Prehistoric Planet (2022) s03e02 Episode Script
New Lands
1
[birds chirping]
[animal growling]
[grunts]
[growls]
[breathes heavily]
[Hiddleston] The biggest bear
that has ever lived.
[yawns]
Weighing in at over a ton.
[yawns]
Enjoying the sunshine,
he might look lovable…
[yawning]
Don't be fooled.
[yawns]
He is a powerful predator.
Giant short-faced bears are newcomers
to this South American forest,
traveling here from North America.
Whether they will thrive here
will come down to one thing…
food.
Because he needs 50 pounds of meat a day.
[sniffing]
Wild dogs feasting on a huge kill.
[sniffing]
- [sniffs]
- [Hiddleston] Could be a free lunch.
Two powerful forces.
Neither knows
what the other is capable of…
- [dogs growling]
- [barks]
- …yet.
- [roars]
[roaring]
[dogs yelp]
[both barking]
[all barking]
[roars]
[growling]
- [barking]
- [growls]
Fourteen feet tall, and his paws
pack a serious punch.
- [growls]
- [yelps]
[whines]
[growls]
He's made his point.
[yapping]
[dogs whine]
[panting]
Maybe there'll be some scraps left behind.
[roars]
But the bear is not going anywhere.
He's found his new home.
- This…
- [growls]
…is the Ice Age.
As powerful forces connect continents…
[lowing]
- …animals are on the move…
- [trumpets]
…exploring the world
and finding new places to live.
This is a time
when the animal kingdom is in turmoil.
- [squawks]
- [roars]
When birds are bigger than elephants.
[squeals]
[grunts]
Rivals from different continents
meet each other for the first time.
- [roars]
- [squeaks]
And monstrous creatures invade new lands.
In this rapidly changing world,
even the smallest creatures
are crossing continents.
This Ice Age squirrel is exploring
a new strip of land.
A bridge that now connects
North and South America.
Everywhere he looks,
there's something new…
and strange.
What on earth are those?
They're each as big as a basketball.
Just one of them
would feed him for a week.
[sniffing]
But unfortunately, they're armor-plated.
[animal growling]
[footsteps pounding]
[snorts]
[sniffing]
A giant ground sloth.
Twenty feet long and weighing six tons.
[birds chirping]
[sloth growling]
[sloth lowing]
These are cannonball fruit.
[sniffing]
And easy to crack
if you're the size of an elephant.
Now is his chance.
Maybe not.
But there are plenty more
where that came from.
Foot-long claws are perfect
for harvesting…
in bulk.
Effective…
but hazardous at ground level.
[sniffs]
[sniffing]
A giant sloth eats
300 pounds of food a day.
But this one seems to have had
his fill of cannonballs.
After all that…
it tastes awful.
Maybe the sloth's next meal
will be sweeter.
Not every strategy works first time.
To thrive in new lands,
it's best to keep trying.
It's a lesson everyone needs to learn.
Including this young Ice Age armadillo.
Just a few weeks old
and already three feet long.
Life in new lands can be unpredictable,
and rains here are late.
[grunts]
- [grunts]
- [groans, snorts]
- [purrs]
- [sighs]
His survival depends entirely
on his mother.
- [squeaks]
- [grunts, snorts]
But she's sleeping on the job.
[grunting]
[mother groans]
[purring]
Their ancestors came
from the forests of South America,
but ventured here,
the scrublands of North America,
during the Ice Age.
It's a tough place to live,
but his mother has a plan.
And nothing will stand in her way.
[snorting]
[grunting]
Almost nothing.
[grunts]
Right now, the baby is doing fine,
feeding on his mother's milk.
[grunts]
But if they don't find water soon,
she will run out.
As they travel,
the terrain seems to be getting worse.
Not just steeper,
but hotter and drier.
Luckily, his mother has a good nose
for finding water.
That's more like it.
[sniffs]
But someone has got there first.
[growling]
She might be a giant armadillo,
but he's a Columbian mammoth.
[growls]
Fourteen feet tall.
[growls]
Highly intelligent.
[snorts]
And very bad-tempered.
- [armadillo shrieks]
- [growls]
[roars]
[baby chirps]
Each of these mammoths
needs to drink 50 gallons a day.
That can take some time.
But there's one thing
that might make them move on.
[roars]
Mammoths are very scared of crocodiles.
[lows]
[both trumpet softly]
[snorts]
[grunts]
Not a crocodile.
