Original subtitles

Experience a world beyond imagination

where fish can fly...

lizards walk on water,

apes master tools

and frogs disappear in plain sight.

Animals do the smartest things...

through every stage of their lives.

From leaving home...

to raising a family.

From finding food...

to making friends.

They find ingenious ways to survive

against all odds.

Welcome to The Secret Lives of Animals.

We can all be guilty of taking a good meal for granted.

But in the animal kingdom,

finding enough food is anything but easy.

This bottlenose dolphin

needs a whopping 16,000 calories a day.

As much as we eat in a week.

And in the vast, maze-like marshlands of South Carolina,

that's tough.

The fish he hunts are fast.

They can easily give him the slip in these deep, narrow channels.

And twice a day, when the tide goes out...

hunting gets even tougher.

As the watery world shrinks,

razor-sharp oyster beds are revealed.

They would shred his skin.

He can't get to the fish here.

It's a problem he shares with his pod.

To get the food they need,

they must use the low tide to their advantage.

They search for a clear stretch of bank

away from the dangerous oyster beds.

Once they've found the perfect spot...

they begin to work together.

They stir the water...

to move the fish...

into the open.

And then...

surround them.

Driving the fish towards the bank,

they whip up a curtain of mud behind the shoal.

In a final move,

the pod charge as a perfectly synchronized unit.

They force their prey out of the water...

and follow them to hunt on land.

It's a huge risk for a heavy aquatic mammal.

If they were beached, they wouldn't survive for long.

But they have mastered the art of strand feeding.

Only a fraction of bottlenose dolphin pods worldwide

have learnt to use tidal mudflats in this way.

And they'll do it until they've had their fill.

Finding food is a daily battle...

but overcome the challenge

and the world is your oyster.

In Malaysia...

it's easy enough for a bee to get an early morning meal.

After all, there are thousands of nectar-filled flowers on offer.

But all is not as it seems.

Tricked by an orchid mantis

no bigger than a sugar cube.

This sophisticated hunter

is one of the world's best disguised predators.

With legs and an abdomen that look like petals,

she's bigger and more beautiful

than the flowers she hides amongst.

She's chosen her spot well.

The center of a bee highway.

Simply

irresistible.

She strikes twice as fast as you can blink.

But success blows her cover.

The diner could become dinner herself.

But orchid mantises have many talents.

Those petal-like legs aren't just for show.

When she spreads them, she can glide further than any wingless insect.

Safe.

But without any flowers,

there are no bees here either.

To eat, she'll have to make the food come to her.

Like a flower, she releases an intoxicating perfume.

An artful imitation of the chemicals a bee uses to attract its hive mates.

It's so convincing, as it fills the air...

it lures unsuspecting bees...

straight into her clutches.

Armed with so many exceptional talents,

she can eat almost anywhere.

Knowing how to find food comes naturally to some.

But for others, it's a lifelong education.

This female red colobus monkey

lives on the lush tropical island of Zanzibar.

Making sure her family eat their greens is no problem.

Colobus are vegetarians.

And they like nothing better than young leaves,

flowers...

and unripe fruit...

which they eat with gusto.

Getting all the vitamins and carbs they need.

But for her family to grow big and strong...

they also need protein.

And there's one tree that has it in abundance.

The mango.

Its young leaves are 20% protein.

But eating them...

comes at a cost.

They are laced with poison.

And cause severe bellyache.

Like all good mums, she knows how to make it better.

But it means venturing into someone else's territory.

It may not look like much...

but charcoal is an inspired remedy.

Taken quickly after eating toxins...

it absorbs and neutralizes them.

In human medicine, we use charcoal to treat poisoning.

But colobus are the only primates clever enough

to have figured this out for themselves.

And they've unlocked a protein-rich feast

that's off the menu for most.

Helping to sustain more of them in this small corner of Zanzibar

than anywhere else on Earth.

We all know one of the secrets to a healthy life is a balanced diet.

But to achieve that, you have to plan ahead.

Meet Portia...

a jumping spider.

Only the size of a pea.

She lives in the forests of Southeast Asia.

To survive, she has to eat other spiders.

All armed and dangerous.

And some more than double her size.

Portia is up to the challenge.

Her brain may be the size of a pinhead,

but it's a powerhouse.

A golden orb spider,

waiting to catch prey in a deadly, sticky trap.

Portia approaches with extreme caution.

Careful to keep most of her body off the web...

she plucks.

