aroma of an estrous female gets the bull's nose twitching.

Because there's no specific breeding season,

they have to wait for the females to be ready.

[narrator] Rhino gestation is long,

up to 18 months.

And the mother won't mate again

until the calf is at least two years old.

That's how long she's taken out of the dating pool

between being pregnant and raising her calf.

[narrator] That's a long time for a bull to wait.

So if you've got a male and they're standing between you

and your one chance to reproduce that year,

you've got to fight with everything you've got.

[narrator] When one bull challenges another

over a female,

the horn is more than a hood ornament.

If a rhino has a competitor coming into their territory,

it can put its head low to the ground.

It can even take its horn and dig a little bit in the dirt.

Almost like they're running a knife over a whetstone.

Left, right, left, right.

They're getting themselves worked up.

But then, they're also sending a message to the competitor.

"You see what I have here? You don't want any of this."

[grunts]

The rhino horn is unique.

It's not actually a horn.

It's a big, weird fingernail

that grows on the front of the nose.

[narrator] Horn size matters.

The average male has a 90-centimetre horn.

Some can grow up to 1,5 metres,

lengthier than a medieval long sword.

It can gouge an opponent.

They'll swoop their head down and dip and push up.

Because the head is so heavy,

the musculature that can raise the head is super strong.

Imagine a forklift.

They can come in at each other,

and they'll push their head down and scoop them up.

It could trip them up.

[narrator] The rhino on the right has a scimitar.

The rhino on the left has a short axe.

It's no contest.

Time to back off.

And with good reason.

The rhino that has one of the highest injury rates

based on using their ornaments.

[narrator] Male combatants are not the only fatalities.

Sometimes there are innocent bystanders.

If there's a female that comes in and she's not interested in mating,

a lot of the times he'll fight her, too.

And that can result in death of one of them

because those fights are just so brutal.

If they see a female with a small, young one,

they'll sometimes attack that small, young one.

Because the sooner that baby dies,

the sooner mom goes into estrus and is ready to go again.

It actually triggers them to go into heat,

to be receptive for mating.

And for that rhino,

it has no genetic investment in that other baby.

It just makes sense to kill it.

You're probably not going to get hurt killing a baby rhino,

so why not do it? They're jerks.

[narrator] For now, the fighting is over.

And this pointy alpha is occupied.

[♪]

All species fight their own kind.

But for the top of every food chain there is no contest,

this is an apex alpha

The Pacific Ocean,

off the coast of Baja California.

Water as far as the eye can see

There is nowhere to hide

from the striped marlin.

They are top predators in the open ocean environment.

These fish are totally built to kill.

[narrator] The striped marlin can reach

over 2.5 metres in length.

And weigh up to 240 kilograms.

That's all muscle that just powers this thing forward.

[narrator] Its fusiform body shape is designed for fast

continuous swimming.

And by focusing that power into the tail,

it allows for the striped marlin to have incredible

bursts of speed.

[narrator] Up to 36 kilometres per hour.

That dorsal fin allows them to keep straight in the water.

It stops them from just spinning wildly out of control.

[narrator] Specialized blood vessels keep its brain

and eye tissue warm,

allowing it to operate at peak efficiency

even in cooler waters.

They are also working at a faster speed,

a higher temperature

than the brains and eyes of their prey.

And it just gives the marlin that incredible edge.

And to top it all off, on the front of their face,

they've got an enormous spear.

It's actually an extension of the skull out over the mouth.

[narrator] Normally solitary,

marlin come together in groups to spawn

and sometimes to hunt.

To understand marlin hunting, you have to stop thinking

about individuals and you have to think about groups.

[narrator] A solitary prey fish is a tough catch.

Herded into a school, they become a moveable feast

called a bait ball.

Off the coast of Baja,

marlin have some unique collaborators.

Sea lions.

They're not really in competition

because there's enough food for each of them. And in fact,

they're kind of working together because they're both interested

in tightening up that ball of fish.

They work in this fabulous kind of synergy.

You can have sea lions diving beneath the ball,

keeping it up to the surface,

allowing the marlin to continue feeding.

So although they might be unlikely dining partners,

they work really well together when that feast is on.

You now get this shimmering ball of madness

as the bait fish do whatever they can to avoid

being stuck on the outside and therefore a target.

But really, they've isolated themselves,

and this is when the marlin can go to town.

They'll work as a team to make that ball of fish tighten up.

And then they'll push it up against the surface of the water,

where basically it's up against a wall and has nowhere to go.

All the other marlin come in and they start to circle

and stalk their prey from all possible angles.

[narrator] Herding a bait ball of hundreds

and even thousands of fish demands lightning pivots

in three dimensions.

These incredible pelvic fins that give the striped marlin

just that little bit of fine adjustment.

Allowing it to make these laser-sharp turns,

allowing it to just twist back on itself

and not snap its own spine, frankly.

[narrator] Marlins will work in groups up to 40.

They corral the fish.

And then they take turns.

You don't need to be a rocket scientist to know that,

if you're diving in headfirst to a writhing ball of fish,

you don't want Steve coming in from the right

and harpooning you with his bill.

[narrator] To avoid stabbing a fellow feeder,

the marlin puts its stripes to work.

It has this one trick that I can't think of any other alpha predators

that can do this, which is to change colour.

And they do that using something called chromatophores.

And these are basically bags of pigment

that are in the surface of the skin,

that are under muscular control.

They actually flash signals to other members of their species

to say what their intentions are.

That is his version of ringing the dinner bell for him.

That's him saying, "Everyone, I'm going in,

I'm making a strike, I'm going to have a feed.

Back off, because if you get in the way,

you might get a bill through your head."

[narrator] The marlin doesn't use its bill to spear prey.

Because if you think about it, if you skewered a fish

on the end of a three-foot-long nose,

how on earth are you going to get it to your mouth?

It goes in, whacks a whole bunch of fish to stun them,

and then it turns around, comes back and eats these fish

that are basically immobilized.

It's a really effective strategy.

[narrator] The striped marlin's bill looks smooth.

It's anything but.

With a microscope, you can actually see

tiny micro teeth on the outside of it.

So this is a fish that has teeth outside its mouth,

and it uses those to make that sword more effective.

And it changes it from like a foil into a light sabre,

so that if you get hit from the side, it does some damage.

[narrator] If the first bite doesn't polish off the prey,

it's a quick turn to finish the job.

And the striped marlin has an important impact on its habitat

Marlin are so vital

for the health of these open ocean ecosystems,

these lone wanderers you know, like sheriffs,

they will be controlling any populations

that get out of hand.

And if there are too many of any of them and it starts

upsetting the balance of our open ocean ecosystem,

the marlin will come in and deliver some of its justice.

[narrator] This is one sharp customer,

an alpha sheriff with sea lion deputies.

Thorny dilemmas.

Acrimonious antelopes.

Knives on storks.

For these pointy alphas,

winning is everything,

even if it's by a nose.