[trumpets]
But the mammoths aren't sure.
Their eyesight is not good,
and they're not taking any chances.
For his mother, a drink at last.
That means milk for the baby…
[mother grunts]
…and a chance for him
to settle into his new home.
As the Ice Age changes
the face of the planet,
sea levels rise and fall.
And some creatures end up marooned.
To survive on an island with limited food…
animals adapt in surprising ways.
Like getting smaller.
Much smaller.
[grunting]
A dwarf Stegodon.
Closely related to elephants,
but just three feet tall.
If you think she's small,
this is her baby.
Not even 12 inches tall.
[squeals]
But for something so tiny,
she has a big appetite.
[mother grumbles]
[baby trumpets]
- And an attitude to match.
- [trumpets]
[trumpets]
- [growls]
- [squeaks]
- [rumbles]
- [trumpets]
[squeaks]
A swishing trunk and tail
means a Stegodon wants to play.
[grunts]
There we go.
Dwarf Stegodon create trails
as they move through the jungle,
but it takes years for youngsters
to learn the map.
It's too easy to take a wrong turn…
- and find yourself lost.
- [squeaks]
[trumpets]
Bad timing.
[squawks]
[grunting]
[grunts]
A six-foot meat eater.
- [squawks]
- A giant stork.
[trumpets]
Island creatures may be small,
but not these flying visitors.
[baby squeaks]
[grunts]
- [trumpets]
- A baby Stegodon…
would make a perfect meal.
[trumpets]
[squawks]
- [shrieks]
- These tangled roots just might save her.
[squawks, clicks beak]
[shrieks]
[trumpeting in distance]
But the odds are about to get a lot worse.
[storks shrieking, grunting]
[trumpets]
[storks grunting]
[roars]
- Her mother to the rescue.
- [roars]
- [storks shrieking]
- [trumpets]
[trumpeting]
[all squawking]
Safe, and a lesson learned.
In a world where birds can eat elephants…
you should never stray too far
from Mother.
With limited food on the island,
being small works well for dwarf Stegodon.
But here in South America,
the Ice Age has made giants.
Smilodon, a saber-toothed cat.
His ancestors traveled here
from North America,
and in this new land, he's the king.
The local competition.
A terror bird.
Maybe not that terrifying,
but intelligent, resourceful,
flightless hunters.
Their ancestors have lived here
for 50 million years.
[shrieks]
[chirps]
His brother.
- [brother squawks]
- [shrieks]
They hunt together,
but when food is scarce,
it's every terror bird for himself.
But maybe the sabertooth can help.
Why do the hard work
when someone else can do it for you?
All he has to do is follow.
[stone crumbles]
Not too close.
[growls softly]
- [stone crumbles]
- [brother squawks softly]
His brother has the same idea.
Smilodon have huge, muscular forelimbs
and paws bigger than any living cat.
Perfect for bringing down prey this size.
- [animal groans]
- [growls]
[animal grunting]
[shrieks]
[growls]
[squawks]
[growls]
[squawking]
[growls]
[squawks]
- [shrieks]
- [roars]
If he's smart…
he'll let his brother take the heat.
[growls]
[squawks]
[Smilodon roars]
Chaos!
But it's working…
for both of them.
The king has been outsmarted
by a couple of birds.
But as the turmoil
of the Ice Age continues,
animals everywhere will have to fight
to keep their place
in this strange new world.
As the far north freezes,
in the south,
drought rules and deserts expand.
The extreme conditions forge
some of the strangest creatures
the world has ever seen.
To survive,
they must battle the driest climate
for millions of years.
When people began studying
Ice Age animals,
they noticed something strange
about the way their fossils
were scattered across the world.
[Naish] One of
the real surprising discoveries was
that animal fossils associated
with certain continents
were found in other places.
Clearly, the animals had moved
from one continent to another.
[Hiddleston] It seemed as if animals
were crossing vast oceans.
How did they get there?
- [shrieks]
- [roars]
It's hard to imagine
that animals could cross oceans
to settle in new continents,
but something surprising was happening
during the Ice Age
which could explain it.
During colder periods of the Ice Age,
water becomes ice and gets bound up
in ice sheets at the poles.
[Gilbert] Slowly but surely
as those ice caps build up,
it means there's less water in the ocean
and that means
that the sea level starts dropping.
[Jackson] And as you lower sea level,
the seabed is exposed.
Seabed becomes land.
And that means that
previously disconnected land masses
suddenly are joined together.