Orb weavers have poor vision,

and rely on their web as their eyes and ears.

The vibrations fool the orb weaver

into thinking there's a struggling insect trapped in the web.

It's a stroke of genius.

Once it's in reach, Portia pounces.

Her deadly venom overpowers it in seconds.

But in the forest,

Portia needs a different approach for different targets.

Her brilliance lies in her ability to change her tactics.

A silver-faced spider, high out of reach.

This web can't be plucked.

She needs a new strategy.

Assessing her surroundings...

Portia looks for a vantage point.

Without even being able to see her prey, she climbs.

Until...

she has the upper hand.

Most spiders use their silk to make webs,

but Portia is no ordinary spider.

She makes an anchor point...

to bungee undetected.

And this genius jumping spider, feasts again.

Some are born with the skills they need to get a meal.

For others, finding their favorite food can be a harder nut to crack.

Autumn is the season of bounty.

And for this Japanese crow,

walnuts are the pick of the crop.

Because they are amongst the most nutritious things he'll eat all year.

This city slicker's problem is getting into them.

To solve it, he needs to think outside the box,

and take advantage of his urban home.

Positioning is everything.

So close,

but not close enough.

There we go.

Using a car as an oversized nutcracker

is nothing short of brilliant.

But on the busy city streets, it works too well.

The nut quickly turns to dust.

And with it, his meal.

Most birds need instant gratification,

or they simply just give up.

But what sets crows apart

is their ability to know a better reward is coming

and to wait for it.

Perhaps somewhere with reliable traffic

but fewer cars will do the trick.

A driving school.

Could this be the answer?

Lessons run seven days a week, every half hour...

like clockwork.

And this clever corvid...

can set his watch by it.

He has a secret stash on site.

This time he puts his plan into action with a flourish.

Cracked it.

With fewer cars, his meal stays in bigger chunks

and he can eat in peace.

Intelligent planning means this brainbox can enjoy a meal

that would otherwise be impossible to crack.

We are all united by our quest to find food.

It takes precision planning...

hard work...

and even a bit of trickery...

to get the ingredients we need for life.

To film bottlenose dolphins hunting on land,

the team ventured deep into the coastal backwaters of South Carolina.

There are so many places for these dolphins to hide.

These creeks just go forever back in the marshes.

To locate the dolphins,

they enlist the help of marine biologist Weatherly Meadors.

I grew up on the water.

I've been working in these creeks my whole life.

So I would say I know them like the back of my hand.

This estuary is hugely dynamic.

The biggest thing to be aware of is what the tide is doing.

The tides impact everything.

Dolphins only strand feed for a brief period at low tide.

The best way to track them down is with an eye in the sky.

And it soon pays off.

All right, we got some dolphins in the creek.

Now all they have to do is keep up with them.

But that's easier said than done.

The water visibility back in these creeks is just so muddy.

You really can't see anything, can you?

- No. - Geez.

And to make things even harder,

bottlenose dolphins can hold their breath for up to ten minutes.

He just gave us the slip.

I can't believe we lost them again.

Just your classic wildlife.

You think you get everything lined up

and then the animals have decided to do whatever they wanna do instead.

With low tide quickly approaching,

Weatherly turns detective.

There's a couple of splash marks on the beach

that looks like maybe a dolphin came up here.

Looks like one, two and three.

Maybe four.

The splashes suggest four dolphins

have been strand feeding on this bank.

And Weatherly thinks they might return.

Yeah, I got it.

Hayes and the team move into position.

So we're coming at this, two approaches.

We've got Dawson on the beach.

We're on the gimbal.

Fingers crossed.

But the dolphins are nowhere to be seen.

With their window of opportunity fading by the minute...

the crew are losing hope.

Then Weatherly spots something.

We got one moving real quick.

Oh, my God. There's four all together.

- Do you see that? - Okay, we're getting it. Got it.

Okay, turning in.

He is coming up. We got beautiful light and we're really hopeful.

They're on the circles back there.

It's the moment of truth.

Will Weatherly's detective work pay off?

Here we go. Right in front of us.

They're doing it.

We've been waiting for a long time.

Look at them go.

At last, the crew get the shots they need.

Dolphins hunting on land. You don't see that every day.

You certainly don't.

Next time...

To survive, sometimes you have to fake it to make it...

using dirty tricks

and devious scams.

To outsmart the competition...

you must learn the art of deception.