[Hiddleston] Across the planet,
continents were joining together
in different ways.
North America and Asia today
are physically separate continents,
but back in the Ice Age, sea level was
a hundred plus meters lower,
and those two land masses actually
became connected via a land bridge.
[Gilbert] As these land bridges emerged
out of the sea,
it was like opening a door.
[trumpeting]
All these animals could suddenly
move from one continent
into an entirely new continent.
[Hiddleston] But there was a complication.
The land bridges were not permanent.
[Gilbert] As the ice kind of
started to melt away,
they'd disappear under the waves again.
[Jackson] And animals, therefore,
had almost a brief window
in Earth history,
in which to move
between those land masses…
before finding themselves
isolated once again.
[Hiddleston] Elsewhere, a different kind
of land bridge was forming
in a much more explosive way.
[rumbling, crashing]
The planet is very dynamic.
It feels stable today, but actually,
all the continental plates are moving.
When the continents move,
we generate lots of volcanoes.
And this is really important to
the North and South American continents,
which were physically separate
millions of years ago.
[Hiddleston] Moving tectonic plates
caused volcanoes to erupt,
bridging the gap with a new strip of land,
which is now Central America.
It effectively formed
an animal superhighway.
[Hiddleston] Different kinds of land
bridge enabled animals to move continent,
and the impact was extraordinary.
Animals living in the Northern Hemisphere
were able then to move southwards,
finding resources they desperately needed,
but coming into conflict
with all of the animals in South America.
[Hiddleston] New kinds of predator arrived
and found new prey to hunt.
Creatures like Macrauchenia
became easy victims.
[shrieks]
As you had these animal groups
moving into entirely new areas,
then you would've had
entirely new kinds of interactions.
[ Smilodon growls]
[Hiddleston] Hunters had
such an abundance of food…
- [shrieks]
- [roars]
they gradually grew
into the largest of their kind.
While some animals came down
from North America,
others were heading up from the south.
Traffic flowed in both directions
in a movement known as
the Great American Interchange.
Today, some of our most iconic
animals are descendants
of species
that made journeys to new lands.
Pumas, jaguars,
and other mammals
like porcupines and armadillos
all result from this great migration.
Animals settled across the planet
in new ways
all thanks to the Ice Age.
[trumpets]
[birds chirping]
[animal growling]
[grunts]
[growls]
[breathes heavily]
[Hiddleston] The biggest bear
that has ever lived.
[yawns]
Weighing in at over a ton.
[yawns]
Enjoying the sunshine,
he might look lovable…
[yawning]
Don't be fooled.
[yawns]
He is a powerful predator.
Giant short-faced bears are newcomers
to this South American forest,
traveling here from North America.
Whether they will thrive here
will come down to one thing…
food.
Because he needs 50 pounds of meat a day.
[sniffing]
Wild dogs feasting on a huge kill.
[sniffing]
- [sniffs]
- [Hiddleston] Could be a free lunch.
Two powerful forces.
Neither knows
what the other is capable of…
- [dogs growling]
- [barks]
- …yet.
- [roars]
[roaring]
[dogs yelp]
[both barking]
[all barking]
[roars]
[growling]
- [barking]
- [growls]
Fourteen feet tall, and his paws
pack a serious punch.
- [growls]
- [yelps]
[whines]
[growls]
He's made his point.
[yapping]
[dogs whine]
[panting]
Maybe there'll be some scraps left behind.
[roars]
But the bear is not going anywhere.
He's found his new home.
- This…
- [growls]
…is the Ice Age.
As powerful forces connect continents…
[lowing]
- …animals are on the move…
- [trumpets]
…exploring the world
and finding new places to live.
This is a time
when the animal kingdom is in turmoil.
- [squawks]
- [roars]
When birds are bigger than elephants.
[squeals]
[grunts]
Rivals from different continents
meet each other for the first time.
- [roars]
- [squeaks]
And monstrous creatures invade new lands.
In this rapidly changing world,
even the smallest creatures
are crossing continents.
This Ice Age squirrel is exploring
a new strip of land.
A bridge that now connects
North and South America.
Everywhere he looks,
there's something new…
and strange.
What on earth are those?
They're each as big as a basketball.
Just one of them
would feed him for a week.
[sniffing]
But unfortunately, they're armor-plated.
[animal growling]
[footsteps pounding]
[snorts]
[sniffing]
A giant ground sloth.
Twenty feet long and weighing six tons.
[birds chirping]
[sloth growling]
[sloth lowing]
These are cannonball fruit.
[sniffing]
And easy to crack
if you're the size of an elephant.
Now is his chance.
Maybe not.
But there are plenty more
where that came from.
Foot-long claws are perfect
for harvesting…
in bulk.
Effective…
but hazardous at ground level.
[sniffs]
[sniffing]
A giant sloth eats
300 pounds of food a day.
But this one seems to have had
his fill of cannonballs.
After all that…
it tastes awful.
Maybe the sloth's next meal
will be sweeter.
Not every strategy works first time.
To thrive in new lands,
it's best to keep trying.
It's a lesson everyone needs to learn.
Including this young Ice Age armadillo.
Just a few weeks old
and already three feet long.
Life in new lands can be unpredictable,
and rains here are late.
[grunts]
- [grunts]
- [groans, snorts]
- [purrs]
- [sighs]
His survival depends entirely
on his mother.
- [squeaks]
- [grunts, snorts]
But she's sleeping on the job.
[grunting]
[mother groans]
[purring]
Their ancestors came
from the forests of South America,
but ventured here,
the scrublands of North America,
during the Ice Age.
It's a tough place to live,
but his mother has a plan.
And nothing will stand in her way.
[snorting]
[grunting]
Almost nothing.
[grunts]
Right now, the baby is doing fine,
feeding on his mother's milk.
[grunts]
But if they don't find water soon,
she will run out.
As they travel,
the terrain seems to be getting worse.
Not just steeper,
but hotter and drier.
Luckily, his mother has a good nose
for finding water.
That's more like it.
[sniffs]
But someone has got there first.
[growling]
She might be a giant armadillo,
but he's a Columbian mammoth.
[growls]
Fourteen feet tall.
[growls]
Highly intelligent.
[snorts]
And very bad-tempered.
- [armadillo shrieks]
- [growls]
[roars]
[baby chirps]
Each of these mammoths
needs to drink 50 gallons a day.
That can take some time.
But there's one thing
that might make them move on.
[roars]
Mammoths are very scared of crocodiles.
[lows]
[both trumpet softly]
[snorts]
[grunts]
Not a crocodile.
[trumpets]
But the mammoths aren't sure.
Their eyesight is not good,
and they're not taking any chances.
For his mother, a drink at last.
That means milk for the baby…
[mother grunts]
…and a chance for him
to settle into his new home.
As the Ice Age changes
the face of the planet,
sea levels rise and fall.
And some creatures end up marooned.
To survive on an island with limited food…
animals adapt in surprising ways.
Like getting smaller.
Much smaller.
[grunting]
A dwarf Stegodon.
Closely related to elephants,
but just three feet tall.
If you think she's small,
this is her baby.
Not even 12 inches tall.
[squeals]
But for something so tiny,
she has a big appetite.
[mother grumbles]
[baby trumpets]
- And an attitude to match.
- [trumpets]
[trumpets]
- [growls]
- [squeaks]
- [rumbles]
- [trumpets]
[squeaks]
A swishing trunk and tail
means a Stegodon wants to play.
[grunts]
There we go.
Dwarf Stegodon create trails
as they move through the jungle,
but it takes years for youngsters
to learn the map.
It's too easy to take a wrong turn…
- and find yourself lost.
- [squeaks]
[trumpets]
Bad timing.
[squawks]
[grunting]
[grunts]
A six-foot meat eater.
- [squawks]
- A giant stork.
[trumpets]
Island creatures may be small,
but not these flying visitors.
[baby squeaks]
[grunts]
- [trumpets]
- A baby Stegodon…
would make a perfect meal.
[trumpets]
[squawks]
- [shrieks]
- These tangled roots just might save her.
[squawks, clicks beak]
[shrieks]
[trumpeting in distance]
But the odds are about to get a lot worse.
[storks shrieking, grunting]
[trumpets]
[storks grunting]
[roars]
- Her mother to the rescue.
- [roars]
- [storks shrieking]
- [trumpets]
[trumpeting]
[all squawking]
Safe, and a lesson learned.
In a world where birds can eat elephants…
you should never stray too far
from Mother.
With limited food on the island,
being small works well for dwarf Stegodon.
But here in South America,
the Ice Age has made giants.
Smilodon, a saber-toothed cat.
His ancestors traveled here
from North America,
and in this new land, he's the king.
The local competition.
A terror bird.
Maybe not that terrifying,
but intelligent, resourceful,
flightless hunters.
Their ancestors have lived here
for 50 million years.
[shrieks]
[chirps]
His brother.
- [brother squawks]
- [shrieks]
They hunt together,
but when food is scarce,
it's every terror bird for himself.
But maybe the sabertooth can help.
Why do the hard work
when someone else can do it for you?
All he has to do is follow.
[stone crumbles]
Not too close.
[growls softly]
- [stone crumbles]
- [brother squawks softly]
His brother has the same idea.
Smilodon have huge, muscular forelimbs
and paws bigger than any living cat.
Perfect for bringing down prey this size.
- [animal groans]
- [growls]
[animal grunting]
[shrieks]
[growls]
[squawks]
[growls]
[squawking]
[growls]
[squawks]
- [shrieks]
- [roars]
If he's smart…
he'll let his brother take the heat.
[growls]
[squawks]
[Smilodon roars]
Chaos!
But it's working…
for both of them.
The king has been outsmarted
by a couple of birds.
But as the turmoil
of the Ice Age continues,
animals everywhere will have to fight
to keep their place
in this strange new world.
As the far north freezes,
in the south,
drought rules and deserts expand.
The extreme conditions forge
some of the strangest creatures
the world has ever seen.
To survive,
they must battle the driest climate
for millions of years.
When people began studying
Ice Age animals,
they noticed something strange
about the way their fossils
were scattered across the world.
[Naish] One of
the real surprising discoveries was
that animal fossils associated
with certain continents
were found in other places.
Clearly, the animals had moved
from one continent to another.
[Hiddleston] It seemed as if animals
were crossing vast oceans.
How did they get there?
- [shrieks]
- [roars]
It's hard to imagine
that animals could cross oceans
to settle in new continents,
but something surprising was happening
during the Ice Age
which could explain it.
During colder periods of the Ice Age,
water becomes ice and gets bound up
in ice sheets at the poles.
[Gilbert] Slowly but surely
as those ice caps build up,
it means there's less water in the ocean
and that means
that the sea level starts dropping.
[Jackson] And as you lower sea level,
the seabed is exposed.
Seabed becomes land.
And that means that
previously disconnected land masses
suddenly are joined together.
[Hiddleston] Across the planet,
continents were joining together
in different ways.
North America and Asia today
are physically separate continents,
but back in the Ice Age, sea level was
a hundred plus meters lower,
and those two land masses actually
became connected via a land bridge.
[Gilbert] As these land bridges emerged
out of the sea,
it was like opening a door.
[trumpeting]
All these animals could suddenly
move from one continent
into an entirely new continent.
[Hiddleston] But there was a complication.
The land bridges were not permanent.
[Gilbert] As the ice kind of
started to melt away,
they'd disappear under the waves again.
[Jackson] And animals, therefore,
had almost a brief window
in Earth history,
in which to move
between those land masses…
before finding themselves
isolated once again.
[Hiddleston] Elsewhere, a different kind
of land bridge was forming
in a much more explosive way.
[rumbling, crashing]
The planet is very dynamic.
It feels stable today, but actually,
all the continental plates are moving.
When the continents move,
we generate lots of volcanoes.
And this is really important to
the North and South American continents,
which were physically separate
millions of years ago.
[Hiddleston] Moving tectonic plates
caused volcanoes to erupt,
bridging the gap with a new strip of land,
which is now Central America.
It effectively formed
an animal superhighway.
[Hiddleston] Different kinds of land
bridge enabled animals to move continent,
and the impact was extraordinary.
Animals living in the Northern Hemisphere
were able then to move southwards,
finding resources they desperately needed,
but coming into conflict
with all of the animals in South America.
[Hiddleston] New kinds of predator arrived
and found new prey to hunt.
Creatures like Macrauchenia
became easy victims.
[shrieks]
As you had these animal groups
moving into entirely new areas,
then you would've had
entirely new kinds of interactions.
[ Smilodon growls]
[Hiddleston] Hunters had
such an abundance of food…
- [shrieks]
- [roars]
they gradually grew
into the largest of their kind.
While some animals came down
from North America,
others were heading up from the south.
Traffic flowed in both directions
in a movement known as
the Great American Interchange.
Today, some of our most iconic
animals are descendants
of species
that made journeys to new lands.
Pumas, jaguars,
and other mammals
like porcupines and armadillos
all result from this great migration.
Animals settled across the planet
in new ways
all thanks to the Ice Age.
[trumpets]